 
### Sixfold Poetry Summer 2013

by Sixfold

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 Sixfold and The Authors

www.sixfold.org

Sixfold is a completely writer-voted journal. The writers who upload their manuscripts vote to select the prize-winning manuscripts and the short stories and poetry published in each issue. All participating writers' equally weighted votes act as the editor, instead of the usual editorial decision-making organization of one or a few judges, editors, or select editorial board.

Published quarterly in January, April, July, and October, each issue is free to read online and downloadable as PDF and e-book. Paperback book available at production cost including shipping.

License Notes

Copyright 2013 Sixfold and The Authors. This issue may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided both Sixfold and the Author of any excerpt of this issue is acknowledged. Thank you for your support.

Sixfold

Garrett Doherty, Publisher

sixfold@sixfold.org

www.sixfold.org

(203) 491-0242

Sixfold Poetry Summer 2013

Sharron Singleton | Five Poems

Sarah Giragosian | Five Poems

Jenna Kilic | Five Poems

Kristina McDonald | Five Poems

Toni Hanner | Five Poems

Annie Mascorro | Five Poems

Brittney Corrigan | Three Poems

S. E. Hudgens | Four Poems

Ali Doerscher | Four Poems

David Sloan | Three Poems

Olivia Cole | Five Poems

Lucy M. Logsdon | Four Poems

Marc Pietrzykowski | Four Poems

Donna Levine Gershon | Five Poems

Eva Heisler | The Olden Days

Stephanie Rose Adams | Five Poems

Jill Kelly | Five Encounters

Ben Bever | Five Poems

Michael Hugh Lythgoe | Five Poems

Arlene Zide | Three Poems

Harry Bauld | Five Poems

Lisa Zerkle | Four Poems

Peter Mishler | Five Poems

Tim Hawkins | Five Poems

Marqus Bobesich | Four Poems

Abigail Templeton-Greene | Five Poems

Eric Duenez | Five Poems

Anne Graue | Five Poems

Susan Laughter Meyers | Five Poems

Peter Kahn | Two Poems

D. Ellis Phelps | Five Poems

Linda Sonia Miller | The Kingdom

Nicklaus Wenzel | Skagit River

Holly Cian | Five Poems

Susan Morse | Five Poems

Daniel Lassell | Five Poems

Svetlana Lavochkina | Temperate Zones

Daniel Sinderson | Three Poems

Catherine Garland | Five Poems

Michael Fleming | Five Poems

Contributor Notes

Sharron Singleton

### The Dock-Sitters

To sit on a dock which has

walked out on stiff legs

twelve to fifteen feet away

from the weedy shore,

one board after another

reaching outward, drawing

your gaze across the unblinking

eye of the lake whose color

deepens further out, to sit

on this dock which seems

to want to hold you, even

rock you a little, to dangle

your feet, whiter in the green

cool water, to gaze down

into that silent world where

minnows eddy around

your toes, where sand

has agreed to be shaped

by ripples of water,

where reeds and water lilies

witness to you as that

which endures. To look out

on that lake, as birds dip low,

as quiet men in boats peer

into the depths, cast

their lines searching for

what is shadowy, elusive;

to lie back on gray, splintery

sun-warmed boards

in the silence of light—

is to allow that tight band

constricting your breath

to loosen, is to quench

your dire thirst for

the present. To sit

on such a dock is one

of the forgotten beatitudes—

blessed are the dock-sitters,

for they shall soon feel

shriven, their humor restored

and their pant legs

cool and damp.

### Praying Mantis

Arms folded, wedge-shaped head

bowed, body, a long thin leaf—

the praying mantis worships

in the rosemary bush, nods his head,

asserts how righteous his life is

as he crunches a cricket whose legs

still kick going down. He rotates

his head almost full circle, great

bulbous eyes, hundreds of lenses

in each because the world is so

rife with beauty and danger.

What would it be like to see one

hummingbird swoop down as if

it were legion, to see the thrust

of uncountable sharp bills into

your side as if they were hot blades,

to see your death fly at you

from every angle, your entire

vision refracting the jeweled blur

of a thousand lethal wings.

### Pigs can see wind

it is red, say the Irish—

and we know that

aborigines hear stars singing.

Those hogs, dainty

cloven feet in muck,

lift their heads at dawn

to gaze with calm eyes

at red paling to a pink

swirl above corn fields

while the Carolinas

are ravished by

ninety miles an hour

of purple and blood red.

And the stars, of course

they sing—wouldn't you

if your body was fire,

lit by an unknown hand,

seen from afar in a mantle

of trembling light?

### Waiting in Line After Christmas

What if all things could

be exchanged equally—

that is, not money

for things but forgiveness

for a vowel no one has ever

heard before. What if I

gave you the iridescence

of the sun on the back

of a mallard and you gave me

the desire to tap dance again.

Give me your complete

attention and I'll give you

the scent of mimosa for three

winter nights. Perhaps,

in plain brown wrapping,

the postman will bring you

faint chimes from the bells

Scheherazade wore on her ankles

if you would send back six

folded prayers. There might be

an exchange center so the grief

I gave you for the pain

he gave me might be turned in,

to wait like ice waits for fire, like

stone waits for water

like never waits for maybe.

### On Narragansett Bay

We sail at night

through warm moist air,

sails' bellies just full,

the only sound

the shush of water

against hull as we skim

the edge of the strange

black world.

The knot meter says

our progress is slow,

depth sounder pings

with warning

but behind us,

in the phosphorus wake

are tiny sea creatures,

original source

of energy gone, yet

buoyant, still bearing

their frail green light.

Sarah Giragosian

### The Man Born with a Snake Heart

"Atavism is the rare reappearance, in a modern organism, of a trait from a distant evolutionary ancestor. We describe an apparent case of atavism involving a 59-year-old man with chest pain whose coronary circulation and myocardial architecture resembled those of the reptilian heart."

—"A Case of Atavism in a Human Being": Abstract

Before the twinge and pain in his chest,

there were the dreams: scenes of wetlands

flooded with milkweed and cattail,

sulfur rank in the air, and mudflats

where he thrilled in secret at the sight

of a frog, wall-eyed and refulgent

beneath a sheen of bog water.

And he dreamed of his wraparound self,

bound around the bough of a hemlock

before shuddering off a ribbon of skin,

scrapping a thin ghost of himself to be lost

in the rustle of leaves. He drowses

under a copse or tests the wiry

alacrity of his body, fluent as a fist.

Later, with his chest tricked out with electrodes

and jelly-slick with a robin blue luster,

he watches the shivery green pulsation

of his heart on the monitor, while the echo

gives voice to its liquid beating,

and belly-up, he hears with his whole being

the oblique, blubbery throb of god's ruse.

### The Lioness

After the attackers leave, the lioness

finds her cub, splayed and half-gone.

She laps at his face, his breast, his haunches

with the shivery pink tip of her tongue,

mouths the crown in the O of her jaws.

She works her tongue through the lush jungle

of his veins, plucks at the muscle,

thin as violin strings,

swills the blood, grinds the fat,

sucks from the wreck

of his bones until they glint like stars,

until she eases him back into her.

Above, the vultures wait then flag, thwarted.

In the economies of death,

let there be no waste,

and if there is a witness overhead,

let my body's strange devotions deter him.

### Missed Connections

I.

At every estuary I ask for you.

We had a laugh wading near the mangroves,

waiting for the sun to come up.

You were a pink lamp in the dawn,

a rococo pink, with a body contoured like a heron

and feathers bunched up

like flounce on a flamenco dress.

In our stretch of swamp, silhouetted tortoises

slid past us, a speck of regret in their eyes,

and you found a little knot of fish

to spoon up with your spatula bill,

trilling a riff of bullfrog-grunts

and surfacing with your mouth

fringed with fronds.

In spring, I will be skimming

across the lower latitudes,

looking out for you. Let's not worry

about probability or the weather.

If you read this, what is the weather to us?

II.

With the eggshell tiling of your belly draped in mud

and your immaculate scales glinting like ceramic in the sun,

you lolled (strategically?) near me, your tail,

articulate and comely, sweeping half moons

along the swamp bank. You smelled of dropworth

and mouldering larvae, and I blew networks of clinging,

bottle green bubbles across your cheeks.

You showed off your snout and curled your forelimbs

around mine; for a full minute, you and I were entwined.

III.

I saw you blinking your wings

against the marine green finish

of a gas pressure lantern.

Pheromones and kerosene spiked

the air, and I flitted above your thorax,

stuttering against your sparked

fury (you had browned your wings

from the light, usually a yucca white).

We found dusty moth wings

pressed like flower petals

along the lantern rim, and we bolted,

returning to the moon as our frame of reference,

and beating wings as thin as confetti

against the night. Although for you,

I would balance astride the flame's eye

and meet a night swelling with lanterns.

### The Anglerfish Finds her Muse

Tonight I wake as an anglerfish,

ringing my world with light,

prowling the window sill, gutted of flies,

the bedroom's shadowed amalgams and rifts,

its submarine and faceless blooms of mouths

and stomachs, waving tentacles and threads

that go trawling above the lure-light

that sprouts from my head,

the fatal charm that obscures me.

In a room of nose-diving lamps,

little twitching schools of fish, and you,

my broadside eyes obvert and roll inwards,

indrawn to a sleeping language,

while a squid uses its vast arms

to rope and cloak its face.

It sways, encrypted and plain

before the masked diver.

From a body, I turn to a nocturnal verb

brushing up between you and me

in a love letter written in the space between,

finally legible in our dreaming.

### The Seals off the Coast of Manomet

We came upon the colloquy of seals,

effusive in their idiom of barks and coughs.

Some speak with an inquisitive inflection

as if to ask _, How does this relate_

to what we were talking about?

And how do we respond in turn

to these creatures draped and lolling

along the razor-edged rocks,

their skin lustrous in the damp air,

while others stipple the distance

with their bobbing heads?

They shimmy off the ledges

when they see us or are phlegmatic

and sloe-eyed, like a Degas nude

in her chaise lounge. One bull heaves

a belly as big as a kettle drum

up onto a slab, his neck receding

into the wrinkles of his scarved fat

as he bellows to us, probing our reasoning:

How could these marvels be refuted?

Jenna Kilic

### Ianfu

The wide eyes of the plywood walls

darted about the room.

The floor was dirt or looked

like dirt. Sprouting up, a single

piece of grass—or a grasshopper.

Then there was a bowl, blue

like the Pacific she watched

while living on Jeju

Island. In it, grains of rice

and the smear marks of a hand:

_. . . looked like waves hitting shore_.

Who put them there? A girl who made it

another day or did not? Did it matter?

She heard his zipper but watched

the bowl, felt his cold

calloused hands part her

legs as if opening a briefcase.

And then he was in.

And she did not cry.

And she did not wince.

And he would not come in her.

And he would not come on her

but filled the bowl

and left with his rifle.

### Aisha, the Child-Bride of Muhammad, Speaks

My mother pulls at my wrist, pulls me

to the entrance of the house, wipes

my face and hair with water, her hands catch

in my tangles, then nudges me through

the door to a chorus of _Assalam alaikum_ ,

where the preparation continues—my mother

wrapping me in a white silk _jilbab_ , in gold

jewelry. A wrinkle in a forehead

to my right, a crooked smile to my left

tell me I was chosen by Allah; I will be Mother

of the Believers. A woman of Ansar says,

You have entered with blessing and good fortune.

In the morning, I am a gift

they give to him. His cheeks are bright, rough

like sand dunes. Kneeling to peer into my eyes,

he says I am his favorite, that I will be a leader

of Muslim women. The eyes that stare

at me are brown, then gray, then black.

He lets me bring my dolls, and I am happy.

Nightfall and we are in Medina. There are no stars

to light the doll stories I make

with friends, but it is no matter; when he enters,

they scurry like mice in a barren landscape.

I try to place the doll on the ground,

but he wraps his hand around

my wrist—his fingers thick like dates—

and tells me to keep it. Scooping me into his arms,

I feel the scratching of his gray beard against my cheek,

and it is like I am hugging my father. He lays me

on our bed and takes the doll from my hand

to entertain me with a puppet show, teasing the lips

of the doll about my cheek, making us idol

worshippers in private. His hands move

like snakes, undressing us as I hold the doll

to my chest. He hardly fits inside me but _enters_

_with blessing and good fortune_.

### A Cannibal in Onsong Prison Speaks

—after Hyok Kang with Philippe Grangereau

A dog came back to town, bone in mouth,

and lay in the road, lavishly licking it,

skeletal frame heaving exhaustive yelps.

The people who watched him grew envious.

When my neighbor approached the bone, the dog

growled and then like us, whimpered and shook

as if to say, _I know you; and you, me._

My neighbor halted, though from my sightline

he didn't seem to react to the dog.

And then a twitch of forehead, sweat dripping

from temple. He saw it charred—her small bone.

My wife left for China to look for food;

my daughter and I too weak to follow,

and all the while, the waiting. Days then weeks.

Her nagging grew incessant, torturing

our torturer: Hunger. She grabbed my arm,

her hands no longer eight years old—her touch

no longer human texture. My fist hit

her face, and she smacked onto the concrete floor.

White foam and blood poured from her mouth, a river

into an ocean where the father drowned

in logical currents that swept away

compassion. She would suffer if she lived.

The animal I turned into picked up

an axe, shattered her skull, and found solace

in her limp-warm body. Hands of the father

who'd once dressed her when she was cold now peeled

the fleshy sleeves of her arms, fighting time,

the cold of rigor mortis. Several days

he ate, then burned the body in his stove.

In observance of our customs, he scattered

her on a mountainside, all ash and bone.

### Execution at Yodok

—after Kang Chol-hwan and Pierre Rigoulot

The guards instructed us to pick up stones.

They brought him to the gallows at _Ipsok_

and silenced him, filling his mouth with rocks.

Before he even stopped writhing, we learned

the purpose of these stones, as guards instructed

us none-rebellious prisoners to pelt

his face and chest while yelling, _Down with dead-_

_dog traitors._ I aimed for no harmful place

but struck his shriveled penis, tore his foreskin.

The guards laughed. One tapped me on my wet face.

The rain came back. Wet from crying, I mean.

The bloody water washed around our feet,

making the others shiver while I beamed,

a child who found the ease in evil.

### Fertile Soil

—after Kang Chol-hwan and Pierre Rigoulot

We came down from the mountainside

and smelled the stench before we saw

the bodies tossing in the air,

still clothed. The bulldozer made way—

our friends and family shoved along.

We could no longer bury them

on Yodok's hill. The guards told us

to grab the big pieces (the arms,

the legs, heads that lost their torsos—

torsos), to throw them in the ditch,

a pit not on a mountain slope

or hill, the customary places

for the Korean dead to rest.

My friend discovered his mother

in pieces and threw up in shock.

When he carried her to the ditch,

he made the choice—the only choice

he's ever made—not to come back.

I'm sure he's lying there with her.

A few days later, the hill's plain

lay ready for a crop of corn.

Those forced to plant it found toes, noses.

The corn grew well for several years.

Kristina McDonald

### After you leave for work, I contemplate the shovel

Clearly visible through the kitchen

window, a shovel leans

against the fence. The yard

of our city apartment is nearly

nine square feet and everything

I've tried to grow has died

so you joked that I was Queen Midas,

that I could kill anything with a touch,

which didn't make much sense

but I laughed because it was better

than not laughing but I stopped

touching the garden although

I didn't stop touching you.

It's a brand new shovel

and the dirt looks undisturbed

and as I let the coffee burn

I wonder what it is

you're planning to bury.

### The Lost Girls

It's hard to run with a shield in one hand,

but we get used to the extra weight.

The point isn't to hide.

We wear our motherlessness

on our chests, like Athena,

born in full armor, raised

by a father. We don't

use the word _abandoned_.

People know our story so well, they forget

they know our story.

We like the feel of dirt

and rocks and we sleep

under trees and never talk

about our feelings.

The point isn't to feel, either.

Which is why, when we find

the well-worn teddy bear

stashed under branches,

a note saying _Love, Mom_

tied to its paw,

we burn it.

Which is why

I didn't tell them

it was mine.

### When the Dog Bites

It's one of those things that happen to other people

and besides, I'd always wanted a puppy

so I stopped to say hello and was distracted

by the gathering saliva, the darkness

of its lips, the sudden

wrongness of it all

so when its jaw clamped down

at first, there was only silence

and a warm empty feeling.

I wanted to disappear.

I started singing an old children's song

but I couldn't remember the words

so I closed my eyes and pictured my mother

in the kitchen the day she said

girls in white dresses

should never be caught

lying on their backs

stirring the stars at night

with their tongue.

She had a knife in her hand at the time

though I couldn't quite remember why

and when I opened my eyes I could see

the blood seeping through the grass.

I don't know at what point he let go

and later, when the doctor asked me

what happened, I told him it was just

an accident. It was nobody's fault

but my own.

### A daughter should know the answer

In Australia, they cover corpses

with leaves. Slow erasure of organs,

of skin. In Andorra, it is the law

to ask every body you find

lying face down, _Are you dead?_

Are you dead? Are you dead?

•

A girl walks into the desert. She can smell

the morning's carrion and she understands

this is how time passes. Fingers lengthen

but have less to hold. Overhead, vultures circle

and she needs them to land. She needs to ask

if they've seen her mother.

•

It takes over two thousand days to mummify

the self, like they used to do in Japan.

She wonders if her mother's hidden somewhere,

only a thousand days from death.

•

A person isn't missing

if she disappears

on purpose.

•

A girl walks into a museum

full of skeletons. She needs to know

why skulls always look like

they're smiling.

•

A woman hides in the bathroom

of a funeral home, washing off

her mother-face. She shakes hands

with a cadaver, says, _If anyone asks,_

_I wasn't here_.

### My foot is stuck in the mirror again

and I can't stop staring at the two five-fingered bruises on my neck, pulsating like some ghost is trying to open a door in my throat. Behind me, a mask on the wall is hiding another mask, almost forgotten but in the reflection I can make out both sets of lips whispering, _You have to let go._ But I notice my foot is getting sleepy so I spin it a story about a house the shape of a head and inside the house, a wolf, inside the wolf, a man I once loved before I learned every mouth holds a secret and every hand makes a fist and somewhere in this story someone or something died savagely at the tooth of another. My father hated his own face and my father's father used to smash everything around him before he disappeared mysteriously one night, not unlike my mother although not before she stood me in front of a mirror with my first make-up kit and said, Y _ou're the one who looks at your reflection. You're not the one who looks back._

Toni Hanner

### Le Bugue

An old woman (here you may not ask)

cranks her body up from the bench

submerged only days ago. The Vézère

has dropped to green once more, swarms of bees

cluster around our heads as we cross

the bridge. Cars chug past below on the quai,

released from the flood. The woman adjusts

her blouse, her fruit-colored hair. Walks,

a little bent, a little slow, away. I think of you,

sister, there is not a moment when I do not.

You go with me, in my pockets, in each slender

joy. I carry you up cobbled hills and eye for you

the shirtless workman repairing a stone wall

that has plunged down the hillside into fields

shouting with purple iris, wisteria,

yellow mustard. Every dog smiles for you,

and the birds—swifts and magpies,

sparrows singing in French

and the little tuxedo'd dipper riding the flood

on a broken branch, all these swoop and dive

for you, speak your name and watch me

for signs of you with round black eyes.

### Le Bugue to Paris

Leaving Le Bugue, the philanthropy of rain

returns, fat clouds overflowing, filling the Vézère

once more. I wish I had your picture here with me,

posed for the cruise ship's photographer,

embroidered blouses we bought for pennies

from the impenetrable Indians at Gatun Lake,

the big rimless glasses we wore in the '80s,

our acrylic nails and turquoise

eye shadow. I was your shipmate then,

my 40th birthday lay in wait, a stone

that would wedge itself between us

for years. It's taken death to shift it,

to bring us all the way back—our father,

cousin, aunt, brother. I've seen you

three times in the past year, each an unbearable

loss. The last time, I helped you from your bed

to the bathroom, washed and fed you,

stroking your white head as if you were a child,

crooning _sweetheart, sweetheart._

### The Houses of the Dead

for Franny

I want to be happy again, to stop thinking

about the dog on the floor at the side of the bed,

the dog who is only an outline, a dog-shape

made with a black Marks-A-Lot with no

corporeal body, no face. I want to stop

thinking about the scaly thing beginning,

always just beginning, to wind up the white

iron leg at the bottom of the bed, tiny bat's wings

unfurled behind its flat head, tongue searching the air.

This morning at the end of sleep I dropped by your house,

stopped in for a chat and a cup of tea, the way I imagine

I remember doing when I lived just a few blocks away

but this time your granddaughter was there at your kitchen

table, you were gone, and when I resumed my walk I realized

you would always be gone and there would be no more of you

and me, and in my sleep, I dropped to the curb and howled

in that way I do not when I'm awake because the part of me

watching accuses me of being melodramatic

and when I woke I thought I must have made a sound

but my husband did not notice.

The city knows nothing, in the summer

it is molten, the asphalt gummy

beneath our shoes, everyone gathers up their cucumbers

and corkscrews and goes off to the islands

where the azure seas soothe and the ripe sun

blushes the shoulders of clerks and housewives,

where fir trees remind them that there once

was a life before Little League and diaper service,

the city's leftovers baking on sidewalks, the little houses

in the old neighborhoods quietly flaking paint,

the old men and old women who remain being removed,

one by one, taken in ambulance or hearse,

leaving the granddaughters to clear away the rubble

and hand out corroded jewelry from the middle

of the last century no one really wants. The dogs will go

to new cities, the cats will fend for themselves.

I will not walk by your house again,

it's been twenty years since we lived so close together,

I began losing you when I left that city you loved,

the strands that held us stretched and frayed.

And the scaly thing, the thing with fluttering wings,

I will get used to it, it will be my dog and follow me

faithfully through the streets of the city where I live without you.

I will feed it flecks of gold I find in the houses of the dead.

### Weather

Sunday morning, waking to the slaughter,

the inconsolable smells, the smothering owlish light,

sixteen dead bolts on the door cannot blind us

to the stacking, bristling idiot mounds, horses

with their limbs ablaze, the piazza filled with smoke,

we try to disappear but all the roads are blocked

fascinated by the birdcage, the ash at the end of my mother's

Kool, the runes on our kitchen linoleum, a bit of wither

under the bridge, suspended, the cables,

the rust, under the parking lot, the worm,

the ripening, under the narcotic sky, under the flames,

the weather builds, one egret at a time, plodding in

on snowshoes and waterskis, tossing pomegranates

to the crowds gathered to watch the drizzle set fire

to the dwarf shackled to the bike rack on the Herengracht.

The magpies gather like pickpockets, count your hands, hero,

when I was four I had a brother, I buried

my face in his sheets a cat rolling in grass

when I was four I had a sister bouffant and gauze,

far away in the never-never of our house

wasp down the soprano's voice through the old black telephone,

the clacking bones of larkspur, the rot breaking through,

erupting, chewing and casting, leaving a trail, a wandering bruise,

the leaves of the birch across the intersection signaling wildly in the wind.

### Elegy for December

This is an elegy for everyone who's gotten in the way

this year. In the way of a bullet, in the way of a drunk,

in the way of a rampaging warlord or an invasion of cancer.

This is an elegy for those riding the #52 bus every day,

riding the bus to Fred Meyer for diapers and a 12-pack

of Diet Coke. For everyone who mucks through

the wet snow that fell all morning, slicking the black pavement

and drowning the sleeping bags of the homeless.

This is an elegy for the ones we lost, the ones who grew old

suddenly and died in spite of all our holding on,

this is for the way we dug our heels into the earth, the way

we heaved and yanked on the lines that broke even so,

the boat that drifted away without us. This is an elegy

for Ryan who told me Christmas is an ordeal

and for Marilyn in her Santa Claus hat,

and it is for everyone in the middle, dusting

banisters, pouring wine, pulling on damp work boots,

for everyone reading this poem or any other poem.

I give you my kind intentions, all I have really,

and this leafless maple outside my window

wearing a cloak of white, just for today.

Annie Mascorro

### Offering

To Lawson

I will not lie.

It will be cold. It will sting.

There are corners here

and thirst.

The landscape of your birth is dry,

prone to fires and yellowed brush.

But what you need to know is this:

At dusk there is a purplish-blue

covering treetops, filling in

deep pockets between mountains,

in the distance. Some days it will come

all of a sudden, other days

you will wait. It is a feeling. It is

what the world offers you—

a full stomach, the coming of a chilly

night, the moment when you have done

all that you will do

for now, right before

the world remakes itself

again and again.

### Once

I.

Once, my mother was crying

said to me, let's run away, something

burning in the kitchen. Even then

I knew to be afraid, that house

full of corners, fears that were

or were not, spread, made things

disappear: the baby grand, the yellow

telephone, my father's

clothes. I prepared for us

to run: learned to read a clock

braid my hair, eat spiders

from their webs. Still, I climbed

the black cast-iron stairwell just

to look down and feel. Even then

I knew to count the born and the un-

born, brothers and sisters and fathers and cats.

II.

Once, I made carrot cake for a man

who hit me, or wanted to, or couldn't

help but want an American dessert—

something sweet, with frosting for the guests

to see. Underneath the table, he held my hand

tight, laughed _eres mi postre, mi vida, mia_

_por siempre_. No way for him to know

I called my mother from the thin white kitchen

while he slept, that I cried, a girl who does not know

the metric system, such cold, how

do I make this work? She mentions lemon rinds,

says I will know what to do and when.

III.

Once, a ceremonial robe

hung from the frame of a door.

The color drained into dawn, specks

of cloth catching reflections of glass

from around the room—mirror and

table and vase. I could not see the top,

thought—a body must be inside—

as I stood not wanting to look,

in this house, where terrible

things happened, where the blood

of a goat could not make things right,

where I had decided to leave

for good but could not

move. Not until music

from the neighborhood mosque

cracked the air wide—

a man chanting in another

language, not unlike the song

my mother sang about the cephalopod,

a song I did not understand

but knew all those years.

At first I remembered, then

walked past. A taxi waiting on the other side.

### The Container

In the kitchen I twirled while she wrapped

strips of wet gauze around

my naked waist then belly then breasts.

The texture, rough and dripping, hardened

against the skin, all those invisible hairs

pulled tight. For art—this shell—a form

on which she would mold slabs of clay

to bisque in the earth, colors burning through

the shape of my body—now cast

and hanging in her home—caught

then, in its moment, readying itself

as if on the lip of a jar

for what I could not have known would come—

the cutting and the sucking, convulsions,

everywhere, years pouring

out, pools of murk and ore gathering at once.

### Ghazal

Listen: I will no longer be your guinea pig

your "how to live here and there" kid, stretched like a guinea worm.

Between basins of bath waters and iced oceans

I dream their depressions: Canary and Cape, and Guinea.

When I wake, I wake twice, ask for air, think, what if

a monarch stopped mid-air, over a child in New Guinea.

If I drank, it would be the clear wine of palm leaves

the stuff Christians drink, in the forests of southern Guinea.

Once drunk, maybe I'd arrive for good, in my mind

or out, a dry land, unchanged, a desert in Haute Guinée.

If you were drunk too, and said, Annie you _are_ here,

I would say, listen up: they call me Aïcha in Guinea.

### On Auras

Auras, or partial seizures, often precede epileptic seizures and are characterized by specific sensory sensations depending on the part of the brain in which they originate.

Dear Friend,

The noodles you gave me,

once cooked, fell apart

and I am putting them

back together—jagged corner, wavy

edge, a jigsaw of brown-rice lasagna.

Let me explain. Just now I am wanting everything

smooth: fat noodles, sauce, cheese, again,

unbroken. And yet, I am remembering,

bent over a glass casserole dish

in this fog of sun, the universe.

The one that is not smooth, that

comes in a moment before everything else—

wonder and trouble sinking down

the body before it falls. No one

says this but I will: it is a place

to be returned to, like so many,

like the end of the desert in upper

Guinea where I once drank

plastic baggies full of sour milk,

curdled chunks floating on the top.

Brittney Corrigan

### Stellar's Jay the Week of the Boston Marathon Bombings

The young cat whose life I saved carries

a Stellar's jay in his mouth, the blue

form limp on either side of his jaws.

He runs, tail bristled and tabby fur

a wild, brown streak into the azaleas.

The red of the azaleas, the blue of the bird

almost beautiful—until the jay's mate

dives after them in a cacophony

of grief and bravery and alarm. And now

a ghost-jay settles on my shoulder:

I am in part responsible for this rending.

Some woman births the murderer.

The shooter. The bomber. The one who

shatters lives like a shockwave pulsing

from his center as he walks into this classroom,

that theater, this crowd. Maybe someone

tried to save him. Maybe someone tried

to patch him up, fed him a good meal,

raised him up into this world with her hands.

She would still run to him now, still gather

him into her arms, rock him like a child—

no matter what is lashed to his chest.

No matter what he has done. No matter

what he still may do.

My young cat is just a cat. He is supposed

to hunt. He is supposed to take lives

daily, licking his snout and preening his fur.

But on this day, my heart presses wildly

at the walls of my chest as the jay-mate whirls

and paces the air. Screeching. Crying.

Somewhere below him in the azaleas

the she-bird is broken open by a creature

I tended and released. Somewhere behind

him in the trees the little jays call from their nest:

their blue mouths open. The blue sky

falling all around them through the leaves.

### Falling Teeth

My daughter, five, seesaws her first loose tooth—

small, slick finger hooking, tongue pressing at the new,

larger tooth blooming behind. Excitement lifts

from her face like spores into wind, alights on everyone

she tells her secret to. We lean together, imagine

what the Tooth Fairy must do with all the teeth.

Her Fairy—surely pink-gowned, awash with glitter,

bedecked with wand and bells—shapes jewelry

and studs her combs, collects teeth in rows of dainty boxes

decoupaged with flowers, padded in velveteen.

My Fairy is more twigs-in-her-hair fay—barefoot,

dark-haired, shimmering limbs circled in vines. Winged

and sounding like autumn in dappled sunlight, flourished

with birds. She revels in the macabre, grinds teeth to powder

to rub into her skin. Teeth dangle everywhere: a many-looped

necklace quivers at her breast, clattering wind chimes entangle

in her garden. Teeth nestle with tree roots and mouse-bone

filigree to form the arcing mosaic around her door.

My pixie-haired girl-child wiggles and worries the tooth,

first with constant attention, then gradually without

notice. She draws elaborate castles with her left hand,

one right finger working the tooth as it teeters and clings.

After the mother-loss moment of disbelief that my daughter

is old enough to lose a tooth, I go back to the horrific

and raw. They come often, the dreams of falling teeth.

Teeth crumble en masse, or drop out in slow motion,

one by one. Or I touch them and they peel from my gums,

slip through my fingers, tumble down and away.

Dreams of falling teeth, common, are always

about fear. Aging, uglification, survival, what

we reach for—devoured. My daughter at the table,

colors spreading out before her in wild, bright lines.

I can hear the Fairy's breath as she hovers

nearby, stalking her next pebbled prize. Whether

rose-satined or mossy-toed, it is all the same. She took

mine, she'll take my daughter's, she'll take mine again.

I smile to taunt her, pass my tongue over each firm stone.

Root in as she shifts her gaze. She jangles coins

in her pocket, choosing what she'll leave behind.

My daughter holds up her drawing, wobbly tooth flashing

as she grins, and the sunlight from the window filters through.

### Not Burning Down the House

First the smolder, then the catch. The scorch

and blaze. A bloom of fire: orange

and the flickering blue. Floorboards raise

their splinters like hackles, enkindle

and morph into torch. Shingles incinerate; their ashes

lift into the air like pale ghost-birds. Doors detach

from their hinges, fall into bright peals of flame.

Windows throw shards at the walls. Stairs collapse

and dangle like broken limbs.

Look what could happen.

Arrow-shaped thermostat buttons entrance

our son, tempt him to lean in and press while

we are elsewhere with our attention. The temperature

climbs to 90 while we are away at work and school.

Hours later, we ascend the stairs into a push of heat,

throw the windows wide, find the remains

of the thermostat charred to the wall, burn marks

spidering black against the still-standing room.

And again, months later, the forgotten toaster oven

elements continue to redden and glow. Crumbs

of breakfast cook all day down to delicate carbon husks,

an adjacent cord melts and destroys the radio, the stench

of smoke lingers in the thickening air. The kitchen

sits back on its haunches. Does not bother to ignite

and spread its molten crackling through our rooms.

Blinks its eyes at us slowly as we walk through the door.

Breath-catching, how we were so careless, and so

spared. We could have come home to a steaming

wreck. All of it ablaze and then extinguished. All

of it scalded and soaking. All of it gone.

The dog, confined upstairs in his crate: plastic

seared onto his white-brown fur, singe marks

from the bars against his nose. The soot-dark kitten

sleeping on our daughter's bed: now cinders, withered

and soft. The sister-rats smothered in their tinderbox cage.

What of the quilts my husband's grandmother

stitched from clothes worn down to scraps?

The paper on which our son first wrote his name?

And yet, we continue to leave and leave.

In the driveway, stocky green weeds shoot

through each crack. The flowering vine flings

thorny tendrils outward from our porch. Overgrown

shrubbery converges to follow us each time we turn

our backs on the house. Where we step,

our footprints wisp and shine to ember. Small beads

of flame drip from the pads of our fingers, alight

harmlessly in the street. We call back reassurances

with parched mouths. When the fires leap

from our chests, the sparks land just shy of the lawn.

S. E. Hudgens

### Guadalupe

The virgin, she is everywhere. En todas

partes. Tiled into the corner store wall, painted on

houses along Chicon, hung around necks

and between breasts of the pious. Her mâchéd

figure lurks in the live oak groves that line

the río; she bows to cursing

lovers and the needles that line the curbs.

Shrouded in azul de bebé, the virgin watches

with a face impassive as plastic. She has learned

to expect little. Her heart flares. I know

she dreams of escape, of shattered tile and

crumbling brick, of God taking her

right there on the sidewalk in front of all the pimps.

The ladies de la noche will mistake her

for one of their own, offer her a cigarette

as she rises from the rubble. She'll finally feel

what Magdalene felt—like a base

human being, like una criminal,

whole. The night will tattoo her onto its belly.

What will the men say as, for once,

she undresses con las estrellas?

### Gift

It came as a gift—

a small sack of lavender

in the drawer of winter. Safe,

like an eye pillow or a

mousetrap. I crawled

in after it, let its moist

scent surround my hands

and feet, seep into

the small hairs of my thighs—

my bare body married to it,

buried with it. The drawer

seemed the best place

to wait for the snow to melt.

It fell and fell, until I fell,

finally, asleep.

In the spring I woke withered

and the sack was empty:

the scent was gone. What

is the half-life of lavender?

I searched for it under

my fingernails, shoved

my nose into the shrubs

outside. The sun was not

as I had remembered—it was

infinite and odorless,

and I was afraid

to get lost on its hills. I thought

if I made a new sack of mountain

laurel, I'd be protected

from its vast stare,

but summer came anyway,

relentless, smelling

of the last sweet

stages of death, of asphalt

pulsing up and up.

The first day of fall

brought a cloud

that did not leave

for six weeks. It took distant,

purple shapes each day,

and I liked to guess animal,

vegetable, or mineral. Finally,

it reached down and

stitched its rain

around my waist

and over my head

and said: You are the gift now.

And so I waited to meet my lover.

### We walked through the cemetery

on the day he lost half his tooth; it was raining.

When we ducked under a balding branch,

he divined the lives of Work, William and Theresa.

They died on the same day—car wreck or hurricane;

their name a cruel prophesy of the rent

that remained unpaid no matter how many

hours they gave. Their children could afford only

flat grey slabs. When he spoke, the tiny partial tooth

hovered above his bottom lip, dust

roiled into mud in the indecisive wind, and for once

I didn't wonder what it was like to be beautiful.

Instead I wiped drops from my earlobes,

began to walk again. Raliegh, Johanna—five white

irises on black marble. Dodd, Brett—mausoleum

in the style of melodrama's vilest vampire.

Winthrop, John—three-foot cross engraved

over his name that would have rolled his puritan

ancestors in their graves. These ways we think

we honor them, assumptions we make for our own sake.

He said a blank slab would suffice, that a name

could never capture a life. All he needed was a new tooth.

I said if I could choose my tomb, it would be a song

that never failed to change—me, the melody

blooming inside—but what I wanted to tell you

is that he got on his knees and tried to quiet

that chorus of the dead long enough to explain,

to pray for an explanation, why he hadn't joined them.

### A Wedding

If I had believed this was the moment

I'd stop casting desire into a barren

lake, then I would have seen

the birds strung on the power

line like live garland—hundreds, exactly

evenly spaced. I would have heard

the strange wind stagnate at our feet

as the grass turned another

degree. I'd have noticed the sun toss its

most indulgent pinks into clouds when time

came to give up the day to birds and flies

and ghosts of fish preying on flies, the flies

playing with birds, the birds praying

for dark and wet and all of us

vowing to stay forever.

Ali Doerscher

### Milk + Honey, Whiskey + Ginger Ale

well that's how it goes

weather always lingering too long

a casual blue fourteen percent grey

there were any number of things

we could have been talking about:

the stiffness of morning

the best way to purchase stamps

how to walk great distances

but then days and days of rain

I said let's keep sleeping together

casually

it was like a finch swallowing milkweed

it was probably bored

### Temporal, Flickerlike

I remember I lost the clear night

you had tied around my thigh

and today I hate you

even though winter is far away

I'm living in a low voice

I'm throwing the hillside

making a mess of myself and running

around with one eye closed:

it requires the ability to judge distance

_his body_ _firmly in order_

looking for blood in the sunlight

### [...]

what you said was careless

_death at the cape_ and everywhere

tiny birds making false landings

embers felling leaves like feathers like

bodies fumbling underwater

and disappearing is always simplest

in massachusetts is darkest blue

I wanted to ask

if I looked any different standing up

if dizziness is an affliction of the lips

and if I were

to catalogue our weaknesses by name

it would be _scoured or hysterical_

tenuously coupled lungs blistered

in the young light and the snow

in december

you lost your last cigarette

you told me not to die

you picked burnt leaves from your carpet

inside a fever dream

we made ourselves a home movie:

_me, plunging the hawk_

_through the bedsheets_

_and of course you're miserable_

like a steady brow

like home

if one of us were to stand up

our inflections would no longer be

compatible so equivocal

_death at the cape_

so we stop at the liquor store

I hold the flashlight

while you fill your tires with air

you're miserable of course

(if I am standing then you are standing

and we both look the same)

and if this is darkest blue

we are coupled by blood and anxiety

thick and red like molasses on tobacco

like being pulled to bed at 4 am

because it is not yet december

and somehow this means we are safe

I rip a shard of amber glass from my palm

but the skin is still translucent

in the fever dream I tell you

winter lives in naked bodies, an ode

to sex or death or birds

or something

what I really mean is

you drive beautifully at night

### Neither Here Nor There

I'm still pulling blood out from under things

nails and telescopes and cotton swabs

it's sweet it really is

how you try to smile one tooth at a time...

I made you a sweater

and you didn't even know it was yours

when you asked if you could have it

I haven't gotten it all sorted out yet

how one slow mechanism is wedded to the next

a convulsive fit of the lips and then

it is april and I am all liquored up

basking in the tickled heather

one crushed thing after the other

David Sloan

### Hard to Breathe

Some fires won't catch,

no matter how carefully

the kindling's laid. Wood's

too wet, or punky,

or thoughtlessly stacked,

like throwing blankets

over a sleeping child's face.

We forget about air,

the importance of pruning,

pauses that cool the lava

of afternoon blowups.

Some matches fizzle, too

little friction on the striking

surface—or too much.

The decision to flare or not

depends upon the atmosphere,

seems so random, like shooting

stars or children.

### How to Lie

I lied a little at the funeral,

called you a creature of the air,

so they might think _oh_ , _like an angel_

or a silver-tipped sea hawk.

But I was really picturing

you as a sky snake, envenomed

bringer of bad weather,

flinging down hood-denting hail,

whipping up a dust storm

that swallows towns whole.

I didn't mention all the other

swallows, beginning

on the front lawn the day

you sat broken-winged, drinking

in news of your brother's

ticked-out heart, that stillness

after the snare drum sticks

break, or the one time we forgot

the don't-touch-there rule,

the tangle, like fish thrashing

through seaweed, and after—

the can't-look-at-each-other look,

as if we were still kids caught jamming

lit firecrackers into frogs' mouths,

or, years later, the bottle flung

at your daughter who walked out mid-

argument and only returned

toward the end, when that tiny spore,

yawning, stretching, greedy,

settled in your lungs like a python

with nothing else to do but coil

camouflaged in the underbrush,

and slowly squeeze all the air out.

### Too Close

He's clearing a path through the choked

woods behind his house. It's slow going.

The juniper has taken over, crowding out

blueberries, laurel seedlings, wintergreen

shoots. Pale-needled whips wait at eye level,

deadfall lies strewn like finger bones

sprinkled from the sky, his mother's flimsy

nightgowns still flap from branches.

She tiptoed in, smelling of licorice,

tucked in her boy, both pretending.

Sometimes she only kissed him

on the forehead. Other nights she

climbed over, curled up behind him,

hugged him hard enough to leave

an imprint of her inlaid carnelian

necklace between his shoulder blades.

Except for mosquitoes, there are no signs

of creatures in these woods: no birdsong,

no burrows, no feather tails, no ember eyes

in the darkness. Either he has driven them off

with lopper, snub-nosed shovel and bow saw,

or they fled before footfall, when they felt

the first twitch of fear, saw the future slash,

couldn't bear the closeness coming.

Olivia Cole

### Learning the plum

Now I know what a plum

truly is. I have seen its heart.

Gnawed down to the naked core

of seed, I am poised with a knife

to break this thing open and know

its atoms, its lifeforce, its tiny strings

of being. I hold

the thing in my palm and wonder at its

strangeness, this spiny nut like a dragon's

bone. It is my own curiosity, the child-scientist

who holds the blade like a scalpel, ready to learn.

Dead cats have taught me curb.

This could be a box named for chaos:

I could unravel my world by knowing

this fruit.

I decide

not to cut. It is enough perhaps

to hold this piece of the secret.

It is enough to know, perhaps,

that it grows.

### poem for Trayvon Martin and other dead brown boys

The delight of the airplane

is what sticks in my eye:

ground-bound, but the sky

is a butterfly you're cupping

in your palms.

Just a few more beats

of heart and wing

and you could have been

in the blue, arms or engine

pumping.

I want us all to live

in your eyes:

to see how

in one breath

a boy can be

dreaming

and in the next

be a leaf

fluttering

carried away

red,

then gray,

then gone.

### For my lover, leaving

The lid is on:

your cipher is kept,

my name is safe and secret.

I who have lurked in Egyptian

cotton and warm water,

my nylon ghost

your busy burial.

I have sewn in the stitch

to shut my mouth,

I won't screech

a sound.

My name is a quiet thing

you have expressed only

in Garamond, it is wet

skin wrapped in canvas.

You put it on your plate

with the drapes drawn.

This is not a war where lovers

carry likenesses in lapels.

Anyhow, there is only one to speak

of, and you guard it

from eyes and air. I fold

my hands and forget.

I am a girl who is sarcastic

about promises. I am a girl

who rolls her eyes at oaths

but dreads their not

being made. When the parts

don't come together,

the laughter drains from lips.

Worse, when they do,

the eggshell is held gently

underfoot, waiting

for pressure.

Welcome. I sang you a song

about this long ago; your mind

may have been on something

else when I read you the lyrics.

I am a girl with a round

name who despises circles.

Let this at least be a square,

angular and abiding

by ancient rules.

The circle has no law.

It may go around

as many times as it wishes,

the eyes spinning along

its endless track.

Let this at least be a box.

Heavy, at least I know

what it contains.

### Extinctathon

Let's collect dead white things.

I cherish all evidence

that proves black

is not the only thing dying:

check: the white seal

and his ghostly impotence

check: the white wolf

and his icy violence

check: the white swan

the evil fellow of stork

check: the white horse

who has carried death for centuries.

Keep counting. Bless

the black things that are

sweet

and dark, and deep

not with ash

but with ask

palms stretched out

and smiling

### Last lament

I have picked my way through a patch

of blackberries and come out

stained and scratched. This is the wild

kind; not the neat bush of agriculture

but a free-spilling mess of deep

juice in jungle. I can't tell my skin

if she is black or if she is purple.

My fingers have found a knot

in my neck. I rub it out tonight

and find a walnut under my flesh

in the morning. This is love:

a problem solved in the dark,

and rerooted overnight into a skyward

beanstalk towering,

not tame.

Its trunk is thick and its branches

blot out the light. I am transformed

into a tunnel-creature. I am mole

and mother; murderer.

But I emerge. Through the bramble

at my back I have broken

a narrow path. I watch

for awhile and soon

a rabbit comes through,

small and brown.

I could smash his skull.

He has a delicate nose,

a twitching face, a body

made for escape.

He passes by, gently

crushing berries underfoot.

I let him go. The path closes

behind.

Lucy M. Logsdon

### How to Save Your Self

First you must pack up all

your madnesses, from noon's pink

nightgown to evening's vulnerable confusions,

from the green silk of drink and pills,

to fear's dark black compulsions. Shove

their angry coils into a sturdy army surplus bag,

slide its zippered teeth shut on the banging

of your lost souls.

They'll escape, they always do.

So ignore them when they intrude

on your ordered days. Keep your face calm

as a swollen lake, a placid mirror, a surface

that hides so much. They will rise through

the bamboo floor, seat themselves in the oak

dining chairs. They'll bang against the stovepipe,

a trapped starling frantically trying to get out,

they'll pummel the door like a frustrated child,

they'll wail, _You think you're free? You think_

the wind outside is a mild breeze?

Focus on the coming storm. Notice

the drops of rain already spattering.

You'll have to move quickly,

you'll have to decide who to save.

You can't keep hoarding them; you

can't keep loving them. You must

go to the basement, find the room

with the treasured candlesticks,

the generations of photos, your cow

figurines, your treasures,

and your duffel bag.

Carry it to the pond behind the house,

wait until the last of the summer geese

has left, listen for the evening killdeer,

watch for the yellow black belly of this

year's water snake, and when the bullfrogs

start their mournful bellow, and the fireflies

began their luminescence, you must drown

all but one. Choose carefully

which madness you keep

for it will be the only one

you have to battle loneliness, to walk

with late at night when the full moon hangs

so heavy, when your heart is tired,

when you want some reminder

of all that raged within.

### Beating the Boundaries

You have asked and asked again,

beating nightly at my door. Clenched

fist, raised hand, questioning, insistent—

Why did I leave? Look at my eyes:

corn-yellow, barn-brown, irises shot

through with dust. How can you believe

I've succeeded? In this city I exhale

your landscape, my breath misty and fogged, hair

tangled, a bale of hay. I've left, and I've

left myself behind.

My great-grandfather slammed my

grandfather's palms against the farm's

border: rock, oak, post—slammed until his

blood smeared across barren stone, seeped

into old wood. Three months for his hands

to heal. My fingers are calloused,

lightly, at the tips. Still, I've memorized: _This_

_is the northwest corner, the granite rock._

This is the southwest, the upright row of

_devil's walking sticks._

In sleep I walk deep in your

interior where pollen drifts

like rain, and creeks swirl with the quick silver

tails of minnows. I step into

your rivers, your limerock streams, clay banks.

Who says geography is the soul?

I know the answer: each time returning,

I return with nothing more than the dust

in a drowned man's pockets. I am that dust,

scattering, then lost.

### Those That Come Back

We are uneventful here, we who have returned:

the dutiful, the wounded, the living, the good,

the adult child. You may call us

by different names, but identify us

by the depth, the strength of our return.

Now back, we are forever here,

as rooted as the oaks and pines.

You can tell us by our patience,

the long lines of waiting in our face,

the settled air around us, the settled dust

within our homes. You can tell us

by our affinity for the winter night,

whose muffled layers soothe our memories

of other lives. We love the glazed, still

surfaces of our backfield ponds.

And yet, we try to make life

happen, to break this thick block ice

insulating us, but all we get are sharp rib pains,

labored breath, billowing across

the frozen fields.

Shades of summer birds haunt the pond;

their shadows brush the ghosts of former lives,

selves we buried so relentlessly. They've dug

themselves up, and dance just out of reach—

mocking . . . _All that you could have been . . ._

The other dead faded dreams would gather,

if they could, but they are trapped

still in their dank burial boxes,

weighted by sadness, love. Patiently,

they suffocate beneath the layers

of perpetual snow. So much lost along the way.

So much accepted, so much ground

down with the season. The drying husks,

the composting. Fat black tadpoles move

sluggishly below the pond's ice. My life

barely moves within these bundled layers.

The years accumulate. The woodpile grows.

This winter bears down on us all.

Our houses weaken, the rafters shift,

mice grow bold in the hallways and shower,

the paint peels, and the windows loosen.

And, oh, how our parents dwindle.

They are beginning to look like distant

children, peering at the brutal landscape

fast approaching. Their tracks in the snow

grow lighter, footprints

smudged and rising.

### Envelope

To enclose, to hold, to wrap

around. To cradle delicately, gently,

securely. To seal for safe transport,

to shelter the message, the words

sent far away, where they would travel

for days, through the post offices of Champaign,

and Carbondale, and Des Moines, bumping

in the back of dusty trucks, falling

away from our fingers, full

of intent. Submissions sent to the west,

and the east, to the editors, to the journals,

to those cities we had read of.

How we believed in sending the message,

loudly and hopefully, into the big,

bigger beyond us. Such dreams

penned in those writings. Our landscape

one of envelopes, and typewriters, and stamps,

and return address ink pads.

How we tried to speed it all up,

now we long for the slowing down,

so typical. The nostalgia, the remembrance,

the loving only after it is gone.

The image of my lonely typewriter in the plane's

overhead compartment—its keys hot

with those early poems of love,

and escape.

Marc Pietrzykowski

### Peripatetic Spiel

The wind shears across the empty park

like scissors through cheap wrapping paper,

scorching my ears and making the dog dance in frantic little steps,

and we go on past a stopped blue van marked "Ryan's Interiors,"

a bald, skinny guy in the driver's seat talking to his phone, or his hand,

but I'm betting on the phone, and then a shovel upright in a snow bank

where someone abandoned their driveway, for now,

and the postal van darts by, on the afternoon package route,

and my right testicle starts to ache, and there is a 98% chance

it's tumorous, and the sky is more bruise than blue and more black than bruise,

and I stop to breathe it all in and the dog keeps dancing,

and my testicle stops aching and the chance of tumor

recedes back to 0%, and a crow laughs at me from a picnic table,

and I know I'm not supposed to write poems like this anymore

because only 27 people read poetry these days and they

are bored with it but that's OK, I'm not bored with them,

or with the bobtailed squirrel skipping his way across the church roof,

I only wish you were here with me, because it will never

happen this way again, there was only just enough room for everything,

nothing sagged, nothing gaped, nothing askew, the plenum

was apparent and of course it was fucking perfect,

just like every other minute of every day, shooting forth like a shower of sparks.

### Give'em Enough Rope

I went in search of devils and demons, not mine,

but fauna, a set of trading cards, Hummelware.

I put them under glass and walked away.

The road took me and I drifted a while,

believing, as drifters do, it was something rare:

to make selves anew, peel them off, and walk away.

Then home drew me back, something I'd left behind

felt immanent, a pole star. The demons were there,

and yes, each looked like me, but I walked on,

into the next room, into a box of toys lined

with black paper speckled with stars, then into the space

between the stars, past Atman, past Brahman.

I waited there for a visitor. None came, or I looked away,

and tumbled out of the box, the room, demon stares

now fixed on me. If only we all had a little more time.

### The Mirror Ball

The paranoid stride, the walk of jabbering phone-bent stickmen

on their way to inner glow, to feeling all shiny and right

as they jerk past the ice cream truck, shimmy past the illuminati outpost,

because all is not right, all is dull, the world is filled with talktalktalk.

I know where they are going, I have gone there myself.

The shorter of the two once tried to rob me with a letter opener in the back,

made me feel so bad I gave him a ten-spot and told him,

"it's alright, we all go to t-bone's sometime, tell him I said hey."

I have lived in many rooms, most of them near a dealer

of some drug or other. They're everywhere, as is sensible, as is right,

they offer derangement of the senses, and the senses offer

a curtain of rot spattered with joy. A fistful of bills gets you a packet of sunlight,

or at least, something to make those spatters of joy shine and wobble

and swell larger than is right. It's not god, it's just dope,

and there's a reason they feed it to child soldiers

before asking them to kill their families, there's truth in how it makes us dance.

### Shake Back Your Hair, Let Go Your Laughter

Shake back your hair, let go your laughter,

throw your cigar at the preacher's red gums;

shit on the sidewalk, in daylight, in traffic,

sob in the midst of the playground's blue hum.

Ask boarded-up windows to give you advice,

go mount you a fountain, go bake thee a friend;

tell no one your mission, no, not even Christ,

he'd not understand, though he'd try to pretend.

Shake back your hair, let go your laughter,

sing if you must; if you mustn't, then bray,

and make sure your stink infuses the hunter,

make sure that he too becomes somebodies' prey.

Donna Levine Gershon

### Everything You Google

Everything you Google comes back to haunt

you when you least expect it, like when you're

trolling an atheism website and little pictures

of wedding bands mystically appear on the left

hand of the page because earlier you had Googled

funky wedding bands not because you are about

to be married but because you have been married

for almost fifteen godly years, in awe

that anything this tenuous-seeming wakes up

every morning in the same place, still willing

to commit to dinner that night, if not at six sharp

then as soon as is humanly, ethically possible what

with the meetings and the errands and the man-

dated receptions of wine and women in the work-

place and you see that you don't like any of them

better than what you have, with the ribs

of gold that you found in a nothing jewelry store

in Clearwater because you were not sophisticated

enough to look into bespoke bands hammered out

like prenups, more things you never thought about,

like God while he was still living in the house

you grew up in, before divorce split the synagogue

into his and hers, before the void led you not to

temptation exactly but to this man who comes

custom as if an engine beyond belief remembered

what you had been searching for.

### Kaddish

For Helen

Gray feathers in the rearview mirror

flutter finally to rest along the shoulders.

Your hair—thin and silver like birdsong,

long into your decades of denying

yourself nourishment—gone.

Delicate creature I cannot swerve to avoid,

you are free now of hollow bones and highways.

No more pecking at seeds and berries.

Yit'gadal v'yitkadash sh'mei raba.

I alone count gulls for the minyan.

### The 7-Up Man

He comes every Thursday

to restock her shelves.

He goes straight for the 2-liters

like he owns the place.

He works quickly:

Highway 9 brings truckers,

beachgoers, locals, all thirsty.

He looked at her once

as she walked out of the walk-in

freezer wearing the dried sweat

of every clerk since 1920

who had donned the community parka

to uncrate the ice cream

and said, "Nice negligee."

No summer shift manager

has ever needed delivery more,

walking home to her mother's house,

his Coca-Cola eyes in her sight,

Jazz Age perspiration hanging

like a Billie Holiday song

on her shining, tired skin.

### Twilight

Bat at my head,

I don't care if the tangling in the hair thing

is a myth,

I believe it,

I believe it

with my skin,

with the back of my neck,

with my soul,

that your sonar

is on the fritz,

that the frizz of my hair

has crossed

from annoying

to perilous

and that once we are

enmeshed, frantic,

your needle teeth

will inject me

with whatever the cave

has bred

as I fly blind

across the field

from this day,

when my mother

has died,

to the next,

when we take up

the heavy shovel

and heave clods

of earth

onto the box

we have put her in.

### Mother Earth, South Carolina

August, and the house shifts, a pediment drops to the pavement,

and we bring the baby home from the hospital

to rock in the craterlet the earth has carved for her.

A different August, 1886, landslide on the Ashley River.

Walls failed and fell, fissures birthed new meanings of the earth.

We tell ourselves we are rocks, but all that means

is we respond to stress by breaking apart.

I split like rock to bring you, my earthenware,

Earth-wary, to a place of rending and liquefaction:

One thing melts into a mother.

Charleston felt aftershocks for thirty-five years.

Any mother could have told them to expect that.

Eva Heisler

### The Olden Days

1.

As soon as I turn off the light,

questions tumble

out of my four year-old daughter.

"What do dragons eat?"

"Can God ride a bicycle?"

I am tired and facing essays to grade,

last minute laundry,

a letter demanding immediate reply . . .

I am not quick to answer

and Zoe fills each pause

with another question.

"Where was I when you were a little girl?"

Each question delays my departure

and darkness.

"Why isn't it the olden days anymore?"

But it _is_ the olden days, I want to say.

At this very moment

we are on a journey

you will recount one night to your little girl.

Pay attention. Notice the light,

the shadows on your ceiling, my face—

remember

the face of your thirty-four-year-old mother;

one day you may long for these details

as I may long

for this distraction and exhaustion.

But instead I mutter "I don't know"

and insist on silence and sleep.

Ask me tomorrow, I say. I promise

answers by morning. "But, Mama,"

my daughter wails as I slip from the room.

"In the morning I forget my questions."

2.

In the dim light and chill of early morning,

I gather papers and books

while keeping an eye on the oatmeal

and reminding my daughter to get dressed

and, yes, she must go to school

and, no, she can't wear the purple dress

for the third day in a row. And stop asking

because I will not buy Barbie cereal.

Sprawled on the floor

with panties on her head and socks on her hands,

my daughter holds one of my textbooks

upside down, pretending to read.

"Little Miss Muffet sat on a muffin,

eating

her

corduroy . . ."

I pull from Zoe's hands _The Rise of Puritanism_.

How many times must I ask you to dress,

I say. And no,

I haven't seen the purple dress.

My daughter turns her back to me

and picks up a magazine. "With one mighty shove,"

she reads, "Gretel kicked the wicked witch

headfirst into the oven."

That's it. I snatch

_The New Yorker_ out of her hands.

I'm taking you to school

with panties on your head.

My daughter, reaching for the black pants

I dangle in front of her,

mutters under her breath,

"You are a wicked woman." Slowly

she dresses—taking breaks

to also dress

her Cinderella paper dolls

scattered across the floor.

The stepmother paper doll,

with pointy shoes and grim expression,

wears my favorite colors (burgundy and gray),

and although my hair is not gray, I realize

that mine this morning

is pushed into a bun

not unlike that of the stepmother.

I am old and mean

and have no sympathy for Cinderella.

"Don't forget to brush your hair,"

I say. All that polishing

and sweeping

taught Cinderella to take care of herself.

"When I have a little girl,"

my daughter informs me,

"I will take her to meetings

and to classes and out to lunch

and to toy stores. I will take her everywhere."

I never intended to be the wicked stepmother.

Really, it's easier for me

if she eats jelly beans for breakfast

and it's less laundry

if she wears the same purple dress

to school and to bed . . .

But I am under a spell,

compelled to feed my daughter (burned) oatmeal

and in a rage

to hide the purple dress.

I open my arms

and in them are ugly shoes

and sour apples. Eat, my pretty;

this will make you grow

up and away.

As I stand at the backdoor,

muttering to myself

and making last minute changes

on an article due the day before,

my daughter (hair brushed

and decorated with a dozen barrettes)

tiptoes to me and lifts my shirt.

With her head, she nudges at my belly.

"Nibble, nibble, gnaw," she whispers.

"You are my gingerbread house."

Stephanie Rose Adams

### Encounter

To live indeed is to be again our selves

—Sir Thomas Browne

I did my best to cheat the windows

in that plaque of hours just before my turn,

seeing round eye flit and glare through the starry knit,

not starlike but with a thick, opposing absence.

Thin as thread in a grey

bulk of body, I sang myself

a cradle song to float me through the hours:

I believe, I do believe

this is how the child dies

in us: turning colors like the leaves,

a red confetti to deceive us.

And finally tucked into the mouths

of loam it leaves us—to an empty house.

Listen for it:

I remember the hammer

falling in the kitchen.

Then beak and eye and a red surgeon's glove:

a rude reaching into body

and tearing out that threshold

I hadn't meant to lose—

coming at me with its red head raw

like a turkey vulture—

A schism.

Then my molted faces hinged back

into the jambs and the sunk spurs

pulled away, so I was human.

And the injury transmuted

to a faint ache in the skull.

Sparks drew the table-flowers down

into the candles

and the borders darkened:

I awoke to the dining room,

dressed, fed, hands occupied with mail.

I awoke to myself bereft

of waking, still missing the

beady hour of birth.

My chores doubled and balked

in domestic circuits; I sang a song

to the sink:

Life is a movement toward arrangement of a scene.

A red cloth. An apple. A cut stem

for the vase. For the knock at the door,

for the knock at the door.

There comes a time

when one gives herself completely

to the black-soaked cosmos

and so I stood still

in the room,

emptied of spirit,

for I had given it all away:

even the table was set with blank circles:

not like moons

but the absence of moons:

It was a Tuesday—

I walked heavy with its collar at my neck

to the window.

Here I am to be seen

in a yellow gown thickened to the skin,

carrying death, it seems.

Roses at the knees.

Like coming from a bath

to the mirror, I sensed the whiteness of steam

and a gathered heat:

Stalled things snapped from their bases

spindrift and open; I could smell

the brute perfume of—

O something else beside me

in the surge: her rising

throat in my throat, her fulvous lights

so much like Autumn (all of it,

the black slick rot of it, the whole sleet road

after rain, boot-soft, the breeze and crimson

sheafs of it) and her haunching out of fog:

_what thing_

—as with a horse's bludgeoning thighs

and rippling with bloom, I could do nothing

but stand beside the bust of gates

and see how the wind itself tore like a soft lizard's egg:

_what thing_

_art thou?_

what eyeless head

with gazes of the past all about it like light,

pushed out

with beady look and smell of

my own flesh, for I'd carried and carried it—

then there was the privacy of stone.

Between us:

a mineral crush, and heat,

an eon like a slow breath

circled our meeting and I bowed to it,

and she bowed to nothing and was the plain

ecstasy of being, ever,

and after—

I could smell the turned earth

in my hands, and for this

I could not, not ever, diminish.

### Bury My Hands in the Earth

First the thing and then its accidents

The brood conjuring of walking

into the lord's tower

A constellate purr of part against part

humming down the

earth-hacked way unborn

And scuff of wings

in the rough-hewn walls

The future passage

like a widow's eye rolling back light

down the tunnel—

Lost-one,

do you think you enter the dark?

You will bear it yourself

with the blindness of hands

to your dusky head for opening:

Split the thousand grains of self

Turn out the thorax

her multiple honeyed cores

and look again:

from the fracturing _eye_

which tessellates to _eyes_

and proliferates further

out from that dimension

to the eyeless spaceless

cramp of yearning

and opens further

beyond telling

And look:

how the round planet will suddenly open

her nearness, within you:

What shook magnet will shoot up the shafts

and gravity's hands

to root between the loose chunk loam

of your pieces, saying:

_stay, stay_

sparing you whole in a buzzing sack

of song:

The strains breaking weave against the wing

—to say _chrysalid_

The pupils strung to leonids

—to say _swarm_

And deep tremors of a skull

so given to god

—to say _sting_

### The Women

Just as the women had warned,

I had seen phantoms in the gardens

after wearing the tears of a dog.

Baptized twice in half-caste doberman illness,

around me the temple dusts glittered

on the lost remains of small and extinguished desires,

such objects spat with gums and slag.

My eyes lifted to a shroud suspended on high wire—

it took on suddenly the tic and fit of struggle,

took on damage and discolor,

calling to me only in its highness,

reach beyond the range of arms,

a moan hectares in length.

Then too, in dense brume of anesthesia,

there was one who rose in sheets

and spoke the dreams of Gaia,

making worm-holes through the fibers.

The earth bucked beneath the night, as sung:

The wailing one walked from one shook fountain to the next.

### In Delhi or in Marrow

You are standing upright in sixteen atmospheres.

Otherwise, there is merely the light

which crumples that darkness down to your feet.

Once, your body was in savage hands, unworshipped.

Though lately it's a boulder, geodic and poised

over the tiny carapaces of six dwindling men—

The searing presence of your planet.

It matters little who was witness and who was not.

I myself was not there, in Delhi,

and yet you've reached your hands through the fabrics and

lifted the dams to make me see you:

In that hour of suffering

your continents groaned; their plates crushed the minutes

and folded their blood away; their stars revolved

like a constellation at the tops of our skulls.

The violet burn of everything touching everything else.

Such figures of the night, such difficult reading.

Can you know how much I carry you?

You are past knowing.

I've carried you straight out from the story.

Now I keep you like I keep my bones.

### A Mirror to See Me

Here is me.

A pearl

oblong blur, hung on a silver dish.

What are you, me,

if not the viridian, nether,

a swimminghole—

(a vapor that

collects in emptiness)

•

Light is sliding on a surface.

What is wavering in and out of time,

is it me?

Is it

a white chester drawer:

between scarves and folds

is my past

and several more besides:

our histories coil

and bite savagely at their tails

•

tight behind that symmetry

of doll form: rouge

egyptian eye, spice, demure—

•

How the borders seem

to cry

And yearning for a snap of husk:

My print-dress

muddied with the animal

synod of my ecstatic family,

is to be burned

for warmth.

•

O release

this tesserae of stinging blooms,

anemone, these mollusk arms of me,

shapes like nothing

you or I have ever known:

I am not ever what I am.

Should I be me,

I'll take the ocean for my looking-glass.

Jill Kelly

### Five Encounters

Sister traveler

Second leg back from Nashville

I took the aisle next to a thin blonde my age

With a bad haircut and the reedy bones

Of nicotine and diet soda

The ancient creature at the window

Her mother moving up from Phoenix

To live with her, she said,

And the hate that pursed the daughter's mouth

In resignation seemed as old as the Bible

And I wondered what their story was

What love withheld, what anger nurtured

In the decades between them

And I thought of my mom and all that never healed

And how I was spared the daily grate on nerve

And the need to wring out six more drops of patience

To weather the decline of a woman I'd loved too much

And tried hard to set aside

I rather liked the old bird at the window

Who helped herself to Cheetos from the daughter's tray

Who watched the clouds and showed us scraps

Of balled-up tissues that carried some deeper meaning

She seemed all there, and perhaps that was the problem

"All there" can still mean not enough or maybe

Just enough to keep alive those ancient hurts that cling to us

That wring out all our tenderness for those we would most like to love

But cannot bring ourselves to cherish even as they fade.

Garage picnic

Driving home from the beach on Monday

I find remains of a picnic in my garage

Two coke cups, an empty sushi tray

And a thin green box that housed

One pair of handcuffs $4.99

The sushi was from Safeway

But I don't know if they carry handcuffs

If there's a display next to the pickles

Or down by the granola bars

It's rained a lot this winter and I'm

Not surprised when I find wrappers

Where someone's sheltered

From the rain, smoked, had a beer

Some Vietnam vet, some schizophrenic

Dumped on the streets by an indifferent system

Who trundles down my street seeking bottles and

Cans and a bit of dry now and then

But the handcuffs are a puzzle

Common enough in a police state like ours

But usually on the other side of the law

And there's no place for kinky sex in my Spartan

Garage, though now that I think of it

There are two hooks in the wall

Where the ancient ladder hangs

From the rough concrete but the ladder

Holds its tongue when I ask

And I'm left wondering what you'd handcuff

To a shopping cart

Coffee with Einstein

27 or 28 he was, impossibly young

Spiffed up in his dress whites

Or so I imagine from the photos

He left of that life.

On coffee breaks my dad would sit

At a big table with a genius 30 years his senior

And talk about life.

"Ordinary things really," he said

About coffee with Einstein

"A very nice man and kind to all of us

A regular guy, you know?"

My father didn't see combat

Didn't travel overseas, didn't kill anyone that I know of.

Basic training in the wake of Pearl Harbor

And a quick wedding

Then stationed at Cape May.

What my father did there he never said

Ordinary things I expect

Only the Einstein connection of any note

Oh, and the death of his second child,

Who went for a nap and never woke up

A sadly ordinary thing to happen to

A very nice man and kind to all of us

A regular guy, you know?

Staying out of it

"Don't let me order a drink"

The woman says to the girl between us

"I'm on medication for panic

And I can't have alcohol"

But when the cart reaches us

And we've learned more than we need to know about her fears

She orders double vodka with orange juice

Hands the girl between us a zipper bag

And asks for two Oxycontin

In a voice laced with Atlanta helplessness

What's the girl to do

The woman has 30 years on her

And the girl has Asian obedience written in the

Bowing of her head and the neatness of her jeans

It's a long flight and when the cart comes around again

The woman orders more vodka and hands the girl the bag

And asks for two of the little blue ones

Her makeup is impeccable for all this and her clothes expensive

The zipper bag holds a pharmacy of relief

And if it were mine, I wouldn't be handing it over

To a stranger but it isn't mine and neither is the vodka

And I am both relieved and envious

It's a long flight and she starts in again

I want to ignore all this

I want the girl to say no but I know she can't

So I get up and speak to the flight attendant

Who speaks to the girl

Who puts in earphones and buries herself

In her Kindle and the addict in the window seat

Finds the call button all by herself

But the attendant doesn't come

And she rummages in the zipper bag herself and

Whatever she takes then does the trick

And puts her out of our misery

And I think of flights years ago

When I needed a bourbon chaser for my own demons

And I don't envy whoever is meeting this woman in Portland

We all know where we were, that first one

Third period Latin II

Dorothy West, her suit as grey as her hair,

Her hand on the blackboard

Principal Curtis stopping her in mid-correction

He's been shot

He's dead

Until that moment, it had all been in play

The gunfire we knew

Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Dragnet

We loved that it was fake, harmless

We hadn't yet sent our boyfriends and brothers to die in the jungle

We were in love with the Once and Future King

And his model-perfect wife

Who had replaced Grandma and Grandpa in the White House

We didn't yet know that the grassy knoll and whispered conspiracy

Would change the world faster than we could imagine

That this was the first of too many

That the weight of them all would push us

Into protest and rebellion and open up

A gulf and a war between us and our parents

Between those who wanted the old world

And those impatient for the new

After that Latin class they came so fast

MLK, Malcolm X, Bobby, Ohio State

That we didn't register our surroundings anymore

When the news came or the body count rose

Or the atrocities deepened

I guess we each only get one first time

It's not the same after that

Ben Bever

### Carrion

Something holy about ravens,

a corpse in a meadow.

The doe had been shot, I think,

and staggered here to die,

blood rusted to her fur.

It had not been long,

her bones still held meat

untouched by the congregation.

They clung to her like God,

talons tore the sacrament

from her in zealous gluttony,

heads bobbed to heaven,

swallowing her down.

I went to touch the cold, flapping flesh,

probe the gaping socket with a finger

expecting who knows what—

some revelation, perhaps

an electric shudder.

They flew away when I approached,

a flapping, cawing exodus on night dark wings,

a glistening eye clenched in one beak,

the nerves still dangling out the back.

### Inmate #460908

knowing this meal would be his last,

awaiting the lethal release,

ordered, for his final repast

Justice, Equality, World Peace.

By all accounts, a strange request:

how do you cook a meal like that?

Was this some form of weird protest?

How did equality taste flat

on his tongue—bitter and cold

as fingers of gin? Is justice

like barbecue—smoky and bold

home cooked, fall-off-the-bone bliss?

Why would a man who rapes and steals

want a final dinner of ideals?

### Mouse

My father, in the 5 a.m. darkness

puts his hand into the kitchen sink

still filled with water and dirty dishes.

floating among the bubbles and cold grease

his hand closes on the water-logged corpse

of a drowned mouse.

To his credit, he kept a level head

carried the body into the yard

and threw it from the porch into the snow.

What he was trying to find that morning

or why he was even awake so early

I never thought to ask.

### Air Burial

Tibet

The old man finally

died last night.

I got the call this morning

from one of his disciples.

The ground is too hard for digging,

wood too precious

to waste in a pyre.

They will bury him in sky.

The monks burn incense and offer

prayers as I set out my knives

and tie my leather apron.

The birds jockey for position

their monstrous wings

beating the air and each other,

their beaks and screams

mingling with the prayers.

Red-bearded lammergeiers

and cruel-taloned griffon vultures

have gathered already,

waiting for the feast to come.

I lift the cleaver and begin

my work. It is unpleasant

and I am glad for the whiskey

I drank before I started.

I remove the limbs first,

split at the elbows and knees.

The blood is thick and

already clotting.

The head comes next—

It is easier now, to work with

just a torso—I can trick myself

into believing it is a pig.

I slice the belly,

remove the entrails, liver, kidneys

and offer them to the greedy birds,

their beaks already caked

from picking at the old man's

arms, legs, and face.

The eyes are always the first to go.

The fingers swallowed bones and all.

A squabble breaks out over the liver,

drowning out the monks.

It is torn in two and shared

as I pry open the rib cage.

When they have eaten their fill,

I will take what is left

and grind it mixed with barley,

to feed the smaller birds.

After this, there will be

only three things

that remain of the old man:

memories of him,

which will one day

be carried to the sky

with those who hold them;

pride in a job well done,

the carrion-eaters fed,

a vigil completed,

good karma for us all;

and the third thing—

a stain on the rocks,

to be washed away

with the rain.

### My Grandfather's Shoes

At midnight, my father

made pancakes shaped like our grief,

coated in Mrs. Butterworth's

I'd bought from the 7-11

I passed on my way over.

There were no words between us.

Later, after the funeral,

Nana cleared out the basement

and gave me his last pair

of hiking shoes, barely worn

since he'd given up

the Appalachian Trail.

To think they would fit was sacrilege,

but they did. He had always been

a weathered mountain of a man,

even after the cancer;

stubborn as a rusted door-hinge,

though never as loud.

I wore his shoes, hoping

they would grant me his strength,

but now they fray at the seams,

the soles wear out,

the laces unravel.

Michael Hugh Lythgoe

### Wounds In Spring

In the season of amputees,

we live with cut limbs,

axed to the crotch, nubs;

pruned to the knuckles.

Some arborists believe

it helps the myrtle trees

to flower and blossom back

brighter, fuller even.

It is spring now,

nearly Palm Sunday.

The wounds bother me.

In the north, the clear maple

sap is frozen, unable to bleed

out to buckets for syrup.

Here the dogwoods, pears

and cherry wear

new whites, pink; redbuds

renew in Lenten purple.

Judas tree.

Pollen comes alive—

even as the freshly wounded

suffer.

### Flotilla

Ebony birds float like ballerinas on pointe,

pirouettes; birds' arabesque necks are musical,

jet-wings, sculptures afloat, sable marble

moored near the shore line below Pike's Peak,

an onyx fleet, boats under raven sails;

charcoal swans link in a love-heart of mysterious

curves, cues, a vision of long low necks, a ritual

meant to seduce, a dipping synchronous

mirror image, cob and pen couple—feral,

ornamental, symbols of a perfect storm, disastrous;

black swans mean a surprise, the unexpected, unreal—

Sandy—black lacquer paddlers, black pearls

in a pitch pigment painting, reminiscent of a flotilla:

a wound blooms in London, a drift of open black umbrellas.

### Crooked

Some sink to their knees

for an inspiration to begin a poem—

says a bespectacled teacher

at the Culture Center.

Inspiration does not come.

You must beg for it. He advises

a student to study an apple. To really

know what an apple is, be interested.

To understand an apple, really see the fruit.

Imagine if the teacher substituted _woman_

or _life_ for _apple_.

The spinal column

is a tricky business

she says to me.

My hands apply pressure

to her shoulders; I massage

her neck, down her backbone.

She looks out the window

into the winter sun feeling

its way through breezy pines.

Do you see the tree, there?

Behind it something crosses

the trunk, reminds her

of a crucifix. It is a dark line of mulch

at the edge of a green space.

I recall the paintings in the Cafe

Monet where we ate brunch

last Sunday: spare works, a series

in thick oils, umber, whites, black, maroons.

One canvas reminded me of the Eastern Rite,

Greek Orthodox crosses—

crossbars aslant—

crooked figures in slant light.

### Small Gods & Heroes

(after Ed Smith, Sculptor)

Each anatomy is incomplete: a beggar,

a wounded warrior, a speared hand,

severed, Perseus, Hercules. The artist

sculpts his gods & heroes small,

forms wax molds, leaves pinch marks,

fingerprints, pours molten metal

into hollow shells, forms bodies.

But these bronze figures are not whole,

still they convey neuroaesthetics.

We learn to feel the hurt of Hercules' labors;

Samson weak, shorn, blunt trunk;

Sebastian stung by arrows, flesh cut.

Greek antiquities—incomplete human

shapes—mythical Medusa—what it means

to imagine ideals, glorious serpentine

long hair, to perceive suffering shapes,

a torso polished shiny in spots, indented

with shadows, stripped, a bronze Christ,

fractured, next to a column in a palace.

Mercury—no arms, headless, leaning—

ready to leave the ground with a wing

on his right heel.

### March Voyeur

On a morning with two discordant crows

encamped on the roof's peak, I believe

in afternoons. At sixteen hundred hours

a school-pencil yellow bus

brings the neighbor's children home

as regular as the tides.

From my window looking east

I see the sun climb a little higher each hour.

Clocks will leap forward this week;

leaves are late. Winter scene

is still cleared out, thin.

In the afternoon hour a sun-bright bus

is a gift—like the single daffodil

found on my walk amid green stems

yesterday. The light shines brighter

on magnolia leaves, the brightest

green in the copse of trees I view.

Spring will fill in the patch of woods

within weeks so it will be harder to see

through to where the afternoon school bus

leaves a lemon brush stroke, van Gogh-like,

along the horizontal base of a landscape.

Arlene Zide

### My Claim to Fame

My claim to fame— I had breakfast with him

and his second wife

now replaced by another

blond young thing.

Pancakes and coffee

fragrant as the songbird morning

of his words.

Once, He sat on my couch, the other poet

spoke

(between the Boursin-spread cracker mouthfuls and the sips of wine)

of how women's poetry just wasn't

strong enough

didn't make "statements". His own whining,

drumbeating body-painting

male-

bonding ceremonies in the woods

notwithstanding.

The Nobel prize-winner too

came to dinner once,

his childhood rape

sticky fly-feet stuck in memory, but

never grew wings on any of the women in his novels,

made their lives

real.

I need

today

to ward away

such memories, unseat

them, send them off in their fur-lined coats

into the snowy night. I need

to write

my own mornings,

the hot sweet coffee, crumbling rolls,

the frantic flying cockroaches and smashed dishes of

a Bronx back kitchen.

I want to watch our breath float again in the winter air

while we sing wild choruses, sailing to Bear Mountain,

standing room only at the opera, love affairs with tall hard men, flying

across the mountains of Afghanistan

to land in a village in the tribal wilds of India

surely

must count for something—

my words

my claim

to fame.

### Sons

in memory of Loraine and for Heather

The eldest daughter

lay herself down along her now-dead mother

old arguments forgotten, put

aside, her sad self

at the fore, her life

a riddle, still.

While all around her brothers squabbled,

ordered, scoffed and simmered

all around,

gave orders to their sisters, to each other,

unable to offer solace

to their living mother or

now, any sister, or

themselves.

Kept muttering

about wills, and houses ,

paintings, books, and trinkets

while scolding

sisters, one as always, silent,

one still sobbing in her mother's hair.

In my hospital room

my son, too full of pain, perhaps,

sat , never noticing the built-in window-bed for family,

(complaining later to me of how long

he had to wait for me to breathe,

to wake.)

He sat

in corridors, in anguish

in indelible childhood memory

when his mother screamed

and ranted, picked her way around from wall to leaning wall

while his father, interminable wordsmith

had no words

no arms to comfort or console,

no concern but for his

having to suffer more

by watching

his wife suffer.

Remembering perhaps

his doctor father always having time

to tend to others, his kind words

for others.

(He too complained

to a limp form of me in a different

hospital bed, arms strung with tubes

and piping, and fear.)

Perhaps fear

is what's at the heart of it.

Sons can't

fear, can't

show lack of control,

or make sense

of the senseless.

Daughters

sit,

quietly

lie

quietly,

close by

face in her disheveled hair

to better hear

even a whispered word.

### Don't Get Too Comfortable

Don't get too comfortable. You won't be here forever. Don't go and unpack all of your rickrack undies. This is just a way station. You are in a shabby limbo.

Soon the trials will get started. Every day they'll question you. You will question yourself every day, every hour.

At first, as usual, the birds will whistle and sing in the early mornings; then they'll start flying off, to the South, to the North. To those places you've not even seen in your dreams.

Once, perhaps in a dream, you will be that bird. Soaring, over green fields to a distant hill, you will own the meadows.

But, don't get too comfortable. This is just a way station.

You won't be here tomorrow.

Harry Bauld

### Myopia and the Sick Child

Out the window's unground lens clouds flee

my son's fever across a breadth

of Bronx, where sough and whimper

drive heat on. This El Greco sky can't be escaping

a whole borough that fast, such mad ploughing.

How can I be anyone's father?

All I would need to halt the day

in its tracks, its element, its fit: a little vision.

These are my glasses at hand,

and here is the world to weather.

I should put them together

to catch this white scuttle and revelation,

the science of one last chance. But I don't want

to recognize anything anymore,

rather pray (if this be prayer) without mark,

spot, puncture, like bristles of an astigmatic painter

caressing the flames of his own seraphim.

### Square One

I would like to let everything

of love alone. Morning's dog

keeps up its bark, and I can't remember

when I lost track of you.

My physics stops at petal's end

of a flower I can't reach—I have no

need there—only not to choke

on every word: mass, force, attraction.

What keeps me going—somewhere

a nun touches herself to god.

The Greeks had no different word

for yellow and green, a spectrum to believe in

where nobody knows any longer

the burning sun from anyone else's moon.

### Matins

If I say _love_ it will crack

my teeth and I am already bone

in need of graft. Mornings fall

from opened doors and small birds

persist like a torn corner of moon

restored in the last scrap of night, the page

I couldn't read through

the razz of migraine,

an acre of dictation I shiver to take

from the car, the shower, the footstep

that starts the lists no one can finish.

In an orbit of larks I am sparrow pretender

in the chorus, a silent mouth moving,

makeshift hymn of shutting up and down.

### Profit

Basquiat, 1982

In the tic tac toe of this space, what year will it be

When time arrows itself into your late rally?

One blue hole in the punctured ozone of downtown

Is all the sky you get in this economy.

Eenie meenie miney moe, catch a market by the toe,

Out goes you and your bloody trellis of halo.

Tomorrow avoids your blackboard, mad matrix

Of debt figured in the subway's antipodes.

This scream through the drain of teeth

We've heard before in a major, northern key.

Chase it, get it, spend it, because you know

Something's running you down, something's coming;

Even if you don't know what it is, you've seen

Its panicked fingers bony in their bright ecstasy

Erected into all the light left. You know

The position; now turn it to your own ends.

### Queer Street

Boxer, Basquiat

what stories

he told with his hands

in the right he had romances

in the left soldier's memories

—Zbigniew Herbert

Out of the zoo

of white fears are these

raised hands a _no mas_ of surrender

or kong roar of victory

raging bull horns that have swallowed

the four-elbowed tenements of the Bronx

all torso and neckless

as a cartoon heavyweight

or black savior painted into a corner

stretched in the squared ring

against our sins

nails in the gloves

(the fix is in)

for hooks to lead us on

and crosses doubled and nailed—

are we flat on our backs

on the white canvas

blood pooling as the count

goes on above

arms and hairy fists pinned and fallen

or on our feet

in the trance of queer street

our permanent address

in these late rounds

where the legs are gone

and we're out on our feet,

the heart alive and dead at once.

Lisa Zerkle

### Bubble

Our billions begin

as cell knit to cell.

We're always

shifting

to something

else. A stacking

of cosmic bricks.

Ancient shells

over time

become limestone.

This graphite

scratching words

at the tip

of a pencil.

This diamond

for the bride.

Atoms

come together

to be stable. How

do you name

their need

to settle? They level

like clouds

spark to ground,

like lungs release

breath. We're

half carbon,

the stuff

that straps together

the universe.

Vigor or structure

in every living

thing. We're

buttoned one

to one, all bound

to earth. Energy

can't be made

or destroyed, only

changed, one form

to another. Leaves

part from trees,

molder into dirt,

rise again to leach

sugar from sunlight.

Without breath,

we'll burst

into leaf, once

unleashed

from this bone

and flesh.

### The Definition of Friction

Two bodies so close. To move, one body

must overcome inertia. It's easier to keep

still. A force resists. A daughter

leaves her mother. She packs

a small shoebox full of clean

underwear, stomps her way to the top

of the street before returning. A few years later

the daughter runs to the woods, stays

until a thorn pierces the bare arch

of her foot. It's the constant battle

with momentum. Once bodies move,

they tend to keep on

going. Slide a key across a table, friction

stops it. Maybe the key to the house. Maybe

the key to the car. Bonds form, heat

releases. The afterglow

of an open hand, its imprint rising

on her face. Look closely

at a surface that appears even—

it's rough, pocked with microscopic

hills and valleys. Tires slap against blacktop,

the rougher the surface the more the friction.

A physicist says someday

our levitating cars will zip

from coast to coast by little more

than a touch. How much will be enough?

The touch of a mother's lips brushing

her baby's dreaming eyelids? A balled

fist, breath released from a sigh? For now,

it takes gallons of gas

to get the hell out, to escape

the pull of air, of wheels on the road.

### Delmonico's, At the Turn

Bernhardt orders bisque. She really wants

a nod from Tesla, the fair-eyed inventor

just back from Paris. It's hopeless,

he's given up sex for science. Not

to mention his aversion to germs, ladies' curls,

pearls. Each night before he dines, he shines

the already spotless knives with spotless linens.

In the satin-lined dining room, fellow patrons

choose alligator pears from Peru, steak Hamburg,

pommes frites. Mirrored walls reflect kidskin gloves,

lavish plumes, and the silver chandeliers' new wattage

gleaming gold on mahogany. Over Maryland terrapin,

Twain tells how in Tesla's lab he was electrified, hair

a shaggy nimbus, fingers tingling. _New energy!_ he extolls,

predicting Tesla's patent will be the most valuable since

the telephone. After supper, they'll stroll one by one

through the garden at Madison Square, soft leather shoes

leaving impressions in the gravel paths. But now

Astor and Vanderbilt polish off the Baked Alaska.

The _New Century_ editor takes note. Bernhardt

bats her eyes over a cold bowl.

### Dynamo

An inventor's job is to lay the foundation for those who are to come and point the way.

—Nikola Tesla

Given to visions, Tesla

has seen the air around him

filled with tongues of living

_flame._ Accosted by the ticking

of a watch, the dull thud of a fly

alighting, it's hard to still

his thoughts. He walks, as a friend

suggests. Fresh air. The riverside

park in Budapest. The February sun

wheels towards horizon, setting

the Danube aflame. As the sun slides

to light another sky, Tesla lifts his arms,

quotes Faust to his friend, _The glow_

_retreats, done is the day of toil_. In a flash

he sees a wheel of power. One

current fades, another blooms.

A dynamic orbit, an endless loop

of energy. Grabbing a stick, Tesla

sketches in the sand, this, his perfect

motor. _No more will men be slaves_

to hard tasks. My motor will set them free.

_(_ Oh Tesla, this success will leave you

penniless, without love or family.)

Soon, he'll make his debut

at the Chicago World's Fair—energy

passing through his body until his suit

seems _to emit fine glimmers or halos_

_of splintered light_. How his mind,

his brilliance, shines.

Peter Mishler

### Film School

They were lost in the raw footage:

among the boy-fishermen

we could barely see for the trees,

the shining lake, the sand-woods

that appear on the roadsides ten miles

from the shore—those empty pools

I wanted most were gone.

And now I'm waking up in early April

seeing what I thought you'd shot,

watching from behind the fence

as you climbed onto the private grounds

to crouch there—camera held

to your face—when cameras

were large enough to brush

your lips against. You whispered

to each other, Here's a place

on which we both agree.

The yellowing calisthenics field,

the drained Olympic pool—white

at the bottom, not the hospital-blue

I would have guessed—blackened leaves

and summer hair swept to its corners.

I can climb to face you now—

leaning in, believing you'd pulled

the whole tableaux into the lens

the way a cloth is drawn into a fist

for magic. And I can take your hands away,

the way I would have never touched

your hands, lowering first from your face

the camera with the small, red light

we must have chosen to forget.

### Human Water

Childhood is a human water, a water

which comes out of the shadows.

—Gaston Bachelard

Boy beside

a rain-barrel

curling his hand

over its edge—

his fingers yellow

in the roof-dark water

he can't see.

He places on its surface

a branch of holly

from the yard

and its reflection

breaks his own.

I'm remembering

and misremembering

and stepping through

a public field.

I am alone,

so there are three of us:

within my body,

there is also me,

but more corrective,

age-rings in my eyes,

coming down

from the house

to stay him, shouting:

what did I tell you

about playing

with visions

by the water

when I'm not watching?

His small hand

holds a wasp, a lamp,

a deer, a field,

a wall, a flame

calling for anything

he names

to be lifted over

the barrel's edge.

The field

we step through

almost cries

within its early

fallen leaves,

to let itself be known

against our feet,

and we are overwhelmed

to know it.

We walk

beneath its trees

as when I crossed into

an August evening

with my friends,

and saw their bathtub

in the yard, and listened

to their bathtub joke—

I was in love with them,

and didn't speak,

and there was one of me,

and it was empty.

### Stop Thinking

### And Eat Something

A cinematic eye

I should no longer trust

follows a waitress

in blue;

and the neon

gem's light

is blinking outside

at no traffic,

and blinks

on the surfaces

of her shoes.

A framed poster

gathers the heroes

and villains

of the Marvel

Universe:

they stare out

with vengeance

onto empty booths.

Elsewhere,

my child-life

is shaking its wings

at the curb,

then rises

into a late summer heat

toward the gray

monoliths

of the mall.

I must try

to pull back

from this whole

cosmology;

but then,

I am recognized—

this blue tray coming:

meatloaf

on Wonder Bread;

gravy and mashed,

green parsley atop

a thin nick of orange,

and a strawberry

milkshake:

thousands

of ice shards

climbing the sides

of its glass.

### Verduria

New trash left

in the spring mud:

honeybun wrappers

gifted by

the season's

teenage lovers

who earn

their paramours

running each other

down and away

from school

on wet pavement.

Their litter's

nutritional information

is still intact—

you can rejoin it

with your hands.

I want to reconnect

the Red Lake 40

and swim in it

under the stars.

### Mouth to Cartridge

The 8-bit melody of an open-world game,

when submerged in his dream, takes the form

of real language once the boy is awake.

Its haunting and tinny redundancy binds

with the words and phrases of morning.

The screen-light, and its character—

who darts from task to task—are ripples now,

now that he's up and dressed as children

were once made to dress for the airlines.

He bikes to his swim-club and stands

on its diving-board, closed for the season.

Gathered leaves and dark green liquid

extracted from August pause in a corner

of the empty diving well. Snow

is beginning to rest on the light

shoulder-pads of his Sunday-school blazer

and onto its gilded buttons: their little anchors

exposed in relief. He knows there's nothing

below for him, but what better place

for a boy to seek when his game, its song

and its fever, are drowned in his head—

their maps and clues leading him here.

Tim Hawkins

### Letter to a Distant Friend

A sack of coffee freshly roasted,

socked away among a couple of loaves,

and on the stove a pan

ready for steaming milk;

not much else,

a bit of cheese, some drops of oil.

But to have this, the potential

for another few contented hours,

I'm beginning to understand

why you kept your things so closely guarded,

and why you lingered so

in the delight of preparation,

how folding socks was no chore

and tea could be made

only with your full attention,

how much you expressed

in the deliberate pauses we took for granted

as an excuse to smoke.

"I want to write . . . because I love making things,"

you admitted once, pausing to light another one

as we awaited the craft of your storytelling.

Forgive me for bumming smokes

and for asking:

Where is it?

What have you made?

At your leisure, when you are ready,

make me a poem of peach pie

or Hong Kong girls walking arm-in-arm

on a warm harbor night.

And after some reflection I will fix coffee,

taking in the full measure

with all deliberate haste.

### Just Now

Just now, after a day spent

retouching scarred decades

of scuff marks on a hardwood floor,

after a day spent repairing generations

of gouges inflicted on sturdy joists and beams

once hoisted on strong, nineteenth-century backs,

admiring, all the while, the legacy

of sound masonry and stately molding

wrought by precise and careful handiwork;

just now, taking a break

on a late afternoon in early summer,

I look out through the plate glass

of this centuries-old storefront

and witness the rarest and finest of showers:

a sun-dappled burst from nowhere

against a backdrop of robin-egg

blue and rose-colored sky.

Every age perfects its own handiwork

and leaves a masterpiece of flint, obsidian, stone

bronze, iron, marble

plutonium or silicon.

Nevertheless,

so much sudden, wanton, cruel

maddening beauty abounds,

that each generation runs out of time

before it can really even

begin to describe

a sun-dappled burst from nowhere

or the first blush of a maiden's cheek.

### Burn and Linger

I won't want any of this to be about me, per se.

In the beginning I'll want to just disappear

into another continent, into another culture,

to submerge myself into centuries of tradition

like fleets of ancestral fishermen crossing a treacherous reef.

But after a while, I suppose I'll also want to burn,

at least a little.

I'll want to smolder

like paper money stoked for the comfort of my ancestors,

like a waking god hoisted on the shoulders of my acolytes,

and to flow through the scene

like the smoke of joss sticks drifting from a temple,

like a flaming boat built solely for the burning.

And of course, after all is said and done,

I'll want to linger.

I'll want to remain like the scent of lemongrass

after you have walked a moonlit trail,

the shy water buffalo calf trailing after,

but not like the bone clattering of bamboo

announcing its exaggerated growth.

I'll long to awaken

on the temple steps at dawn,

with something plucked and desired

in hand.

A plum, perhaps

—delicious, dark and cool to the touch—

or something else that burns

and lingers through a ripe

and darkening age.

### The Eclipse

The early evening light leaves the room discreetly

as if a second skin is expected to arrive,

and a periodic rustling of air

slips through the beige curtain

to pass over the prone, naked body

like the inspired breath of lips.

When darkness finally settles in,

the ice in a glass has melted

and the liquid is warm as blood

where a ring has formed

on the dark, solid wood of the night table,

on which grows a faint scent like ferns

in the loam of the forest floor.

For a boundless, solitary moment, the body,

at perfect equipoise, without hunger or desire,

grows womblike within the desolate confines

of its hairless planes and slackening breath.

But before the darkness can even pass

there begin the first, faint, telltale stirrings

of the spirit, a desire to anthropomorphize

the motives of light and air

and a need to outlast and exhaust

the perfect moment,

a self-awareness provoked

perhaps, by the proximity

of blood and ferns,

a primal awakening inspired

and informed by

terror.

### Animal Planet

While we bow our heads to the ground

and our hearts seek meaning among the stars,

wild creatures assert their presence

in the here and now

and the just here and gone.

Unknowable in the way one speaks

of the alien and other-worldly,

the title to their kingdom is forged

in their absolute

manifestation of the flesh.

If this seems ironic and abstract,

then so be it.

For irony and abstraction

are our great gifts—

not to the world, but to ourselves—

invented for our survival.

And we, of course, are the real aliens;

Each a world unto one's own,

orbiting a sun of its own devising.

Marqus Bobesich

### the billow and the blast

that violent subway to your house—

its tin mermaids wailing and

singing us to the next stop

jostling our mouths, our hooves,

the milk of our collective brains.

we are a people tunneling hard,

(getting out of our own way, even)

with no time for all this

sentimental rock.

and what of the afterburn of paper and

hot trash, still floating in our tracks,

saluting us in jest

as we scream for more light,

for some ice hole of hope in

this subterranean mess.

### Ask me things

irretrievable, dynamite brain

an evening never goes the way you want it"

suppose we cheat the season

with our nervous

airline fuel.

cheat death, cheat altitude

through the heavy beast of a

window seat.

yell at the engines

(one, now two)

that we're strangers

still curious about the world.

but life had better be what they say;

we're seven times the target age

fighting the glare of the sun

fighting what photos can

do to us.

it's memories that fly this thing

not keeping us grounded

towels too hot (to face)

exfoliate

this skin, this bird

making good come from bad,

cups of tea from your bath water.

"if you want to sympathize, empathize, or

be near anyone's thighs

let's drop this nothingness

we've got going on, and aim for grace."

### Flora and fauna

Salesman says we'll lose the

war on bugs

that they outnumber us 5 million to one

with plenty more hatching as we speak—

in our heating ducts, our pillows,

the walls of our warm intestines.

underneath us all the time, like the

rats they ride like horses

waiting to roll our skulls across their

million backs, like buckets in a

fire brigade, like quarry slabs rolled out to

make the pyramids.

We've got to call up our guts,

confront those turtles and snails on

their own terms,

crunch them on their own crooked door stoops.

We have logic on our side

and those dumbstruck spiders who will never

learn to warn the others:

that a smooth-gloss bathtub is the

death of them, a purgatory,

a record needle gushing over the same

goddamn groove.

### upkeep

who do we thank for a 24-hour anything?

for a drugstore always standing guard,

its treasure box of lotions, potions,

and creams.

we feel cleaner even walking in,

comforted in our upkeep of the body,

its clues and answers stacked and

neatly labeled.

we've got a good feeling about this one;

that we're adding miles to our one and only life

that somewhere on these shelves we might

experience a greater joy,

a stronger one

(and faster)

what we would trade for an easier go,

for cravings gone mute,

for steps on a jeweled dance floor,

a lightness to this need that never sleeps.

Abigail Templeton-Greene

### The Moment Before

For Daniel

On the inside of the windshield

he saw their reflections

and the blur of a coyote

on the horizon.

He knew then

that time slows down

when you are airborne

as if you are about to throw

your first punch,

or lean in to kiss a girl.

Underneath the sound

of crunching were sixty

years of song, a hundred

prayers made of cloud and dirt.

He wondered about saguaro cactuses

would they grow through upholstery,

would planted shards of glass

grow taller than a Durango Ficus,

would his daughters come to this spot,

place a cross on the side of the freeway

and scratch his name

into earth?

### 2009 Subaru Legacy

after Patricia Smith

I was equipped for journey, although I did not mean to fly

or end up inside out, a shell of my own purpose.

I am sorry for the twisting

that I caused, for the pavement I could not reach.

Now I know more than the veins on a map.

I know the ditches that accompany freeways.

I know the meaning of these freckled roads

adorned with wooden crosses and Virgin Mary murals.

I never was a shield.

I am a mass of metal.

I saved all I could that day.

### Highway 15

I have always known blood. From Niño de Guzman to the steady chase of foyuca, heroin and marijuana. I am crammed with trucks, decorated with potholes, a black top scar that runs for 1,432 miles. When they speak of me they tell me what I'm not: undivided, unlighted, lacking shoulder. Without me it would all be bramble and naked desert hills. I connect Hermosillo to Guaymas, La Frontera to D.F. I am a prayer of convenience, un gracias, a whip of speed. I could tell you that I am cursed: shadowed by the Tropic of Cancer, littered with swollen dreams, haunted by promises of the undelivered. I toss and crumble. I shriek and slither. When the cars stack up I am silent, just a wail of wind on greedy, teethy track.

### What is Left:

The quota and the libre,

cactus needles begging,

mountains that make shadows

out of landscape, sunrays

that drag their nails

through the dirt.

Old sneaker that ran too slow,

vein of tire tracks

slashing the earth, dust settling,

prickly pear blooming,

bottles emptying.

Nowhere dogs

searching for shade,

a car radio that zigzags through air,

frigit birds swooping like angles of water,

bristles sticking,

wounds scabbing.

Stars that swallow sky,

scattered bits of glass,

teeth clenching the surface,

wind scraping window panes

in hopes of getting in,

in hopes of escaping this land

with the sleeves cut off,

this land that is a rumbling of trumpets

a lake of caskets:

cracked and slivered.

### Aftermath

When the jar of pasta sauce

hit linoleum floor,

it reminded her of windshield

with it's splintered hands

ripping through skin.

When the blood of tomatoes

flashed across her cupboards,

it reminded her of earth,

of desert floor reaching inside

what was meant to be out.

She wiped up pulp

with a bathroom towel.

There were stones left

in between her teeth

asking: where to put this mess?

She felt bits of glass twisting

in her left hand like a key

in a door that does not open.

The scar looked like a lifeline

of too many children. A phone rang.

She wondered if there was any reason

to fill air with verbs where there was only

room for scrap metal. "Do words penetrate wind?"

She would ask if she knew no one would respond,

if she was positive that time moved backward

and that she could cook a simple

pasta dish without freeways

slicing through her kitchen,

without this howling at her feet.

Eric Duenez

### Your Itinerary

1. Eke out an existence.

Begin by coaxing atoms into molecules into shapes into self.

Stay away from the abstract. By all means, a starfish (fig. 1).

God willing, a pug (fig. 2).

2. Gain a perspective.

To the north: you should see smoke _pillowing_ from the factories.

Do not be alarmed. This is progress. Your automobile,

should you choose to accept one, will garner a 5-star safety rating.

To the east: there's one now, a star, rising like a tiny fist to the top rail of a crib.

If it has the strength to pull itself into a position of standing, it will see

this is not a prison, but for its own protection. Dangers wait:

a spider's web, an electrical outlet, finding yourself within a figure-eight

with no means of slowing down (fig. 3).

To the west then: the wagons of pioneers are already setting out, searching

for a more pure north, a different east; but that east is here, you see. So

they have already begun to die, wilting beneath a too clear sky, fouling up

the too fresh air with their self-fulfilling decay, choosing now & again

to rest upon a cinder block overgrown with grass and twisted wire.

A heron sculpted from a shovel head and scrap iron.

And to the south: a marbled sea as beautiful as any spry young thing.

No—she's off limits. You see, it's toxic, but we're working around the clock

to make sure there will be fish or some passable imitation (figs. 4 & 5)

for your salad sandwich.

3. Pay it forward.

Operators are standing by, but due to heavy traffic expect long hold times.

We'd like to apologize for any inconvenience. We really would.

Please have your site ID ready. At least, there are so many things to see.

(Fig. 6) a factory fire. (Fig. 7) a salary man.

### Vicodin

From origin to each

local limit

on the x and z

and y axes,

what the living would refer to

as skin, so smooth and white

like a pristine porcelain

sink fixture

or an egg shell:

something could be or has been started here.

It feels like I'm walking on water.

It feels like I'm healing the sick.

There's a burning bush in my mouth

where my teeth used to be.

The lights with my eyes closed.

A golem for a tongue, a totem for a bone.

And so what if God is a fag?

I'll take my reach around.

You can't trust in Hollywood.

Our mouths grow out from our asses.

Here's your cup of coffee.

Here's your forty-three cents.

More. More. More.

### The Nature of the Beast

Even with its jaw un-

hinged, it seems impossible

that a python could swallow a six-

foot gator; but I've seen the evidence:

my hand two knuckles deep in the side of Christ—who, also, was tempted.

I will confess; I thought it was consensual:

the green hills, the white noise of the sea,

all that beyond breathalyzer machine.

_Here_ : a house.

What you have to understand . . .

on one hand, a dash cam;

on the other, Sleep Number Bed.

We're hardwired to open

our mouths, when our noses are pinched

(when our stomachs are punched).

The politest incursion:

I was serving (myself).

Just two kids and some cold beer:

I was protecting (myself).

You'll see: balloons will fall from the ceiling.

Our Host will explain everything after we cut to commercial & . . .

_come back_.

I've been piecing this together all my life.

The best defense is a seven-headed prosecution.

Her name will be changed to protect the dream.

Solar-powered floodlights along an s-curve to the front door.

Wildflowers herded into this alcohol-induced lullaby.

And everywhere you've found a scab and scratched,

we'll put another tiny, little, golden badge.

### Virgin Soil Epidemic

It's frightening how quickly the changes come.

Your skin—a storm window nailed shut for winter—opens.

The rolling brown outs. The fine print.

The doctor merely mentions a scalpel

and your heart balks. Your skin and pericardium

recede to their antediluvian levels.

There's a gap in the fossil record; it belonged to your teeth

before your teeth belonged to you. They will return there soon

with tales of spirant elements and religious ballyhoo.

A mantis perched upon a burning cigarette

goes through the motions of praying.

We're past the heat break now.

You can fold a piece of paper in half only so many times.

All the lingering furbelows on the periphery, glittering

things, diminish: the two car garage you meant to clean out

before summer, the six-pack abs, the sky,

and a photo album we put together, together,

but couldn't agree on how to remember best

the shared events, so we left it empty and blank.

But look out the window: the hummingbirds are back.

Eight months from now that will be all

you wish to remember anyway.

### Intervention: Your Malignancy

I am here today because I love you.

You have a disease and this is how it affects me.

We used to walk along the fence row, touching

everything, believing that with everything touched

molecules or at the very least electrons were being

shared, that somehow we were all in this together,

that even with just a fleeting touch our muscles

would develop memory. So, if one picked a flower—

say, that daisy—and put it behind another's ear,

this could be repeated over and over and with

every turn we'd be ever better. One morning,

you woke to find you could only turn left. Walking

in circles, your body was trying to unwind the clock:

stop the ticking and the cancer spits out healthy bone,

retreats back to its origin—some nothing, some

healthy cell with only an underhanded notion that

we pretend isn't inside of us all—as if the arrow

could leave its target and return to find the bowstring

taut. All this movement becomes only the potential

for actions yet to be realized.

I am here today, touching everything, believing.

Anne Graue

### The Rusty Buddha

On the barnyard grass,

camouflaged in its setting

of weeds and dirt, its metal tarnished

from weather, rain and sun washing

together, the hands hold

a string of beads and a flask, as the eyes

of the God stare into the distance.

I smell strawberry-rhubarb pie.

There is an apple tree growing rotten

apples hanging heavy in the air,

the branches bend with the weight. There

is a hint of spiceberry.

Buddha sits, stoic and understanding,

knowing more than I know, knowing

how to make strawberry-rhubarb pie,

transforming the rotten apple smell into the one

that used to waft from my Grandma's oven: the

crisp sugar on the brown crust

covered the sweet heat of strawberries.

Rhubarb adds pungency, and

brings me back to the scientific

Buddha, sitting

in the grass in front of the old

spicy brown barn, the dark molasses

of the outside walls holding the roof, but only

for one more season. Even Buddha won't be

able to stop it.

Night falls and here

I sit ogling the Buddha as if

it will give me some kind of sign,

something to go on

that will take me

out of myself.

There's a Van Morrison song playing in my head,

crooning, telling me

where the Buddha is, I know it,

where the spicy smell of apples sits

next to the strawberry-rhubarb pie.

The sweet & sour smells mingle

with the music, and the oxidized Buddha

waits for my prayer, but

I have none, nothing to pray for, only

that I could possibly be sent

back in time where I decided

not to go, but came here instead,

with the Buddha, the barnyard, the

apple tree rotting, the music & the sorrow

sinking down into my feet.

## Roots

The roots that I am digging

Are tough, pulling me in.

The earth smells so fertile;

It does not give them up so easily.

Tough, pulling me in,

The roots are like memories,

Not given up so easily;

They're unwilling to yield the answers.

The roots are like memories—

I have to pull on them hard.

They're unwilling to yield the answers,

Or anything that can help in this life.

I have to pull on them hard,

Through dirty gloves wearing thin.

Is there anything that can help in this life?

I'm still hoping that there is.

Through dirty gloves, wearing thin,

I feel sinews of memory tug.

I'm still hoping that there is

A piece of my heart at the end.

I feel sinews of memory tug

At all of the emotions inside me.

There's a piece of my heart at the end;

The roots are so deep in the earth.

With all of the emotions inside me,

The earth smells so fertile.

The roots are so deep in the earth,

The roots that I am digging.

### The End of My Life

The bees nearly took me with them.

They came from nowhere like water

trickling from a rusted faucet, too cold,

or from a pump, like the one attached

to the wooden floor in the back room

of my grandmother's house.

I would imagine

how far down the well was dug

beneath the graying floorboards;

I would step away

into the kitchen, safe.

Clouds and men were

gathering, circling, and

keeping me from my children.

They could not see

what I saw, the white wind

swirling near the stairs,

the wind I saw just as surely as I saw

the rain barrel behind my grand-

mother's house where I drank cold

black water from a rusted cup, dipped under

the disturbed surface, tasted metallic, and

wondered if everything would be okay.

### Morning

sunlight kissing the top

of the lilac

the dogwood

now sleeping in autumn

standing still

for the onslaught of winter

the waking to work

to good mornings and

breakfast and rushing

out of the house

the holding on to

images that last but

cannot last in this our

ephemeral way of life

the clinging to aphorisms

of the dead that

somehow

comfort us in our

living through each

day as it comes

crashing or seeping

or running us down

somehow we are comforted

knowing that we die

and are dying

every day in the tides

that ebb and crash,

standing until we cannot.

### Separation

The bones are separating from the skin

of an animal freshly found, after death,

with weather and cruelties surrounding and closing in.

Layers shred away with pain and a memory in

the recesses of the cavity left without a breath.

The bones are separating from the skin.

The moments of decay remember the nature of the sin

of moving closer and closer, approaching death;

with weather and cruelties surrounding and closing in.

I lean close again to see if I can win

a chance to alter the process of the vulture's breath;

but the bones are separating from the skin

of what I cannot define or, knowing, look within

to see if what is left is truly dead,

with weather and cruelties surrounding and closing in.

My mind is blank and racing above the skin

that melts and pushes its way to death.

The bones are separating from the skin,

with weather and cruelties surrounding and closing in.

Susan Laughter Meyers

### The Hairpin Speaks

I refuse to police the wind, though it pleases me

to ease through

the obedient traffic of shine.

A woman can seek to fasten

and still allow disarray. Say, the wisp at her brow.

True, I'm fond of curves that turn back

on themselves,

an undulant view.

Swept up

in my grasp, a woman's hair is her name.

See how it's written in cursive.

Indispensable?

I'm not that vain. Bent metal. Take a wire:

coat hanger, staple, paper clip.

Clever, yes. But if I'd meant

you harm, I'd have maimed and murdered centuries ago.

Well, there _was_ the long, efficient kansashi.

In those days if a woman unbundled her hair, beware

one's throat. Or any vital organ.

### Hammock, Rain

Not to be outdone, I stand in the living room—

this is after I lose my bicycle,

after I lose the boy who creeps me out with his stare—

and having no other recourse, I admit I am poor:

no ride, no love. The day is short of rain,

and I'm wishing for a nap in a hammock.

I know moves in a hammock

better than I know moves in the boiler room.

After all, consider the rain.

Lately my dream cycle

has become dimly existent, piss-poor.

My favorite pastime is to sit and stare.

It's like falling over a toy on the stair-

way, like being lost in a Florida hammock

and the sun beating through each pore.

On Tuesdays I quit sleeping in the guest bedroom,

quit riding my motorcycle—

too dangerous, especially in the rain.

So who cares whether it's going to rain?

I refuse to station myself at the window and stare

to see if the weather will cycle

to new weather. Some days the hammock

sways. Other days there is no room

in the ground for rain to pour

its apologies for drought onto the grass. Poor

rain, and all its regrets for being rain.

I retreat to the dining room

to watch the squirrels, who are too busy to stare.

My day has turned into an empty hammock.

The best memory is my old red tricycle.

I could sleep late on Wednesdays or cycle

my fantasies into a faster gear to pour

new life into my secret hammock.

By now I'm wishing for rain.

I don't care how many people stare.

It's my bathroom.

I shout, Give me room, people, to ride my unicycle.

Is it worth a stare, this hotdog lunch of the poor?

I am the hammock, you are the rain.

### Headlong Spell

Pelsified if not jibbed with anathema.

It balms the heart, how the river

birch skews and rusts any question.

But the ragweed caterpillar, when?

Blue leafstone trees a loud mercy.

My father housed such amble,

his days pinnate with inflorescence,

his nights a catechism of wood battles.

O pester the rain, pilfer my father's sky.

### My Nails Tap a Tabletop

They wear identical skirts

with white hems. They are bonnets without ribbons,

lost whalebones & ribs of miniature foxes.

I bunch my fingers & kiss the nails

like some good Italian. My old habit is to flick them,

one by one, against the thumb. Their duty is to give

the lover another place for lips, the new mother

a handful of tiny pink shells.

The longest one tends its proximity

to finger food & loves to ping the glass

glad with wine. An agile host, riding

a wave of goodbye moons. Easily broken

like a heart—quick to repair, unlike a heart.

When cold, blue as a plucked hen.

I once lost one,

that blackened curl of horn bone, that tough old goat.

It pinched & pinched until the end. Having shed it,

I didn't know myself, my toe a soft bunny.

O fortunate, nail-forsaken toe. O strange body

fleshy & flightless. Fish, for a time, swimming free.

Ever adaptable, the nail is the best chameleon.

It is a useful beauty.

House outgrown, it inches out

into the mystery of air. On relentless wings, long

& graceful, an albatross soaring the open sea.

### Dash—

Of salt, never enough. Though you're sink-

ing through the snow,

its light crust now caved in, a well

peppered with dirty ice. And frozen fields

no horse would care to pull a sleigh over.

Some do it well with _off:_ a will, even;

a song, a string of notes.

Others know little but broken

table legs and backs of chairs. No wonder

the straits of their hope.

•

A pair traps what's in the middle,

like when my mother safety-pinned

the top sheet to each side of the bed

so my sister and I, her two small contradictions,

would quit our tugs-of-war.

What's in the middle: an interruption.

I expected your long retirement, not this chunk

of death in the middle

of what would have been simple and periodic,

winding like a river. Not a sequestering, Paul.

And don't think I'll forget it either, though I wasn't there.

Your battle, the silence after.

A rainforest—say, along the Amazon,

where I've always wished to go—is nothing

like a long chain of clover blossoms.

—for P. R.

Peter Kahn

### Sweaty Man of Lincoln Park

Pray for Sweaty Man, that his gym membership has not

been revoked. A puddle—viscous and malodorous—left

in his wake. That he is not a salty blob of Jello jolting

and jogging down Clark St. Pray that you don't sit

next to him on the 36 bus when windows are stuck or worse,

pray you don't place your freshly-pressed pants on the seat

he's just left, leaving you to wonder if you've pissed

yourself a week's worth of water and Gatorade. Pray for air-

conditioning and cold showers. Pray for his wife,

that she doesn't succumb some mid-August night

to drowning when love-

making turns up the thermometer.

That some hot-blooded mermaid doesn't lure him

under for a salt water-dance. Pray for Sweaty Man,

that Poseidon himself doesn't claim him for his own.

### Independence

We got to Tremont Park early that first time.

Laid out a checkered blanket, waited and watched.

Lara and I stickied our small hands with red,

white and blue popsicles. As the sky blackened

and white-headed zits twinkled and winked,

there was a quick pop, like a pinned balloon.

Then came the clap that shook my stomach

like a hard hiccup. I loved the color tie-dying

the dark, but the sound, the way it smacked

the ground, made me cringe and cry and kick

over the bottle of dark red wine my parents

were drinking to toast our 199th birthday.

We were the first to leave, retreating to our white

Chevy station wagon. On the drive home, Dad

taught me a game—to clap in sync with each boom,

to ready me for the big 200 when I would be ten,

too old to run from what explodes in the dark.

D. Ellis Phelps

### Five Poems

and the red oak

spoke to me

saying:

look—to the north

open the bones

take your chances

with the sun

the earth leans

breathe

consider the dung

at your feet

—how it feeds

the soil

you spin

and dig

you are:

bowel

bone

matter

no more

than dung

you cannot

unwind

these veins

nor cause

one synapse

to snap

you are neither suture nor cell

but _salt dissolving_

this well

is a black hole

yet you

stand at the edge

—wanting

~

how many eons have slipped

through this clutching

do you think

marking time will help

~

every morning

is a drop of honey

the bags you hoard

prove the gravity

you fear

that's why the dervish

spins

—to throw off

this _prison skin_

put your ear to the earth!

even breath

is an echo

dawn

lifting dark

—edge of morning

one silent stem

her head

—a noble nod

how

can i drink

all of this

through this

—cumulous

of indigo—

the breath breaks

—a swift

& crimson

rise

no gravity

can stall this

flight

**~**

above:

—the mossy

field—a wet

slip a soft

landing

**~**

wide her shore

& emerald

—a push—

no shell

can hold

.

( )

—the wind

shifting

the dunes

you cannot

be sure

of anything

Linda Sonia Miller

### The Kingdom

I.

Power is a heavy cloak, without a realm, invisible.

Reluctantly she rises from her throne, spends hours

scrutinizing empty rooms, bicycles rusting in the shed,

listening to the silence. At night, attempts conquests

with silken robes and magic lotions.

In restless sleep she dreams her subjects

small again, consort, curly-haired and strong.

Days too long, she uses dwindling powers

reading minds and planning lives—to no effect.

Once her realm was busy, full of news. Now

her soldiers live on contentedly—tying their own shoes.

In winter, she stares out her window, studies birds

plumping feathers for warmth, nests in the sun long lost.

Isn't this what history teaches—all kingdoms end?

II.

Isn't this what history teaches—all kingdoms end?

In that frigid northeast realm, I slept with him

in my bed beneath the eaves, and dreamed

to the hum of my children's breath, haunted creak

of pines, mad screams of kittens trying to get in.

Below the window—endless expanse of evergreen

draped across the border. At dawn, he raced

in bare feet across six feet of snow (as others

walked on water), then left me to my own domain.

Sometimes, I followed him into winter's woods,

studied tracks—padded, clawed, soled—

small hints that we were not alone,

my belly tense with joy and fear.

My reasons for leaving are still unclear.

III.

My reasons for leaving are still unclear.

I'm in a daze, sit for hours in the sun,

children scurrying like elves—

wisps of gold and light—

through an unmowed meadow.

It's a lonely throne. He's away all day—

my only conversation howls or jabber.

Occasional cars fly past across the border.

I read novels—Anna under the wheels,

Emma vain and afraid, Tess betrayed.

So much awaits me that I won't understand.

Time will render these years in pastel hues—

except for an umbrella or muddy boot—

something to remind me I'm simply human too.

IV.

Something to remind me I'm simply human too—

it's not a story, I've been told. All these strings

entangling, strangling—making it difficult to breathe.

Sometimes overwhelming, this role of being queen.

I struggle to inhale, swallowed something,

can't remember the taste.

Once I studied geese above a pond,

arrow pointing south, listened rapt to a story—

border guard's wife who disappeared.

Now my plot has thickened. I experiment

with potions, enfold myself in shadow,

practice escape—blank pages, trains, pretense.

There is no release. Power is a heavy cloak,

without a realm, invisible.

Nicklaus Wenzel

### Skagit River

I.

The wet earth

Littered with pine droppings

Green needles dying yellow

In the rootdappled mud

While limpid and lakish

Drops hang, suspended

Teasing, falling

From forked boughs—

Through the air

Through the bracken

And down into

The wet earth:

The underground woodlines:

Like train schedules of comings,

Goings . . .

Desolately

The gray buffalo clouds

Through the canopy,

Stampeding

Lazily by

Into the beards

Of fog

Haloing

Dark peaks.

Out here, days

Go by. Out here

Fire's kind, from a cabin:

Burnt brush smoke.

II.

Gray, it

Courses at all sides

Laboring down from

The mountains.

And laboring down from

The banks, we

Move surefooted—

Still, tentative.

The rocks adjusting

Under our weight

Tumbling algaebacked

Loosing mud—

A sparse clacking

Buried in the lull.

The frothrills

Roll and swirl dirtily

Under the slag of

Sky: cold, and blindly

Rushing . . .

To brighter climes,

Less ashen, not so

Desolate.

Wading out ahead—

My travelling partner—

His khaki pants darkened,

His white T-shirt stuck pink and

Lucid against his back

Turning round to speak

In a human language,

Grinning . . .

The melted snow

And sediment, at all sides—

The pines slumbering

Darkly off the flume —

The campsite: miles behind,

Still casting its acrid smoke.

The round stones

Piled at riversedge,

Become wet, dappled—

An admonition: Find shelter . . .

Make a fire . . . wait it out.

Holly Cian

### Bones

Spite, a sad kind, the way I am leaning—

a dark line—your brittle bones

passing in the world beside me—

it tells all—the Lord atop my shoulders—

how once inside you'll move with me

into the after for all to see,

once alive you'll never need

the twig and branch you give to me;

a cold love, inside the hills

to be bones and nothing more—

all you are is skin to me,

and bones and nothing more—

When a bluer sky is slid beneath

the crack at our bedroom door

I stretch and moan and move for you—

I am bones and nothing more.

### Picture

At night, of late, I watch molding take

the edge away and men fingering their belts.

Flailing, they dig into their waistbands,

later, they will watch their babies

and pretend to sleep.

soap and hot water

have scarred my hands

but still I can be your beautiful

wife dressed in gray leggings

muscle and vein

have twisted my ankles

so picture me

something like a bee

inside a small room,

and frightened.

### Close Reading

neighborhood morning what a bleak day across the

grid. holy roller quiet streets with distant thunder

and birds that talk amongst themselves. this is our

day of debt. strawberries for breakfast so sweet

may have mistaken them for small red clouds,

and the nights are so-dark reminders of being

buried alive. Come, revitalize

the summertime might coo, physically sick

as it were—nausea all across the bedsheets;

wondering if there is something

inside of me, and hiding it.

I feel dizzy and awkward at standing, all

my knees and feet in separate places

missing passports. the days are losing weight

and diameter; the artist walks in the room,

across the room, disappears outside the room

and the artist now has no palms or poems to tango.

Last week

was dense like a heavy cut of fish. we

closed early, live music in the background

and worms eating by the roots of plants.

Need Money? they ask, those deep deep

hands shucking oysters downtown.

prescription pain pill users wanted—that's

what makes us all so happy, all kinds of separate

pieces local cheap and heavy. Landlord

and crusader moving state to state licking

tremors off many a-thigh in his day-to-day,

hands crept to the small of a back. Tastes like

prison meals, he says, like something got

on credit. there, there, hush now.

### View from a Cold Window in North Carolina

It is so cold

that when cold boys look out

over the fields

and talk about bicycles

their voices are small

as hollow tin cans

and they forget

they have had no supper,

they forget the moon that

has left them,

that their father is gone,

and lumps of hills

like those found in bodies

can hide their red faces.

There is a fiddler with a spindle

beard sitting in the window,

there he sits on blistered wood,

with dirt for fingers—

he can see the stars

even when the farm is low

and green

and the asphalt road

snakes around

the tiny town

as if the whole blue world were made

Inside of it.

### Looking Glass Rock

Six shades of blue,

a glimpse of sharp peaks

and I am so far behind,

so far behind that

I could still flush red

like a birthday cake

and you would fall

off Looking Glass

and I would be a gasping shape

like a burlap sap empty

for whoever will keep me.

Surely when your life passes

into so many things,

I will then be so alone

as I never have been,

and my voice will be

a cracked cup,

a chamber door,

and so I think

I will just slide right off,

I will just leap right off

and never look again

I am so afraid of the cliff

at Looking Glass.

Susan Morse

### Alice, Returning

Why did you return to our valley of illusions?

This the one thing about you I never understood,

or maybe that I denied.

Did you miss those skies darkened by black peat?

Or miss the ceaseless whine of water being

pumped— _whoosh_ —to satisfy salt-leached fields?

Did you miss the glass coffin of summer heat

and the family trip that never was? Or did you lose

your way among rows of dust-cloaked vineyards and

paths that led to stucco houses with identical doors?

I railed against my tether, bawling, loud and belligerent

like a surprised heifer under the ax,

and bled out the lure of hookah springs

that quickly succumbed to the smell of decay.

I felt the glare of sun, heard the whirring swamp coolers,

and dreamed of other fantasy worlds.

The silent press of summer idled beneath high tension wires.

Those iron ladies-in-waiting pointed to escape,

a lunatic army bent on freedom.

So I left, feeling sure then that I could abandon you

and my childhood memories: Dead Dog Corner,

our father smiling into his last beer,

the silence of years between.

But you, Alice, how do you live now,

with your looking glass of tears

and your white rabbits just so?

### The Laws of Motion on Acacia Street

Outside the ER doors at Dameron Hospital

a young woman is dancing

or mourning.

There is a whisper of fog in the air

after last night's rain.

She moves in slow contortions,

perhaps laden with the damping chill

of oncoming winter.

Her arms struggle with some emotion,

wave in response like seaweed about her head.

No sound comes from her lips

but we onlookers may not hear it,

our windows rolled up tight.

The circle of traffic is noisy,

spinning through the roundabout,

she in the middle of the morning commute.

A few cars do slow to stare. Others,

blind to anything but the daily trajectory,

speed up, racing toward their own destinies.

Two lanes over

in the city park

are five shining black crows.

One keeps the focus intense,

poised to dip his beak

as night crawlers rise up

from the wet ground.

### The Gift

I gift to you four white beech leaves

that ride upon last year's embrace

within a solitary limb of my heart.

They flicker like a ship

without keel,

unable to sail.

The coldness of winter burns

them into single flames,

sears clean their juices

drop by drop.

When every bit has madly scattered

to the roaring winds,

I will make an empty bag of that heart,

small, yellowed, leathery,

which I will deliver to your doorstep

one afternoon.

In your newly begotten winter,

the first snow, even my coming and going

will be silent, hidden,

my footsteps drifted inward.

And you will never know when this inheritance

of emptiness arrived, except by the bitter strangeness

of those leaves as you suck ice crystals from their surface,

your tongue wrapping itself around a new coldness,

one which you did not recognize

before the damage was done.

### Just a Little Death

for Maria

She stares up at me in her scarf.

She's far away (Romania, she says)

though that's something only the foreign postmark can verify.

She writes that she helped cut off a chicken's head

and ate the soup.

She held its head when the ax fell.

The chicken soup, she says, was made only to entertain her;

she's a guest. She asks if sometimes a little soup is indeed

good comfort. She asks would I have had the strength

to wield that ax, or to hold that head?

She also writes that she is tired of reading

Emily Dickinson's nature poems, with all those dashes,

and asks me which Harvard genius

decided her poetry was amazing

anyway?

These are all questions I cannot answer.

I only envision my mother

perhaps her cotton wool head on a block.

I think _what if sometimes a little death_

is better than incoherence

or soundproofed green walls?

I hear the fall of the ax, see

how it swoops down through the cold air

out there somewhere in Romania.

I see the pinwheels of red

that must have arched upwards

toward a thin December sun

like the beginning of a rainbow.

### In the Hush of Late Afternoon

I sit on our sagging deck,

hands clasped behind my head,

contemplating the meaning of "now,"

and how to attain the complaisance

(or is it the reticence?)

of our cat.

Pretending to be unmindful of my middle-aged paunch,

I want to loll like him on the deck

and bask in the heat with his easy _ennui_.

Only mine would be determined

detachment.

Not the same thing at all.

Instead, like him, I listen to the birds.

We both watch a swallow beat, then rest,

beat, then rest its wings against the paleness of sky.

And I think that is how to do it,

that is how to climb

a long tunnel of hollow air.

Tonight you and I will walk to the neighborhood bar,

telling ourselves we are mindful of the exercise,

but I think it is also because the phone rarely rings.

We will each drink one beer

to tide us over for the quiet walk home.

We are just occasional visitors there, unknown.

Later we will climb into bed,

draw the cover up to our chins.

The night air has become chillier.

Each of us will roll into our separate sighs,

give the other a reassuring pat,

glance for the third time at the round face of the clock.

And for a long time after your snoring has begun,

I gaze through the dormer window

at stars too far away to be touched,

knowing that somewhere in a field,

a field which has a certain false luminescence,

the green that plays tricks on you when you remember

once you were young and in the moonlight,

in that field a cow chews its cud,

indifferent to the consuming interests of the dead.

Daniel Lassell

### Chewing Cud

A llama doesn't care about bills or deadlines

it doesn't care about making ends meet or making momma proud

all it wants is warm weather and grain at dusk

a green pasture to graze and a friend to eat it with.

I wish I could be more like a llama

eyes that see miles into souls

you brush its coat, whisper into those banana-shaped ears

and it answers your worries

with the sound of a hum,

a meditative pulse that takes you out of body

to ancient South American mountains

where, on icebox tips and in spanking wind

you observe humanity's absence

there—detached from the familiar

you call it good.

it makes you pause: I think I'll stay

and dwindle my life

just a while longer.

### Learning to Stand

I passed within the barn walls,

unclamped the gate to enter the llama's pen.

what was to be an ordinary

day of filling water buckets and hay bins,

turned to be the birth of a cria.

the mother stood wide-hipped,

the others crowding around

sniffing its rear as the head emerged.

the body dropped to the floor

wet and quivering

wrestling its eyelids to behold

its inaugural sight of dusty earth and straw.

the mother turned to inhale its fragile body

those quaking bones that

had been within her 11 months.

a single hum deemed it hers—

not minutes from the womb,

the cria stumbled to stand.

its lips small and shifting in its efforts,

shivering with hips as a dog after bathing

clenching its toes to the dirt

muscling upwards,

those legs, so lengthy and feeble.

at last,

its feet flat with the earth

cloven at the angle of a mountain

its neck in a U.

I see I'm not needed.

I pass to the gravel, and

take my steps to the house.

### We Have a Llama Whose Name is "James and John Sons of Thunder"

My mom named him that because she's into the Bible. In fact, all our animals are named after biblical characters: Peter, Paul, Luke, Abigail, Hannah, Zapporah—You name it, we got it. When you live on a farm and there are lots of animals, you tend to emanate that Genesis-given role in naming them. This is what a Christian household looks like. So we named that llama _James and John Sons of Thunder_ —and one would think it's fitting—the way it is but two names in one llama, a mirroring of the Trinity in a lesser form. A symbol for Christ's "fully God, yet fully man" personhood. But my brothers and I always joked it referred to his testicles: those _sons_ of Thunder. Those sons who would bulge in the summer heat, who would sag on crisp mornings. Those sons who drove him to straddle the fence-line in pursuit of the females. And who led to his castration. That day the vet cut them out, scalpelling the sack and loosening them from their hold, my brothers and I felt sadness in our hearts—a sense of death, like witnessing a funeral. Two little orbs emerged, cupped from the heat, white like a molded sphere of dried candle wax. I watched them disappear into the woods-line. (Did you know they bounce?) The llama's head limp from anesthesia, tongue flaccid in the barn floor dust. Now he's just called _Thunder_.

### I Feel Like a Cowboy

when I saddle my llama

and you take my hand—

just the two of us

wandering ancient footpaths

where I choose to inhabit

straw huts and caves

that trickle out of mouths—

I salivate when I think

of chocolate and other drugs,

those sugar-comma dreams

and toothache stings

I feel like a cowboy

when I smoke marlboros in the sunset

and wear torn jeans that chafe

dreams under skin to surface

hopes that display

affection,

this belt loop that holds hearts tight

that you string up around your neck

and back against mine

I feel like a cowboy

gun in holster, yet not for

shooting

I just like the way it looks

hung and swaying against my thigh

as you stroke my chest

I feel like a cowboy

in a western film riding

into the sun with dust curling behind

I feel like a cow

boy, when you're around.

### An Account of a Llama's Death

Zapporah died two days ago. She was such a good llama. The way she watched over the newborn crias as they matured to adulthood. The way she guarded the herd at night against coyotes. She was so kind even to the youngest of my siblings. My father tied her body to the bush-hog and dragged her to a pit beneath the big tree at the end of our property, the family gravesite where all our animals rested. There, he cut the engine and tussled her through the snow into the hole. My brothers and I looked into the earth at her stiffened bulk, already losing wool. She was ripe with age, and had outlived many younger than her. She was full-blooded Chilean after all—one of the last imports before the open trade stopped in '88. We had long hoped against this day. We shoveled dirt to blanket her from the winter. Clouds rolled on the horizon to drag a cold front in.

Svetlana Lavochkina

### Temperate Zones

Osaka 34°41´ N, 135°31´ E

-2°C/28°F, snow

A peacock leaves for India where peahens allegedly match him in beauty.

Only creatures that look like his caretakers, but smaller and cheekier,

Like the ones who come to annoy him on Sundays.

They stare at him with raisins on their faces, then tear at the gems on his plumage.

One little thing forgets all about toilet training, delighting in ravish.

A sensei entertains a long-haired, kilted guest from Scotland.

Kumiko runs in with a garish feather, Majolica-cheeked, a whiff of ammonia about her,

Granddad, a peacock visited us in the kindergarten this morning!

Peacock colors hurt my worn retina, says the sensei, I feel safer with humbler birds.

With your skirt, hair and slight build, he says to the guest, I'd thought you were a woman,

Until in the bath this morning, a sparrow flapped out of the hedge below your navel.

Leipzig 51°20´ N, 12°22´ E

10°C/50°F, light drizzle

If we want to talk about animate things, you must have it now, the brusque doctor says,

So take this pill and go to the park till it works.

A womb is a reticent sack withholding the truth that we try to coax out with sonograms,

So no one really knows what's going on inside. We can't see

If the amniotic fluid has turned green, or if guerilla bacilli lurk in ambush.

Modern medicine prefers having a woman and a child side by side,

Nicely separate and easy to contemplate.

Come on, take it, the husband says, at least we are talking about living things,

After all these years of feeding the stars.

The flowerbed has daisies and daffodils but white fringed tulips are best, "swan wings."

Give me swan wings on this day every April—

Whatever things we will be talking about tomorrow.

Bristol 51°27´ N, 2°35´ W

22°C/72°F, clear at midday

The wanton ebb-time in June.

To smuggle myself onto this man's beach sheet, I forced the wedlock of longitude.

The sea lies with her teal skirts rolled up high towards La Manche;

Her petticoat lace threadbare, she flaunts countless vulvas of brine, tepid pockets for toes.

From here, pale freckled women were stolen, hauled along the ever warmer Atlantic

To the slave markets of Tunis or Marrakesh.

A sheik's eunuch tried the ware with a bronze effigy of his master's manhood,

To avoid wasting big money on fits too loose or too tight.

After meeting a new concubine, the sheikh liked to broaden his mind

By gleaning off his much more travelled bronze part the scents of the discarded women,

Who in all other respects had been beautiful; by now, someone else's property.

It was a special pleasure to secretly own the first serial rights.

Toronto 43°42´ N, 79°20´ W

13°C/55°F, humid, overcast

The onlookers' North Faces are as gray as the wild pigs in the pen on display.

In rich chocolate mud, striped oinking litter kneads the teats of a tired sow.

Father boar stands tusked, dignified, nonchalant against an oak.

Sow number two makes him a bed of dry copper leaves. He patiently waits,

Then plunges onto the bed and she makes a leaf blanket for him, tucks him in.

The hog falls asleep on the audience of dozens.

Macho, Mormon, pasha! swears a woman, her Dior in fatal syzygy with pig stench.

At your whim, I put on your fucking pumps, making a fool of myself, rants her husband,

Marching with other morons For a Mile in Her Shoes, to the clangor of cameras!

My mother still can't believe I'm just pussy whipped not gay,

And I still can't believe I'm pussy whipped, a registered wild boar hunter.

In the coop across the pig pen, a white owl holds a freshly strangled chicken in her beak.

Daniel Sinderson

### Despite Horrifying Sadness, the Birth of the World Again and Again

for A and Alain Badiou

Three days after the world failed to end

the sun soaks in.

We joke about our lives

as an echo—the bottom coil

of a slinky dropped from our window

by hands and smiles that are also ours.

Later, I'll remember the faint click

of rosaries. The sun will continue

to shine, birds will trill and coo,

and something like God will flash

and disintegrate and all will be

as the wind chimes tell it:

soft, bright clashes. Feeling what is far away,

by proxy, no invasion was necessary. Though

we are crushed and growing

despite the weight. A river runs nearby.

The trees and bulbs bloom,

again and again,

as we walk past

and out of the scene

with an exchange of letters,

sly kisses,

we pretend to understand

are necessary.

How lovely to know

such things can be carved

from our hands. Each touch leaving

a new map. Every blood-pure desire

another direction the mind takes

to see the world

breathe—

and there you are

and there the sun

and every lovely thing

choked down

one spin at a time.

Y(t) = A*sin(wt + φ)

That sounds wonderful,

to break

in this clean division so many speak

so fondly of.

Our trend lines in homeostasis.

No longer crushed, just balanced, into splinters. Naturalized beyond help

like a physics equation or baby grand piano with our fingers' blood not yet dry

on the keys. And the more I think of Zeno

the more I move

from horror to parody.

I love you—

loving me loving you loving another

epiphany that breaks my throat into grace. Feeling exhumed

then crushed by this expanse we exist in

it should not be so easy to be

happy with the sunset.

Both Renascence and the morning after.

Like trying to explain thinking of you thinking of you thinking of your cat thinking,

I stare at the couch attaching words to an emptiness.

How many times did I not understand

when you said good morning?

How many times

did our footprints fill in

with snow until it looked like the world

erased us?

Of course, we keep

moving, stamping new prints

until, behind us, holier

and holier, the page

disintegrates.

### Like the Ganges, Our Mouths

She broke in with the spring rain.

The whispers in thousands of erupting drops—

loud, then hushed, then another

unremembered voice for the world.

Now it's just her and the glittering

sun beam rebar smashing in

from our windows. We live in color.

We talk over crocus

and kiss goodbye with an orange

in my fist. Even our shouting

is hushed with pink blossoms.

Silly, this indifferent storm and then our silence

again—like stepping with red robes into

the Ganges and filth

only to rise with eyes leaking out the sight's

ecstatic rupturing and singing praises with howls

and arms akimbo—our words

tossed into air and told to fly.

•

But the weight grows,

our baptisms continue,

our bodies drink from the world

until we have no choice but

to hurt. Look at the feet, the legs,

our fingers—look at the stones. Watch

the blossoms sift and pile around us

like a statue of the Buddha

in one of Issa's poems—the air cool

after the children's games have ended,

as the Earth's cold shoulder

to the sun begins,

and the curious songbirds

have left—like our own desire to move—

this terrible, small hope.

Catherine Garland

### Childhood Dreams :

Parachinar, Punjab, the Hindu Kush—

Deliciously the words roll in my mouth,

and melt like butter curls and memories.

Early mornings, before the midday heat,

my mother sat with me under a chinar tree

and taught me how to read the newspaper,

just like a grownup, and how to spell

Chrysanthemum.

At night I lay in a small white room

on a narrow cot strung with cords

and slept and dreamed my childhood dreams

while the bantam chicks poked for worms

in the weeds outside.

They tell me that Parachinar,

my childhood home,

is home to Al-Qaeda now,

a Madrassah training camp.

Who sleeps now in the small white room,

on the narrow cot strung with cords,

and do dreams still float in space

while the bantam chicks poke for worms

in the weeds outside?

### Portrait in Black and White :

A grand clutter of magpies

in judges' robes flutters to fill

the bone-bare branches

of winter trees. They stare

at me, then burst into mad

crackles of raucous laughter.

What, I ask them, is the joke?

The heavy load of winter snow

that slid sharply off the roof,

just missing me? The small cat

dashing by with piteous mews

to disappear into an open door?

The magpies do not answer.

Again in unison, abruptly they

cease their clatter to fly away,

bright plumage shining black

and white in icy winter light.

### A Resting Place :

(Newspaper headline reads Baby's Foot Found in Desert Cave)

Air crackles with dry heat. My tongue swells and wants to

fill my mouth, choke out my life. Above, the noonday sun

glares, indifferent to whether we mortals survive or not

in this empty, arid desert, fit for neither foolish man nor beast.

Dark shadowed space ahead invites me in and I lurch forward

to seek relief from heat become unbearable. I squeeze into

the small hollow and give thanks for rest and cooler

air. My body, sensing it will live to see another day,

relaxes and I lean back, grateful. Off to my side I glimpse

a small pink object. It seems to glow. Am I hallucinating?

I peer more closely, and in amazement see that small

pink object is a foot, a tiny foot, a tiny baby's foot. Just the

foot is there, no small ankle, chubby leg, nor rounded baby's

body. The toes are slightly curled as if in pleasure at some

private glee and the sole rests lightly, lightly on the sandy floor,

too light to leave a mark or slight imprint of its brief passage.

My mind reels and wants to vault into the horror of the unknown

Hows and Whys, but instead I take a moment to worship at the altar

of this small and unprotected foot, so brave in its aloneness, and somehow

still alive, that waits silently (for what?) in the cool shadow of the cave.

### E-mail from my friend Tom on his birthday :

My birthday today and I am 67 and full

of love for you and for the snow geese,

hundreds rising white against the sky blue

of a corn field flooded with melted winter

snow. They circle like floating snowflakes,

fluorescent in the still air, and glide gently back

to water, honking, splashing, a mini snowstorm

turning the blue waters white again.

Tonight a hockey play-off with pizza afterward,

The pizza is good and I will eat too much.

The beer is cold and I will drink too much—but it's my

birthday and I like pizza better than cake anyways.

But nobody will bring candles.

And I like being 67 and full of love for you and for

fluorescent snow geese that float like snowflakes

in the still air. And I thank the great creator for

these drifts of white snow geese, and for loving you.

### In Memory of Tom—The First Time :

I do not remember the details

of the first time we made love,

only the moment of melting naked

into naked and the opening yes

and oh yes oh oh

I remember no feeling but the strong

pulse of your thrust reaching up

and into my heart opening

and then falling and the slippery

swirling wetness of rising

deep and wide and down

to the first coming.

And then lying still,

imprinted.

Michael Fleming

### Waiting in Line at the Liquor Store

That look we exchange in the liquor store—

it's all right there: shame, defiance, oblivion,

the love we've been denied. Let's ignore

the voice of the village scold, let's not give

ourselves up to the perp walk, flashing red lights

in the rearview, the deputy's soft knock

in the middle of the night, screaming fights,

the drunken uncle whose wine-crazy talk

ruins everything. I guess I agree: booze

leads to madness, sometimes in those who drink

and always in those who don't—those who choose

to scorn the devil's alchemy. But think

of it: money turned to spirits, America's

hardest-fought dollar in exchange

for song, friends, poetry, moments without care—

the loving cup, the lifted chalice, strangeness.

Don't I know you from somewhere? Wasn't I

that apeman in the cave of magic berries—

and you that apewoman wandering by,

she who grunted, Fancy meeting you here?

### Centralia

They wanted the coal. They knew they could sell

the coal because everyone needs fire, so

they built the town nearby, and all was well

until fire crept into the seam beneath

their feet, rising like the hand of hell

to take back everything they'd made. A wreath

of smoke arose, just wisps at first, encircling

their homes, their schools. The fire was something seething

and obscene in the earth's belly, lurking,

unseen. There was nothing they could do.

For years it smoldered, relentlessly working

its way—sappers beneath their walls. Few

families were spared the sickness, the failure

of human will to stop what is too

big to stop, can never be stopped. Centralia's

people, places, everything—

She turns away,

takes the remote, hits mute as he inhales,

then she returns her gaze to the cold gray

fire of the TV. _God, everything's so—_

she whispers through tears. Exhaling, he says

Let's see what else is on. I hate this show.

### Grief

Not: I'm so sad, but: I forgot my keys

again. Not: I know I'll always miss you,

but: this food has no flavor. Not: oh please,

God, bring her back, but: I wore the wrong shoes.

And people continue to speak, they say

it's a beautiful day, quite unaware

that beauty's been revoked, mindless that May's

the same as December, that nothing's fair

and nothing matters, that jokes might as well

be Chinese. Their laughter is dust, their pain

is dust, everything's dust. Forecast for hell:

rain. Whatever. Forecast for heaven: rain.

### St. David's Head

In my defense, as I would later tell

myself, I was weary, footsore, alone.

I had no map—but no matter. The Welsh

moors, the Irish Sea beating on the stones

a hundred feet below—who needs maps? I

would take no rest, I told myself, until

I reached St. David's Head, and then I'd lie

on the grass beside the path, have my fill

of the wine I'd brought to help me admire

myself for arriving—the end of the world.

I conjured ghosts of murmuring druids, choirs

of angels as luminous as schoolgirls

to greet me, sing my song. But every time

I reached the farthest headland, there would be

another, still farther ahead; the fine

spring day reproached me, mocked me. After three

such defeats I finally lost heart and let

myself collapse beside the path and chew

my onion vanities, watch the sun set

into the sea, drown in sour wine. In due

time I stood and stretched and watched a gull

hop effortlessly into the headwind,

hovering there in flightless flight, the pull

of gravity poised against the relentless

push of wind. And then I saw the trick—

the path bore right. The rocks I'd seen ahead—

an island. But here was where banshees shriek

at fools who've been here all along—St. David's Head.

### Jubilee Blues

Anguish and grief, like darkness and rain,

may be depicted; but gladness and joy,

like the rainbow, defy the skill of pen or pencil.

—Frederick Douglass

The books were all about November—dying

light; brown, withered leaves; black ink on white

paper; words to call the colors. And I

was sure I understood. By candlelight

I read about despair, and understood.

I read about freedom, too, and of love

and the words for its colors, and I could

recite those words. What did I know? Above

the wharf, above the masts, above the smoke

and stink and roaring might of New York, I

saw the sky for the first time, and the docks

were alive with free men in blue; the sky

was blue beyond my words, beyond my books—

I laughed with the men, and began to cry.

Contributor Notes

 Stephanie Rose Adams is the author of The Sundering, chosen by Linda Gregg for a NY Chapbook Fellowship from The Poetry Society of America. Her poems have appeared in The Boston Review, Sharkpack Poetry, and Orion Magazine. Stephanie lives in the Pacific Northwest with her wayward Guatemalan pup and a host of other willful creatures real and imaginary.

 Harry Bauld is from Medford, Massachusetts. He was included by Matthew Dickman in Best New Poets 2012 and his poems have appeared in Nimrod, Southern Poetry Review, The Southeast Review, Verse Daily, Ruminate, The Baltimore Review, Whiskey Island, and Deliberately Thirsty (UK). He won the 2008 New Millenium Writings poetry prize. He has taught and coached baseball, basketball and boxing at high schools in Vermont and New York.

 Benjamin Bever earned his Bachelor of Arts in 2006 from Allegheny College. The poems included here appeared as part of his thesis in completion of the Master of Fine Arts degree at George Mason University, where he was the 2012-2013 recipient of the Completion Fellowship for poetry. Other work by Benjamin has been published in Willows Wept, and he has written book reviews for The Lit Pub.

 Marqus Bobesich received his BFA from York University, majoring in visual arts. His poems have appeared in Northwind Magazine, Word Riot, and Contemporary Verse 2. He is also the author of three independent chapbooks: "The Night of a Thousand Snowsuits," "Dirty Pretty Halloween," and "The Humans Are Singing." He works in Toronto as an actor and musician. www.myspace.com/poormarqus

 Holly Cian The poems here are among the first I've written since moving to North Carolina several months ago. As I worked on these poems, my focus was on detail, rhythm, and movement. Reading over these poems once more, I notice a sense of disconnect throughout—the speaker often seems to be separate from the happenings of the world, and the speaker's voice moves at a more thoughtful pace, as if it exists in a dream.

 Olivia Cole is a poet, author and activist in Chicago, IL. She recently finished a feminist science-fiction novel and started the sequel the next day. If you need her, she's probably writing. Or eating. http://oliviaacole.wordpress.com/

 Brittney Corrigan was raised in Colorado but has called Portland, Oregon, her home since 1990. She is the poetry editor for the online journal Hyperlexia: poetry and prose about the autism spectrum (<http://hyperlexiajournal.com/>) and works at Reed College. She is the author of the collection, Navigation, published by The Habit of Rainy Nights Press (2012), and a chapbook, 40 Weeks, published by Finishing Line Press (2012). brittneycorrigan.com

 Ali Doerscher is currently working towards her undergraduate degree in Sculpture at the Rhode Island School of Design. Other recent publications of her poetry include the Columbia Poetry Review and CutBank.

 Eric Duenez lives in Plymouth, Indiana, with his wonderful girlfriend and four horrible cats. He discovered his love of poetry while earning his English degree at Indiana University South Bend. He enjoys listening to music and drinking craft beer. Revive poetry, revive America.

 Michael Fleming was born in San Francisco, raised in Wyoming, and has lived and learned and worked all around the world, from Thailand and England and Swaziland to Berkeley, New York City, and now Brattleboro, Vermont. He's been a teacher, a grad student, a carpenter, and always a writer; for the past decade he has edited literary anthologies for W. W. Norton. www.dutchgirl.com/foxpaws

 Catherine Garland I was born many years ago in a small town high in the mountains of the Himalayas, and I have lived my adult life in a small town high in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. The many years in between then and now have been filled with beauty and the attempt to capture the wonder of all aspects of life in the wonder of words.

 Donna Levine Gershon's poetry has appeared in storySouth, qarrtsiluni, Literary Mama, and Kakalak: Anthology of Carolina Poets, among other publications. She lives in Oxford, Mississippi, where she works as a freelance editor.

 Sarah Giragosian is a PhD student in 20th-century North American Poetry and Poetics at SUNY-Albany. Her work has been published in such journals as Crazyhorse, Copper Nickel, Able Muse, and Measure, among others. She is also a co-editor of the online literary journal Barzakh.

 Anne Graue lives, writes, and teaches online for two universities from her home in New York's Hudson Valley. She holds a BA in Creative Writing from Kansas State University and an MA in Teaching English from Columbia Teachers College. Her poems have appeared in Paradigm, Compass Rose, and The 5-2: Crime Poetry Weekly, and she was a finalist in the Patrica Dobler Poetry Award for 2013. She is a reviewer for NewPages.com

 Toni Hanner's poems appear in Yellow Medicine Review, Alehouse, Calyx, Gargoyle, and others. She is a member of Eugene's Red Sofa Poets and Port Townsend's Madrona Writers. She had two books published in 2012: The Ravelling Braid from Tebot Bach, and a chapbook of surrealist poems, Gertrude Poems and Other Objects from Traprock Books. Gertrude was selected by Mary Jo Bang as a finalist for the 2013 Oregon Book Award.

 Tim Hawkins has lived and traveled widely throughout the Americas and Southeast Asia, where he has worked as a journalist, technical writer and teacher in international schools. He currently lives in his hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan. His writing has appeared in more than two dozen print and online publications. In 2012, he was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and published his first collection, Wanderings at Deadline (Aldrich Press). www.timhawkinspoetry.com

 Eva Heisler has recently published two books of poems, Reading Emily Dickinson in Icelandic (Kore Press) and Drawing Water (Noctuary Press).

 S. E. Hudgens I aim for music, rhythm, and an image that comes back to you while clipping your nails three nights after reading it. I hope I have achieved these for at least one reader. My work has appeared in Hubbub, Knockout, and Farfelu, among other places. I hold an MFA from EWU's Inland Center for Writers and work as an advertising editor/writer in Austin, Texas.

 Peter Kahn is a founding member of the London poetry collective, Malika's Kitchen. His poems have been published internationally and he is a prize-winner in the Poetry Society's National Poetry Competition (UK). A high-school teacher since 1994, Peter was the recipient of the Wallace Douglas Award for contribution to the Chicago youth writing community. He is currently a Visiting Fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London, where he has launched the Spoken Word Education Training Programme.

 Jill Kelly I'm a writer, visual artist, creativity coach, and freelance editor. My memoir, Sober Truths: The Making of an Honest Woman, was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. When I'm not offering creativity workshops and leading writing retreats around the country, I'm usually in my working with deep-color pastels. I live in Portland, OR, with my three cats, who do all the chores so I can be creative 24/7. www.jillkellyauthor.com

 Jenna Kilic is a third-year MFA Creative Writing candidate at The Ohio State University, where she also serves as Co-Poetry Editor of The Journal. Raised in North Fort Myers, Florida, she received her BA in English and Theatre from The University of Florida. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Birmingham Poetry Review, Pleiades, The Portland Review, and elsewhere.

 Daniel Lassell is the poetry winner of the 2013 William J. Maier Writing Award, and has been featured in several publications, which include literary journals such as Steam Ticket, Future Cycle, Penduline, riverrun magazine, Pure Francis, and Haiku Journal; and anthologies such as Panik: Candid Stories of Life Altering Experiences Surrounding Pregnancy, A Celebration of Young Poets, and Overplay/Underdone. In his youth, he raised llamas on a farm in Eminence, Kentucky. Today, he lives in Huntington, West Virginia.

 Svetlana Lavochkina is a writer of fiction and translator of poetry. She was born and educated in Ukraine and currently resides in Germany. Her work was published or is forthcoming in Witness, Drunken Boat, Circumference, Cerise Press, Eclectica, Mad Hatters' Review, The Literary Review, Chamber Four Fiction Anthology. She was shortlisted for Million Writers' Award in 2010. Svetlana is co-founder and president of Leipzig Writers, a non-profit organization supporting international literary projects.

 Lucy M. Logsdon lives in Southern Illinois. Her work has appeared in such publications as Nimrod, Poet Lore, California Quarterly, The Southern Poetry Review, Kalliope and Seventeen magazine. She received her MFA in Writing from Columbia University. Currently, she teaches English and Creative Writing at Southeastern Illinois College.

 Michael Hugh Lythgoe is a retired Air Force officer with an MFA from Bennington College. He grew up in southern Indiana, and currently lives in Aiken, SC. His poems appear in Christianity and Literature, Innisfree Poetry Journal, Pea River, Windhover, and Petigru Review. Recently, he has been meeting with soldiers to discuss poetry in the Wounded Warriors program at Fort Gordon in Augusta, GA.

 Annie Mascorro's poetry and essays have been published in Calyx, Epilepsy U.S.A., WorldView Magazine, Montana Public Radio's Collegium Medicium, and forthcoming in ZYZZYVA. She is the recipient of the 2007 Five Fingers Review poetry prize. She is a psychiatric nurse and is currently pursuing her certification in poetry therapy through the National Federation for Biblio/Poetry Therapy. She lives in San Diego. wellwaterpoetry.com

 Kristina McDonald received her MFA from Eastern Washington University, where she was the poetry editor of Willow Springs. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Narrative, New Guard Review, Switchback, and Sugar House Review. She has worked for the literary non-profits Writers in the Schools and Get Lit! Programs, and she currently works at Rice University.

 Susan Laughter Meyers, of Givhans, SC, is the author of My Dear, Dear Stagger Grass (2013), winner of the Cider Press Review Editor's Prize. Her collection Keep and Give Away (University of South Carolina Press, 2006) received the SC Poetry Book Prize. Her work has also been published in The Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, Beloit Poetry Journal, and other publications. A long-time writing instructor, she has an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte.

 Linda Sonia Miller has lived, learned and taught in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, among the Winnebago Indians in Wisconsin, on the shores of Walden Pond, and in upstate New York and Connecticut. She's published short essays in The New York Times, poems in a variety of journals and anthologies, and has had a chapbook published by Finishing Line Press, Something Worth Diving For, in 2012.

 Peter Mishler is a public school teacher living in Syracuse, New York. His poems have appeared in The Antioch Review, Crazyhorse, New Ohio Review, and other publications.

 Susan Morse was raised in California, but has lived in Maine for the past twenty-five years. She writes poems that seek to capture the essence of place, as well as poems that explore relationships that are changed by time and distance. She really enjoyed the Sixfold voting process and receiving the very worthwhile commentary from fellow writers. Her poems have appeared in The Mom Egg, Cream City Review, Literary Mama, and The Barefoot Review.

 D. Ellis Phelps work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Arts United Issues 1 & 3, Windhover, New Texas, Aires, Texas Poetry Calendar, San Antonio Express News¸ San Antonio Current, and elsewhere. Her first novel, Making Room for George, is forthcoming from Balboa Press, 2013. These poems, mined from the dreamworlds, are excerpted from a manuscript of poetry under submission entitled what holds her.

 Marc Pietrzykowski lives in Niagara County, NY. He has published several books of poetry and one novel. www.marcpski.com

 Daniel Sinderson is a gas station attendant living in Portland, OR, with his partner and cat. He received his BA in Anthropology last year and will shortly be traveling to Sardinia to study the Bronze Age Nuragic culture. His poems have appeared in The Dirty Napkin, Metazen, and Rufous City Review. He received the Kay Snow Award for Poetry in 2009.

 Sharron Singleton Although I've been a social worker and community organizer, writing and teaching poetry is now my vocation. My poems have appeared in numerous journals. In 2009 I won the James River Writers Contest and was named Poet of 2010 by the journal Passager. I also won first-place prizes in 2010 and 2012 in the Poetry Society of Virginia annual contest and won first place in the MacGuffin Poet Hunt contest for 2012. My chapbook, A Thin Thread of Water, was published in 2010 by Finishing Line Press. What I love most about poetry is how it enables one to see small miracles and epiphanies in daily life and how economy, spareness and compression of language can reveal the extravagance and multiplicity in all of life.

 David Sloan, a graduate of the University of Southern Maine's Stonecoast MFA Poetry Program, teaches in Maine's only Waldorf high school. He is the author of two books on teaching. His debut poetry collection—The Irresistible In-Between—was published by Deerbrook Editions this spring. His poetry has appeared in The Broome Review, The Café Review, Innisfree, The Naugatuck River Review and Passager, among others. He is a recipient of the 2012 Betsy Sholl and Maine Literary awards, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He is currently enjoying life's newest delight—grandfatherhood!

 Abigail Templeton-Greene's poetry has been published in McSweeneys, RATTLE, Pilgrimage, Two Hawks Quarterly, The Tulane Review, The Elixir, Pear Noir and several other journals. She has an MFA from Antioch University Los Angeles and is a winner of the 2011 Lighthouse Writers Seven Deadly Sins Writing Contest. She was also recently nominated for the Friends of USP Writing Award. Abigail teaches Creative Writing at Florence Crittenton High School in Denver, Colorado.

 Nicklaus Wenzel was born in the Pacific Northwest in a suburb just outside of Seattle. He studied Russian and French literature at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.

 Lisa Zerkle's work was featured in the Nimrod and in Press 53's Spotlight anthology. Her work is forthcoming in The Ledge magazine, Charlotte Viewpoint, and has appeared in poemmemoirstory, Crucible, Main Street Rag and Literary Mama, among others. She has served as President of the North Carolina Poetry Society, community columnist for The Charlotte Observer, and co-editor of Kakalak. Heart of the Light, her first chapbook, is available from Finishing Line Press.

 Arlene Zide has published in a variety of journals such as Meridians, Rattapallax, Evening Street Review, 13th Moon, Colorado Review, California Quarterly, and Rhino. Her translations of Hindi poets have appeared in Exquisite Corpse, The Bitter Oleander, and Salt Hill; and in the Everyman Series: Indian Love Poems, the Oxford Anthology of Indian Poets, and Language for a New Century.
