What I Kept, An Ode to Empathy by Chris Biscuiti

 

Gabby K - Monstera Production

An Ode to Empathy

I didn’t choose a word

by looking ahead.

I found it

by noticing

what stayed

when everything else

fell away.

It showed up

in hospital lights

and quiet kitchens,

in long afternoons

that asked too much,

in nights where writing

was the only place

my breath could land.

It wasn’t loud.

It didn’t trend.

It didn’t promise growth

or ease.

It asked me

to stay.

To listen

when I wanted answers.

To soften

when the world hardened.

To keep showing up

for a child who taught me

that presence

is its own language.

I wrote through the swings—

the days that lifted,

the days that bent me,

the days that did both

before noon.

I wrote to make room for her—

sweet, earned, earnest, Empathy—

for my family,

for myself,

for anyone reading

who needed proof

that care can coexist

with exhaustion,

that love doesn’t disappear

just because it’s heavy.

If there’s anything

worth marking,

it’s this:

I didn’t numb.

I didn’t rush past.

I didn’t turn away.

I stayed curious.

I stayed kind.

I stayed human

on the page.

And her quiet presence—

quixotic as it is—

is what carried me

through the year.

© Chris Biscuiti

Enjoy more posts by Chris Biscuiti HERE.

Chris Biscuiti

Chris Biscuiti is a poet, caregiver, and Dad to his son Bray Bray. Chris' poem The Believer won the 2025 BREW Poetry Project Community Poem of the Year, and his poem The Hours was published in FLARE Magazine, Issue 4. Connect with Chris on Substack — https://chrisbwrites.substack.com 

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Early Spring by Ed Davis

 

Alexander Zair

EARLY SPRING

In pre-dawn April darkness, I see a blanketed figure lying on the grass. Beside it sits an upturned floppy hat. It’s the girl who’s haunted downtown for at least a year, her head bobbing as she mutters to herself, smiling and laughing, in a world of her own. Now here she is sleeping in my park, cold as it is this morning. I shake my head, cringing at having called it my park. 

Recently, the girl’s turned to busking, no doubt noticing how the guitar and violin cases of the talented attract dollars in our tourist town on weekends. Her hat, the one I’m looking at, made of multicolored quilted patches, mostly remains empty. I’m ashamed to say I’ve been too embarrassed to tip her. My gut reaction the first time was pity, then, to my horror, anger: why doesn’t somebody do something? Somebody—not me.

Turned on her side, she has her back to me. Reaching for my wallet, I remove several twenties. Leaving the sidewalk, I enter the dim moonglow of her “bedroom.” 

As I reach the cash toward the hat, her body turns, an arm snakes out from her nest and I’m clutched tightly by the wrist. What remains of moonlight makes her irises gleam with something like recognition. But maybe it’s just me seeing myself: a guy whose pity leaves him feeling guilty.

After what seems minutes but is probably only seconds, she releases my wrist, finds my hand and squeezes my fingers closed on the alms I’d intended to pay. Then, drawing back beneath her covers, she shifts onto her side, facing east, where the sun is rising. I’ve been dismissed, sent back to my world where I can’t see clearly the difference (if there is any) between pity and empathy. 

I lurch back to the sidewalk. Wasn’t this my familiar place only a couple of minutes ago? I inhale deeply. At least I’m back where I think I belong. 

Beyond the park’s boundary, my feet have found the street when I realize my hand still grasps the bills. I consider feeding them to the wind but stop myself and walk on into a streetlight’s waning glow. I get it now: with pity, you’re in your shoes; with empathy, you’re in theirs. 

I stuff the bills back in my wallet. Next time I see her singing on the bench downtown, I’ll stop and listen, give her in the light what I couldn’t in the dark.   

© Ed Davis

Ed Davis

Ed Davis has immersed himself in writing and contemplative practices since retiring from college teaching. Time of the Light, a poetry collection, was released by Main Street Rag Press in 2013. His novel The Psalms of Israel Jones (West Virginia University Press, 2014) won the Hackney Award for an unpublished novel in 2010. Many of his stories, essays, and poems have appeared in anthologies and journals such as Write Launch, The Plenitudes, Slippery Elm, Hawaii Pacific Review, and Bacopa Literary Review. He lives with his wife in the village of Yellow Springs, Ohio.
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Morning in Bruges by Leah Mueller

Leticia Curvell

Four Poems by Peter Mladinic

Helena Lopes

 Duke

 

An old dog lay in a ditch, 

gray muzzle, big eyes, a microchip.

When she contacted the owner,

they didn’t want the dog, 

which leads me to think that person 

had abandoned it. Or maybe 

the dog had wandered off.

It’s odd to chip the dog, 

then not want it back. She 

herself can’t keep it. If I prayed 

I’d pray that dog finds a home

where it won’t be neglected. 

Or this: if I prayed I’d pray the one

who abandoned the dog, in turn,

gets dumped, left in a ditch 

of their own making. 

I don’t know their circumstances, 

it’s easy to judge. Maybe

things happened where they 

couldn’t care for the dog,

or looked for but couldn’t find

a no-kill shelter. Years ago

my mother’s Duke

got lost in a city. The pound 

called and her father said,

“That dog is old. Put it to sleep.”

Put you to sleep, you evil bastard.

On the Death of a Year-Old Cat

at What Was Once a No-Kill Shelter 

 

There’s no cage for your water and food, 

no corner for you to sleep and wake in. 

No kind touch for you, only the table, 

the needle’s poison, the end of today, 

the land of nonbeing, the fire, the ashes.

Precious to Me

 

More than anyone or anything, 

my little dog and I am

whatever I am to you, 

my cocker-poodle 

of blonde wavelets, long 

ears, short legs; more 

mystery in your body 

than in courtyard shadows 

of childhood. I go to your eyes

for the exotic. Darkly 

I walked out a door and 

you, who’d been living near

a dumpster, waddled to me,

shaggy, disheveled, 

in a state of grace.

The Dog Ate My Homework

 

An animal rights advocate I have a list

called my favorite rescues. 

I won’t bore you going down the list of 

names you could easily look up.

Each time I come to it, in my trusty notepad

app, I keep seeing excuses, my favorite 

excuses, my mind subbing the one noun

for the other, so now I’m thinking is there

a similarity?  Excuse and rescue sound

and look a bit similar.  Now I’m thinking 

of Jimmy Semlar. Is he still alive? Who lived

down the street from the first police officer

I ever knew, who wore a uniform with 

buttons on both sides of his chest. I don’t 

see too many like that anymore, except in 

noir films. Come to think of it, there aren’t 

many dogs in noir films, more cats than 

dogs. If Jimmy Semlar is alive, does he live 

with a cat? Would he hear and see the 

sameness in rescue and excuse?  Has he 

read David Ignatow’s “Rescue the Dead”? 

I recall Jimmy’s nose in the book about Dick 

and Jane and Spot, and the brass buttons 

on the chest of my friend Billy’s father. I 

wear excuses, like the herringbone vest I 

buttoned and unbuttoned the Sunday 

Ignatow read at the Walker and fate made 

me his audience, one of the crowd, hearing 

“You who are free…”

© Peter Mladinic

Read more posts by Peter Mladinic HERE.

Peter Mladinic

Peter Mladinic's most recent book of poems, Maiden Rock, is available from Uncollected Press. An animal rights advocate, he lives in Hobbs, New Mexico, United States.

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