A hearse. A man looking at himself in a mirror.
My phone predicts a meteor. A man looks into a meteor
By a fallen tree where a child umbrellas a puddle,
Galoshes gushing sinking a world in water by the swings
In a playground, a train rocks rain reflecting fence tops,
Wind, ducks quacking at bare branch patterns, another
Passing train, shadows rattle leaves by a perfect round pond,
Mud, I walk on, my nephew is dying.
Dogs on leads, yellow galoshes, dachshunds in red ruched coats,
A woman picks up poop beside the children being instructed,
A dog is told to sit, sits, is given a treat: Come here, come here.
Good boy. The magnolia is next to the gum tree next to the
Laurel next to the litter, sky-skinned puddles
Shivering under rain, cold hands and arrows of green parquets,
Fifty gulls glean the wet grass by the Danger 400 Volts sign.
By a nursery, tennis courts, built over old bomb sites,
New plants are in on the racks under the railway arch:
Viola, narcissus, tulip, primrose, violet pansy, bronze
Wallflowers, heuchera, jack snipe, thalia, fizzle-sizzle mixes,
Sunny-side-up and raspberry-red pansies, rosemary, thyme,
All shaken to the sound of the ambulance, pulling over to load up,
Lighthouse light alarming rotation flashes abandoned wooden fencing
And two black-and-white magpies and one hundred seagulls,
The time: 12:30. Could life hurt any less? Please.
Evalyn Lee is a former CBS News producer currently living in London with her husband and two children. Over the years, Lee has produced television segments for 60 Minutes in New York and the BBC in London.
It has been Evalyn Lee’s honor to write for Dan Rather, Mike Wallace, and Lesley Stahl while covering a wide range of stories, including both Gulf Wars and numerous investigative pieces. She has studied English literature both in the U.S. and in England and had the opportunity to interview writers, including Joseph Brodsky, Seamus Heaney, Dick Francis, and Margaret Atwood, about their work.
At graduate school at Oxford University, Lee studied with Joyce scholar Richard Ellman and literary critic John Bayley. Most recently she has worked with American novelist Joyce Maynard and the English novelist Louise Doughty. Lee’s broadcast work has received an Emmy and numerous Writers Guild Awards. She won the Willow Review prize for short fiction for 2016. Lee is currently at work on her first novel.
Evalyn Lee’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in: Letting Go: An Anthology of Attempts, ed. Martha Hughes; Hawai’i Pacific Review; War, Literature, and the Arts Journal; Broad River Review 2016; Amarillo Bay; Delmarva Review; Diverse Arts Project; The Broken Plate; Carbon Culture Review; The Louisville Review; The Main Street Rag; Red Savina Review; Saint Ann’s Review; Schuylkill Valley Journal of the Arts; Stickman Review; Typishly; Wax Paper; and Willow Review.