We spoke of agent scams — literary not federal — that we each worked hard
at eradicating — I, at nonprofit scale, he, as retired law enforcement —
conversing, too, about his entry into ruptured grace when writing a book
on the first Amish murder, but this drive I had to retrieve motive from something
irrevocable, to believe I could know who did it and be done, splintered
when the ex-agent sympathetically assessed me a victim of a crime,
phrasing words that bled out in the small space of a car — a casualty, a grave
offense — and took my breath away.
Amy Holman is a poet, writer, literary consultant, and artist living in Brooklyn, NY. She is the author of two poetry collections, most recently Captive (Saddle Road Press 2023), and four poetry chapbooks, including the Dream Horse Press prize-winning Wait for Me, I’m Gone. Two poems from Captive were recently included in the digital anthology Poets For Science; Amy was interviewed about the book at Pine Hills Review. She has also co-edited, authored, and contributed to writing business books and anthologies, had a column in Poets & Writers late in the last century, and now writes the Substack newsletter What Where: Literary Journals to help writers understand where their writing fits. New nonfiction, fiction, and poetry is out in Airplane Reading, -ette review, and Gargoyle Online #11, respectively.
Image: “Owl Masque” by Bill Cawley
Pine Hills Review 