Synkroniciti is thrilled to welcome poet Philip Andrew Lisi from Pennsylvania with two deeply vulnerable poems. “Broken Things” was a finalist in our poetry contest. It describes an encounter with a wounded baby opossum in the road at twilight. Creating space and safety for a small creature with a spinal injury becomes a transformative and transcendent experience: “broken things can be redeemed,/ and beauty is a hiss at dusk/ in the middle of the road.” “Convergence” recounts a visit with Philip’s elderly father. Waiting, he spies an otter in the river, its range of motion, health and activity providing a sobering, stark contrast to the old man’s. “I marvel at its slinky deftness,/ its effortless, oily movement among the stones,/ its back flexing to match the riffles,/ lippering astride its hop-dive-curl-stretch–/ lovely syncopation in walnut brown.” Philip’s rhythm is elastic but intentional, drifting in and out of patches of metered syllables like the wind changing direction, picturing a nimble creature slipping amongst water rocks or a hobbled one dragging itself across the street. His alliteration is by turns playful and somber, well-crafted and full of empathy.
Read “Broken Things” and “Convergence” in Synkroniciti’s “Vulnerable” issue, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Philip Andrew Lisi is a teacher, writer, and sometime actor. He lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with his family and their cantankerous Wichien Maat cat, Hazel, who has a knack for commandeering his laptop and yowling her way into his work. His poetry has appeared in Sky Island, Third Wednesday, Last Leaves, October Hill, Change Seven, Sparks of Calliope, and elsewhere.