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Laurie Kuntz’s books are: That Infinite Roar, Gyroscope Press, Talking Me Off The Roof, Kelsay Books, The Moon Over My Mother’s House, Finishing Line Press, Simple Gestures, Texas Review Press, Women at the Onsen, Blue Light Press, and Somewhere in the Telling, Mellen Press. Simple Gestures, won Texas Review’s Chapbook Contest, and Women at the Onsen won Blue Light Press’s Chapbook Contest. She’s been nominated for three Pushcart Prizes and two Best of the Net Prizes. Her work has been published in Gyroscope Review, Roanoke Review, Third Wednesday, One Art, Sheila Na Gig, and other journals. More at: https://lauriekuntz.myportfolio.com/home-1

Shelter in Place

Laurie Kuntz

The air is rife with sirens
and an entire city
is told to shelter in place
a place called home,
which unravels in all of its definitions.

Harbor, haven, sanctum,
lose meaning as one looks for safety,
which is buried with hope
for any kind of humanity,
which has left the building
along with those garnered wishes
to find ourselves tracing a map,
which avoids those rugged routes
that lead to madness and violence.

We can only sketch the way
toward a mother’s loving cry
directions home to a simple hug—

that kind of shelter.

— Laurie Kuntz

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