Poems
by K.A. McGowan
Castling
Life is loss, she said,
taking my castle with her queen
and looking up from the chessboard.
​
She may have been thinking grandparents,
virginity, parents, the silent sonogram,
childhood friends and teaberry gum
from single-room candy stores now silent,
a fading belief in government or God.
​
She rarely revealed her moves.
​
The best I could hope for was a tie,
putting my king in a position
where he wasn’t in immediate danger
but any move by me meant the end.
God Again
Gray statue of the Virgin Mary
cradled in the roots of a cypress tree.
Who’s to say God forgot Gueydan.
​
Maybe Gong Gong did see a speck of heaven
in a junked ’65 Ford Mustang.
​
Barn with the picture of an AK-47
and Jesus is Lord we buy guns.
​
Boy wrenched from our communion class by nun
for asking who does God pray to.
​
Couldn’t tell by the road sign
if the church was for sale
or the cemetery or the land
or all three.
​
The old lady who drove south on the coast
between Oregon and California
gave hitchhikers a ride for one dollar.
The waning light flickered thru the redwoods
onto her autographed picture of Jesus.
​
If the Bible is right,
will I see you again?
​​​​​​BIO
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K. A. McGowan lives 49 feet above sea level near Lafayette, LA. His first full-length poetry collection, Pangaea, was published in 2022 by Kelsay Books.