Steven Deutsch

Steve Deutsch is poetry editor of Centered Magazine and was the first poet in residence at the Bellefonte Art Museum. He has been nominated for the Pushcart and Best of the Net Prizes multiple times. He has six volumes of Poetry. One, Brooklyn won the Sinclair Poetry Prize.

“Saudade,” “How the Time Goes,” and “Komorebi”

One last trip
on the New Lots Line
that trundles up
from its tunnel

just as the Brooklyn neighborhoods
turn to Brownsville,
turn to near ruin.
The train takes the 90 degree

“A Turn Around Town,” “What the Body Remembers,” and “Fine Art”

I take the cobbled path through town
that I have walked for years.
The streets are for the wary—
ice strewn here and there
as if they had tired
of the nagging shovels.
The air still
with the silence of February.

“As Charged,” “My dad,” and “One Last Thing”

The jury found you guilty
in just an hour and fourteen minutes.
Long enough for bathroom breaks
and a single show of hands.

Your public defender
advised you to cop a plea,
but mom borrowed a suit and black shoes
and dressed you as an innocent man.

“Peace, Peace will Come” and “Minor Losses”

It is often
easier to write
the landscape
without the pollution

of people.
This hillside
was once
wild with color

“Checking In,” “Second Nature” and “All you need know”

There you are Dad
on our cobbled deck
splayed out in my favorite chair,
our nearly feral cat
content to be on your lap.
You hold up the perfect tomato
so round and red-ripe—
I can almost smell it.
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