JOHN GALLAHER—"THE IDEA OF COMMUNITY " (Issue 27)

Sugar House Review · John Gallaher's, "The Idea of Community"

THE IDEA OF COMMUNITY 

In the cartoon version, the protagonist is left in charge of a baby 

who is in some fashion courting disaster. It’s accident prone. It’s a maniac. 

And the little creature’s delivered, last second, back safe 

like nothing’s happened. Perhaps the protagonist, by this time, 

is heavily bandaged or smoldering, Tom & Jerry version, Daffy Duck 

version. In the Chick Avenue version, 

I put the dogs out to run, and hear a parent bird going crazy 

before I see what’s going on. A little bird, not yet able to fly, 

is in Daisy’s mouth. I do the “make angry face 

and shout DROP IT” routine, and Daisy drops it, flopping 

and spinning in the grass. I shoo the dogs into the house, 

and go to see to the bird. I hate days like this. 

I’m trying to be positive about life cycles. My father’s in his 90s, 

declining. It’s God’s machinery, but what exactly 

am I supposed to do with some flopping, mostly dead thing? 

It turns out though, that the bird isn’t dead. A bit of a limp, but otherwise, 

looking steady-ish. Except it can’t stay in the yard. This 

is the dog yard. The parent bird is still going nuts above us. 

It’s a standoff. And I’m not convinced that evolution has done a good job 

with birds. My father called the other night. Actually, I called him, 

but halfway through the conversation, he said 

                                                                        the reason he called me 

was to find out how things are going, and I didn’t correct him. 

That’s how things are going. The nest is twenty feet up. That’s also 

how things are going. So the best I can do is usher the bird 

to the other side of our fence. I’m helping things along. Here you go, 

little bird, on your way. And the thing about cartoons 

is that even in cartoons 

                                    death intrudes, with bigger and bigger fish, 

in sequence, emergent phenomena swallowing each other. 

Baby birds don’t know these things. Parent birds aren’t equipped, so 

before I’m even into the house, the little bird is into the road. 

Busy road. And then it’s a car, just like that. 35mph. And 

the parent bird is no longer carrying on and the day grows quiet.

ABOUT THE POET 

John Gallaher's forthcoming collection is My Life in Brutalist Architecture 

(Four Way Books 2024). He lives in northwest Missouri and co-edits Laurel 

Review.

ABOUT SUGAR HOUSE REVIEW 

We loved reading the work that we’ve published (clearly), and we want an 

opportunity to better hear our contributors. We're featuring audio recordings of 

poems from our pages, read by the poet. This an open invitation to all contributors 

from any of our issues, we were delighted to print your work, now we’re eager to 

hear it.

TODD ROBINSON—"10PM, AND SHE SAYS THE MOON IS BEAUTIFUL" (Issue 27)

Sugar House Review · Todd Robinson's, "10 PM, and She Says the Moon is Beautiful"

10PM, AND SHE SAYS THE MOON IS BEAUTIFUL

And it is, though skylight glass blurs the ball rolling in its practiced groove 

and she hasn’t left the house in a month, vomits mercury-poisoned fish, 

sleeps alone in the lumpy king bed you shared. You have learned so much 

about neurology, psychology, immune response, but still manage to pretend 

you live with a healthy person instead of a silhouette. Who’s Frankenstein 

and who’s the monster, your analyst asked in a flourish of rhetoric. Hours ago 

you ate a loaf of bread the size of a faun like that actor ate an entire pie 

in A Ghost Story and later you might dance to Joy Division, thinking of Ian 

swaying from his rope, but the 12-step friend said you are thriving in spite of 

tinnitus yowling in your ruined ears and twenty drugs she takes to function 

and the ghetto bird just now flaying Spring’s first night and even the hyper 

acute imagery on the new smart TV is just more dukkha. Better slur the 

serenity prayer, 

get grateful for yellow 

grass and cracked birdbath.

ABOUT THE POET 

Todd Robinson’s work has lately appeared (or soon will appear) in Notre Dame 

Review, The Pinch, North American Review, and South Dakota Review. He is an 

assistant professor in the Writer's Workshop at the University of Nebraska-Omaha 

and caregiver to his partner, a disabled physician.

ABOUT SUGAR HOUSE REVIEW 

We loved reading the work that we’ve published (clearly), and we want an 

opportunity to better hear our contributors. We're featuring audio recordings of 

poems from our pages, read by the poet. This an open invitation to all contributors 

from any of our issues, we were delighted to print your work, now we’re eager to 

hear it.

DOMINIQUE AHKONG—"GHAZAL FOR FAMILIAR WOMEN" (Issue 27)

Sugar House Review · Dominique Ahkong's, "Ghazal For Familiar Women"

GHAZAL FOR FAMILIAR WOMEN

In the way we can spot kinfolk from the back 

by their gait, these women unknown to me, backs 

facing me, feel related. More than the long sleeves 

and bucket hats, it’s the eroded downstroke of their backs 

that’s vernacular, it’s what they do not do, even while 

their eyes are watching God disrobe and back 

away. They hold out their veins, unblinking, while black 

bags are hung from their necks like ropes. Back-

aches persist but do not fracture their language in this way. 

Comfort is a drained infusion pump, three days a foe. Back 

at home, as night falls, a husband holds his wife’s hand. 

His daughters will rub their mother’s unrobed back 

and cover it after her body’s churning. Her 

requested balm: atonal invocations back to back. 

Will you embody your name, Dominique? See your mother 

plunge into the cold ocean, then turn to float on her back.

ABOUT THE POET 

Dominique Ahkong is an Arizona-based writer of Chinese-Mauritian descent. 

Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming from RHINO, Fugue, The Ocean 

State Review, and The Southern Review. She co-edits the newly-revived Shō 

Poetry Journal. More: dominiqueahkong.com

ABOUT SUGAR HOUSE REVIEW 

We loved reading the work that we’ve published (clearly), and we want an 

opportunity to better hear our contributors. We're featuring audio recordings of 

poems from our pages, read by the poet. This an open invitation to all contributors 

from any of our issues, we were delighted to print your work, now we’re eager to 

hear it.