Poem by Mel Waldman

If the leaves stop flowing in the fall, and the only color sprawled across the earth is absence,

the light that does not cover the sundry objects of mourning, or perhaps, the anguished
color of gunmetal wafting from the passing tempest,

or the sweeping waves of ebony that arrive after the storm is gone, I shall sit on a
crackling wooden bench on the Coney Island Boardwalk and gaze southward at the
emptiness beyond;

If the leaves stop falling in the fall, I shall look away with fugitive eyes, but can I forget
the haunting days of autumn?

&
alone with the Atlantic Ocean and the silent unending waves and the fallen dreams that
fall incessantly, removing the luminous company of hope,

I shall become the void that my vacant eyes swallow;

&
if I turn around and look northward and inhale the old Manhattan skyline,

I shall not see the falling leaves, only falling objects that once were human,

&
I too shall be the color of absence;
I too shall take in the toxic loss
that
falls
forever

Dr. Mel Waldman is a psychologist, poet, and writer whose stories have appeared in numerous magazines including Hardboiled Detective, Espionage, the Saint, Pulp Metal Magazine and Audience. His poems have been widely published in magazines and books including Skive Magazine, Poetry Pacific, Poetica, The Jewish Press, The Jerusalem Post, Hotmetal Press, Ascent Aspirations, and Namaste Fiji: The International Anthology of Poetry. A past winner of the literary Gradiva Award in Psychoanalysis, he was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in literature and is the author of 11 books. He recently completed an experimental mystery novel inspired by one of Freud’s case studies.

Allison Goldin is an artist living in Cambridge. Her work is a collection of spontaneous drawings from the imagination. The most common link throughout her art are the semi-recognizable creatures scattered amongst and bringing together the surrounding doodles. She is currently studying Illustration at The School of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.