This short story ran in part in the April 20, 2023 literary edition. 

Jumped I from my seat
Forgot I was to meet
Kevin, that dearly tardy soul
As thunder boomed,
Not through a room,
But a cove carved from whole
Springs, bathing, bubbling, breathing
Beneath the troubling
Soil where lightning struck.
Retreat is my first recourse,
To satisfy the old remorse
In arrival with the certain luck
Of rain that muffles
Talking through some muddy shuffles
And gravelly conversation
Of lives sunk into half decade time,
Reading meaning over rhyme,
But Kevin’s car thunders close.