Gerald R. Wheeler holds a B.A. from Long Beach State College, M.S.W. from The Ohio State University and Ph.D. from the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago. He is the author of Counter Deterrence (Nelson-Hall) and over 75 scholarly articles and essays. He retired from a 32 year criminal justice career that included street social work in the summer after the Watts riot, juvenile and adult correctional reform. He co-founded the Long Beach Free Clinic in the 60’s, wrote social commentary for the Los Angeles Free Press and was an active protestor against the Vietnam War and advocate for the poor. He held positions as Director of Research at the University of Maryland’s Institute of Criminal Justice and Criminology, taught social policy at The Ohio State University and the University of Houston. He served in the Medical Service Corps as a staff officer in the Ohio National Guard and the U.S. Army Reserve. He Directed Pretrial Services and held administrative positions in research and field services at the Harris County Adult Probation Department. Wheeler’s fiction, poetry and creative photography have appeared in NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW, LOUISIANA LITERATURE, THE HEARTLANDS TODAY, MAIN STREET RAG, AETHLON, ONTHEBUS, VINCENT BROTHERS REVIEW, KALEIDOSCOPE, RE:AL, descant, SUNDOG, RIVERSEDGE, WHOLE TERRAIN, BIG MUDDY, CONNECTICUT RIVER REVIEW, CONCHO RIVER REVIEW and elsewhere. His is the author of TRACERS (Black Bear Publications) and TRACKS (Timberline Press). His work has been nominated for the Pushcart prize and the Spur Award for poetry from the Western Writers of America.The author resides in Katy, Texas with his wife, a retired systems engineer and teacher. They have two daughters, one an elementary school teacher and the other a resident in Emergency Medicine at the University of Arizona Hospital at Tucson.

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CONFLUENCE

Two leaves survived until autumn,
touched stems as they descended,
marveled at the lizard clinging to the canyon wall
and a stick nest lined with bark and twigs
hanging precariously over paintings of buffalo,
eagles and deer.

The sun burned their veins,
and the wind caressed them,
muffled their words
and whirled them into a stream
that doused the flame.
They were blinded in troughs,
given a rare glimpse
of each other at a swell,
wounded by rocks, snagged by stumps,
and sucked into the deep,

surfaced separately by a storm into the shadow
and the light of tributaries,
adrift with the hope
that they would meet at a confluence
before drowning.

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THE SURGEON’S DEN

An unwanted intruder, I was his wife’s
sister’s orphaned child, raised with two cousins.
The surgeon was like a phantom mute,
disappeared at dawn, materialized at dinner,
ate silently, then retreated to the den.
My aunt said he had important patients
like the Governor and U.S. Senator.
But I never met em.
When the house was empty, I’d sneak
into his sanctuary, sink into giant
blood-red leather chair, smell
the aroma of pipe tobacco, cigar smoke,
the cushion’s pungent breath, touch
slick freshly polished cherry bookshelves
lined with Lincoln, Churchill,
hand-bound history, mysteries,
gross photos of disease, human misery,
bones, muscles & tissue, schooners,
battleships, tanks, dinosaurs, eagles
& naked women—
I’d explore in my lap,
biting a curved-stem pipe
like Sherlock Holmes.
Sometimes, I’d flip thru Life, Collier or Post,
pilfer an Antonio& Cleopatra or Dutch Masters,
reshuffle contraband in humidor
to cover my crime, under the watchful eye
of Madonna & Child from the other side
of the room, next to Bishop Sheen.
Then I went to my bunker in a vacant lot,
lit up & inhaled a new world.

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THE HUNTER’S WIFE

At 5 a.m., she crouches behind a long table at the
lodge, and checks off the names of armed,
camouflaged men.

Her blood-stained fingers tremble
from cleaning snow geese and teals,

and working whole pecans from the throats of
wood ducks shot yesterday (before the pecans
reached their gizzards)

she’ll hang as trophies on a photo board for a
truck company CEO and pack into the
taxidermist’s freezer.

Her mind is fuzzy from the scientific briefings on
weather, wind velocity and habits of their quarry.

Her legs ache from days scouting in waders in the
sun, lugging ammo, water and a Browning over
and under.

She gazes at the caravan of 4x4’s,
tastes the cordite and oil,

inserts earplugs to muffle the sound of the
reports, the cries of wounded birds,

and stories the hunters will tell
after their return from the killing fields.