After | Michael Favala Goldman

The living room

                                                            half-empty –

            space where Daddy’s

                                    green leather chair

                                                                        with the ottoman

used to be, vacant,

                        and the huge                cabinet speakers

                                    gone,   just a                small tv

                                                                   on a         bare

                                                                  metal        stand

                        amid                rectangular                  dents

                                                in    the    beige    carpet,

            This is            

                                                            what a broken

                                    h          o         

                                                            m         e          looks like.

                        And

                                                a                                  broken

                                                            h e a

                                                                        r t.

---

Michael Favala Goldman (b.1966) is a poet, jazz clarinetist and translator of Danish literature. Among his eighteen translated books is Dependency by Tove Ditlevsen, which made the New York Times Best Books of the Century as book three of The Copenhagen Trilogy. Michael’s eight books of original poetry include Small Sovereign, which won first place at the 2022 Los Angeles Book Festival. His work has appeared in dozens of publications including The New Yorker, Rattle, and The Harvard Review. He lives in Northampton, MA, where he has been running bi-monthly poetry critique groups since 2018.