Umbrella
A Journal of Poetry and Kindred Prose


Paul Hostovsky’s

poems have won a Pushcart Prize, the Muriel Craft Bailey Award from the Comstock Review, and chapbook contests from Grayson Books, Riverstone Press, Frank Cat Press, and Split Oak Press.

He has been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, Best of the Net, and The Writer’s Almanac.

He has two full-length poetry collections, Bending the Notes (2008), and Dear Truth (2009), both from Main Street Rag. Visit his website.


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Suicide Note

I’m thinking of those words
that are acts. To say one
is to do it. I thank you. I
forgive you. There are
others but I can’t think
of the others now—I can only
think of the pain, my pain.
These words are not the act itself.
They are coming before the act.
After the act, others will come
and read these words over and over,
looking for reasons. I
apologize. To you, the living.
I know the act itself says
there is no reason to go on living.
I know it’s kind of a slap in the face.
But it’s nothing personal.
I wasn’t talking about your
life when I took my own.
Your life is still beautiful in so many
words. I love you is another
one of those words, you could say.
Or you could argue that it isn’t.

 

Little League

Boys with fathers with
foreign accents grow up
to be phonology teachers
or dialect geographers
or ambassadors. Or else
they become soldiers or
prison guards or hotel-
motel managers. It could
go either way. Peacemakers
or safecrackers. Artists or
ichthyologists. Polyglots
or monolinguals all their
lives, boys with fathers with
foreign accents standing in
the stands, rooting for the
sons up at bat—full count—
grow up to be professional
baseball players or never
play baseball again—ever.
It could go either way.

 
 
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