‘Church Closed For Storm Repairs’, ‘Polyphemus’, ‘Ghazal on Hauntings Within One Hour's Drive’ & ‘Dear Cole Sear’

Dylan Hoover (he/him) is a fiction writer from Erie, PA. He graduated in 2023 from Allegheny College, where he earned a BA in English and Creative Writing. During the heart of the pandemic, he studied abroad at Lancaster University in England. There, he unearthed interests in British culture, as well as a passion to write historical fiction. Dylan’s fiction has appeared in Wilderness House Literary Review, and his forthcoming photography in Great Lakes Review. He currently is a second-year MFA student at the University of New Hampshire. Instagram: dylhoov96

Church Closed For Storm Repairs

The names of the deacons and their wives
Were claimed by the hurricanes each year.

Rows of saplings in plastic pots on the roadside
Waiting patiently to be freed from their ropes
And rewarded with a hole in the red clay.

Nobody left to protest how the empty pews
Grew in number, starting from the front.

The preacher joked that nobody liked him,
And the laughter sounded like a wet cough.

Anything not tied down will be blown away,
Cut down, collected into piles, and burned.
The saplings never had a chance to take root.

They could not grow in the shelter of your shade,
Not when you refused to wear a damn mask.

Even as you you lay dying on a hospital bed,
The children you raised still refused to visit you.

It is easy to believe that, in the right conditions,
They would not only grow, but they would flourish.
Your seeds sown on hard ground and in weeds.

The children, the sons and daughters, they
Followed the storms, and they did not return.

When the tube in your throat finally fails you,
Who will replace you when you are gone?

Empty holes in the grass. Empty plastic pots.
At the tree farm, the next generation of saplings
Waits patiently to be carried away by the wind.

The names of the deacons and their wives
Remain unclaimed by your children's children.

Polyphemus

You did not notice how the distance
Between sidewalks rivaled the vast seas
Beneath the shadow of the four-way caution light
Until Odysseus put out your eye with a sharpened stake.

Now, you cannot help but feel it,
The truncated yellow domes
Of tactile pavement beneath your feet:

How it has worn thin over many years,
And how often it ends suddenly in curbs like seaside cliffs;
How often you find the sidewalk cracked and broken,
And how often it breaks into fields of tall grass and wildflowers.

Your calves itch. Your ankles swell. Your toes hurt.

You cannot help but notice it, now—
How this town is built for you, no longer.

There is no ramp leading to the post office doors,
And the doors do not open wide enough for your wheelchair.
They will not deliver to your home unless you meet them at the door,
But they hang a note from the handle before you can reach them.

You miss your cavern, your goats, your ewes, your sheep,
Your land where you lived off wild wheat, barley, and grapes,

But you cannot own these things and still qualify for disability.

Your sheep wonder where their master has gone,
And why he is not there to protect them
As the wolves draw nearer,
As strange men carry them to their boat.

Only you knew them by name.

Ghazal on Hauntings Within One Hour's Drive

Still alive and breathing, this town's ghosts,
Who to haunt by skin and blood, these ghosts.

The old theater's seats, folded after close—
In the front row and balcony, well-behaved ghosts.

On park benches and statues, the bronze plaques boasts
Of the founders and fosters, the right sort of ghosts.

On park benches and statues, the town sign boasts
Of a famous football player, the right sort of ghosts.

Skeletons found beneath an old wooden post,
When we replaced the porch, unnamed ghosts.

The words on their lips, like a curse, almost,
Still alive and kicking, the ones who made ghosts.

Their house burned down, both residents, toast,
Nothing to be done for those queer ghosts.

Unnamed the lovers so happily engrossed,
All the paramores of misguided ghosts.

Doubly dead, the gravestone boasts
Call a woman a witch, the heathen's ghost.

Even for themselves, they refused to be dosed.
Still alive and coughing, the soon to be ghosts.

The surgeons in the choir hall, unholy host,
Only whites allowed to be haunted by ghosts.

For all the people who the ghosts hate the most:
No place in this town for those unwanted ghosts.

A Crowe on a tombstone makes a nest for a ghost.
We can't afford to leave. No escape for us ghosts.

Dear Cole Sear

A ghost is a kind of demon
That cannot be exorcised
Because it lives inside of you.

I sat with a stranger on a bench,
And they told me it reminded them
Of that scene in that movie
With that boy and that man.

He laughed: Do you see dead people?

I have seen people who are dead inside.

People your age, why so obsessed with death?
Don't you know how good you have it?

No, it is an obsession with tenses. Participles.
We spent our childhoods learning the water cycle.
We spent our adulthoods watching it in action.
How states of matter could change so quickly.

Lake Mead's elevation has dropped by 140 feet.

Florida's coast has risen by eight inches.

I watched six people die with tubes in their lungs.

There is an entire generation
Trying to convince me
These things are not related.

You're too pessimistic,
He tells me, and then he
Vanishes.

CS Crow is a storyteller from the Southeastern United States with a love of nature and a passion for writing. He believes stories and poems are about getting there, not being there, and he enjoys those tales that take their time getting to the point.