By Paul Hostovsky

It was just a tiny thing,

a handful of unrhymed couplets

about the warm tears 

of old men, 

tears that bless everything, 

help nothing, no one–

each line like an empty clothesline 

with a few orphan clothespins,

no clothes, no colors flapping 

in the breeze. Just the sagging 

line with its suggestion of a house 

on one side, a tree on the other,

or two trees and no house–

then the clothespins flying away.

Paul Hostovsky makes his living in Boston as a sign language interpreter. His poems and essays appear widely online and in print.