Rikki Santer

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     Life
for Bernie

His false teeth were abandoned
            on the nursing home nightstand
along with the abasement of another unopened
            bottle of French Vanilla Ensure
so we buried those dentures in his beloved
            backyard ravine because his out-of-town
brother had ordered the body shipped immediately
            to Brooklyn.  His choppers—new curio
stock for the sweet bite of dirt and trees which
            had given him his hobby of twig vases,
mud faces with moss eyebrows, and a portfolio
            of pressed leaf drawings—is that his rabbi
with a chestnut oak beard?  This morning, following
            our private memorial service, his favorite crow
dropped a Michelob bottle cap in the lap of the Adirondack
            chair where he’d been photographed countless times
wearing his treasured black t-shirt.

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Rikki Santer’s poetry collection, Resurrection Letter was grand prize short-listed for the Eric Hoffer Book Award and Shepherd’s Hour, won the Paul Nemser Book Prize from Lily Poetry Review Books. In 2023, she was named Ohio Poet of the Year .Her fifteenth poetry collection, Could Be, was published this spring by Sheila-Na-Gig Press. Please contact her through her website, https://rikkisanter.com.

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