Max Reif Poems

Faint lotus,
your outline
appearing in the sun,
...

This week he's hiding
under a blanket
when I come.
...

I got there strung out
on sleeplessness
and too much coffee.
I told him so,
...

That summer my second wife and I
lived on the state road in rural
North Carolina in the 6-room farmhouse
I got for $100 a month, amid
...

In my 30's I wrote a book of poems
all about infinite possibility.
A friend's dad, a doctor,
read them and said:
...

Snow of innocence, cover this fallen world.
Your blanket blots, in purifying white,
And blurs, our human legacies of blight.
Hail, flurry-flying flag of peace unfurled!
...

Behind the counter, everything seems like a movie
as the gracious, smiling cashier takes my order.
The cooks are busy. I see only their backs.
Scraping and frying sounds rise from the grill,
...

Things were not so old, once.
'Ivy' meant the ivy
on my parents' front porch—
...

I waited for each
protracted day to stretch by
before leaving on my trip,
...

I remember how
my new Mazda 626
flew over the road
as I watched the odometer
...