Philly Chapbook Review is pleased to present two original poems by Patricia Wallace as our third biweekly featured poet of the Spring 2026 issue.
Poems
Fox
As a tongue probes the mouth
for absence he feels inside
a hiddenness, like a heavy box
he carries up too narrow stairs.
In this Laconic country, his feeling
can’t speak, can’t say aloud
the name of his dead brother, can’t
talk about what or who to blame
for the stolen life. He’s pretty sure
everyone’s guilty.
Does woundedness run through families?
To channel his tenderness he drives
his girls to school, lays a gentle arm
over their shoulders, walks the dog,
trims the injured tree, carefully. Busy,
he keeps the ache at bay. Unless
a stray memory flash brings it back
and suddenly I remember
a boy in a story I read long ago,
who stole a fox, concealed it
beneath his shirt. Much later
I learned, in Sparta the crime
wasn’t theft but talking about it.
Boys trained for years in the woods
practicing hardship without
ever making a sound,
and, even then, I thought,
who could blame the boy bearing
all that pain? And who could blame the fox,
hungrily seeking an exit, to climb the stone wall
and disappear? Beautiful
red flame of fox, keeper of secrets,
when I catch sight of you again
you’re curled nose to tail, seeming asleep,
hidden beside the heart whose beat
echoes your footsteps running
on the breathless ground, the sound
we listen for in this country
when grief tries to speak.
Four Years After
The dead are always late.
I read the diner menu while I waited.
Then he came in, a paler, unaged version
of what turned out to be
the last time. I wanted to kiss
his forehead, as when he was a child,
but remembered Virgil, where reaching
to embrace the dead turns up
empty breeze in the hand. I miss you,
I said. He knew I didn’t mean
the terrible times we both had forgiven
when I kept trying to save him, his sweetness
hidden under the anger and drink.
What do the dead miss? I think
he misses the early stars, the ocean,
basketball, his dog. I can’t stay long,
he said, it’s an exception for me
to appear. Quickly I asked, do you remember
when I taught you to swim and you’d climb
the ladder to the high diving board and, fearless,
jump into the water, where I treaded, waiting,
and caught and held you, the two of us paddling
to the shallows? Not really, he shrugged.
What I remember is jumping over and over
into deep waters and you weren’t always there.
Deep time settled between us. Then, tell me
again, he asked, what I don’t remember.
I held you, I said, and paddled to safety.
Sudden as wind he rose to leave.
I’ve read, he said, how heavy
a drowning body becomes as it struggles
against rescue, how it risks taking down
everything with it. He leaned his face
close to mine. A translucence brushed
my cheek and its light lingered there, long after
he had vanished, as I knew he must.
About “Fox”
Years ago, when I studied Latin, I read the story of the Spartan boy who stood silently as the fox he had stolen and hidden under his cloak (rather than admit the theft) gnawed the flesh above his heart. In fact, the word ‘laconic’ comes from the province Laconia, of which Sparta was a part. After a loss in my family, I discovered one grieves for both the living who hide their pain and for the dead who sleep in silence.
Author Bio
A poet and critic, Patricia Wallace divides her time between the Hudson River valley and the high desert of Santa Fe. Her work has appeared in River Heron (twice finalist for the Editor’s Prize), RockPaperPoem, PEN America, Third Wednesday, the North Dakota Review, the Sewanee Review, Bosque, and The Iowa Review. For many years, as editor of the Norton Anthology of American Literature’s section “Poetry 1944—”, she selected poems from, and wrote critical introductions to, the work of poets she loved. Her essays also appear in The Columbia History of American Poetry and Oxford American’s Literature in Transition.
Contents
Chapbook Poem: Slow Burn by Evan Wang
“The concept of personifying a slow burn deeply resonated with who I thought myself to be—a slow burn, love flickering around me.” Read the featured Chapbook Poem of the Month for April 2026, “Slow Burn” by Evan Wang, along with a few words from the poet.
Book Excerpt: She wants shimmering scales by Nicole Alston Zdeb
“The nexus of the erotic, the social, and the body felt relevant to what I was experiencing at the end of the 20th Century. There are glimmers of personal lore as well…” Read the featured Excerpt Poem of the Month for April 2026, “She wants shimmering scales” from The End of Welcome by Nicole Alston Zdeb, along with a few words from the poet.
“I wanted to explore how time was registered not only by the calendar and clock, but also in the various utilitarian tasks of my mother’s life.” Read three poems by Ron Mohring, our first biweekly poet of the Spring 2026 issue, along with a few words about “Fuse.”
Three Poems by Andrew Pelham-Burn
“Children in these circumstances are deprived of love at a formative stage and learn to immediately behave like adults without the benefit of the learning path of childhood.” Read three poems by Andrew Pelham-Burn, our second biweekly poet of the Spring 2026 issue, along with a few words about “Conkers.”
A Conversation with John deSouza
“Language is a powerful tool and can do great harm both to ourselves and to those most close to us when used cruelly or selfishly.” Poet John deSouza discusses his chapbook, This Rough Magic, his creative process, and the influence of John Ashbery in this interview with editor Danielle McMahon.
Chapbook Poem: from Stray Hunter’s Bullet by Lance Le Grys
“…what interested me was the idea of a character who didn’t do what he was capable of, not because of external circumstances, but because of either a lack of will or a seemingly perverse one.” Read the featured Chapbook Poem of the Month for May 2026, from Stray Hunter’s Bullet by Lance Le Grys, along with a few words from the poet.
Book Excerpt: Love does not exist by Maria Giesbrecht
“This poem was inspired by a dream… I had this strange feeling when I woke up that it meant something more and started writing a poem to see if anything would reveal itself to me.” Read the featured Excerpt Poem of the Month for May 2026, “Love does not exist” from A Little Feral by Maria Giesbrecht, along with a few words from the poet.
“After a loss in my family, I discovered one grieves for both the living who hide their pain and for the dead who sleep in silence.” Read two poems by Patricia Wallace, our third biweekly poet of the Spring 2026 issue, along with a few words about “Fox.”