Ace Boggess
—Matthew Lippman, “And the Prayer for Longing in Grief”
My mother texted that my ex-wife’s sister died.
Septicemia, she said, a horrible way to go,
but what isn’t, & what am I supposed to do
with this information? My ex & I don’t speak,
not out of contempt so much as time & distance.
I won’t call her to say what one says to the grieving.
As for the sister, I knew her mostly as competition
for her mom’s pills, of which there were many,
in days before I blew up my static life
with junkie delusions of robberies. I can’t offer
sweet words in elegy. I’ll express them to the page.
I’m an outsider who doesn’t attend funerals
or offer condolences that sound at all sincere.
About the author
Ace Boggess is author of eight books of poetry, most recently Tell Us How to Live (Fernwood Press, 2025) and My Pandemic / Gratitude List (Mōtus Audāx Press, 2025). His writing has appeared in Indiana Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Hanging Loose, and other journals. An ex-con, he lives in Charleston, West Virginia, where he writes, watches Criterion films, and tries to stay out of trouble. His first short-story collection, Always One Mistake, has just been released from Running Wild Press.