Roxanne Hoffman | For Sean

For Sean

I wait for my love to return to me
under the cool shade of the sycamores
bouncing our three-year old upon my knee
I wait for my love to return to me

We tie a yellow ribbon ’round each tree
He plays soldier while I tend to my chores
Veiled in Stars and Stripes you return to me
under the cool shade of the sycamores.


Capt. Sean E. Lyerly, 31, of Pflugerville, Texas, was assigned to the Texas Army National Guard’s 36th Combat Aviation Brigade, 36th Infantry Division. He was piloting the Black Hawk when it went down, on January 24th, 2007, killing a dozen service members. Lyerly entered the Guard as a private in 1996 and was deployed to Iraq in August after being called to active duty. He is survived by his parents, his wife and their 3-year-old son. In a Guard statement, Lyerly’s wife said, “He exceeded even my dreams. He was loving, compassionate and full of integrity — a beautiful man inside and out.”

— Stars and Stripes, January 26, 2007 

Originally published in The Brownstone Poets, 2008.


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Roxanne Hoffman runs the small literary press Poets Wear Prada with Jack Cooper. Her words can be found in cyberspace (IndieFeed: Performance Poetry, Pedestal Magazine, New Verse News); set to music (David Morneau’s Love Songs; on the silver screen (2005 indie flick Love and the Vampire); in print (The Bandana Republic: A Literary Anthology by Gang Members and Their Affiliates, Soft Skull Press; It All Changed in an Instant: More Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure, Harper Perennial). Her elegiac poem “In Loving Memory” was released as a chapbook, with illustrations by Edward Odwitt, in 2011. Their second collaboration, The Little Entomologist, appeared in 2018. 

Roxanne Hoffman | Choosing

Choosing

for Brant

a random stone sits upon the dresser:
green slate culled from walks along the river,
its striated shades as varied as the sea —
fern from forest, olive drab of army,

new buds sprouting sunshine among the trees —
this silent charm once sang me sweetest psalm
now locks down papers from a window’s breeze,
warmed by your touch it served as healing balm

quieting my ache when placed on bruising knee
encircled by slim fingers that once blessed me.
its mood has changed, its master shaman gone,
from vibrant voice to murky and withdrawn

and yet, I cherish its dirgeless wordless mourn
admire its resignation to a blind god’s scorn

Sliver of Stone, Inaugural Edition, 2010

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Roxanne Hoffman runs the small literary press Poets Wear Prada with Jack Cooper. Her words can be found in cyberspace (IndieFeed: Performance Poetry, Pedestal Magazine, New Verse News); set to music (David Morneau’s Love Songs); on the silver screen (2005 indie flick Love and the Vampire); in print (The Bandana Republic: A Literary Anthology by Gang Members and Their Affiliates, Soft Skull Press; It All Changed in an Instant: More Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure, Harper Perennial). Her elegiac poem “In Loving Memory,” illustrated by Edward Odwitt, was released as a chapbook in 2011. Their second collaboration, The Little Entomologist, appeared in 2018.