Nestled / Luisa Berne
I pull the quilt up a little higher around
my shoulders making sure not to cover
my daughters face.
The cat is curled on my feet
a tiny engine purring along.
My husband is like a mountain
in sleep unchanging, unmoving.
My daughter’s milky toddler
Breath soft on my cheek,
her hand clutching her pacifier.
I know, I should put her back
in her bed. Teach her to sleep without
the warm tendrils of my arms,
or, at least that is what all the books
say.
Guiltily, I wonder if they are right
I am ruining her, because who am
I to tell the experts they are wrong.
But, I am too in love
with the way she melts into me,
butter on warm toast.
The way her night cries fade
when I enter her room and carry
her sleepy body back to bed.
In a panic, I think, soon
she will be too big to fit neatly
in the space between my husband
and I.
These nights of my whole world
tucked safely into bed
with me are numbered.
Folding T-shirts / Scott Burnam
taking special care
with the causes, concerts, places
we stack them in short piles
by varying degrees of fade and
distance from their once-fresh
new t-shirt smell
from just trying to stay clean
the fabric and the time
wear and fade
pass and soften
with each rinse cycle
with each tumble
dry and low
the fabric of our past
growing worn
and the people
growing worn with us
some even growing
threadbare
warranting a decision of demotion
to donation or cleaning rag
where we might at least
still connect to
shed cells
on Sundays
even with the anticipated dread of any chore
or maybe stained beyond use
by some catastrophe
until we come to accept that we
eventually outgrow
everything
Still Life / David Estringel
At the kitchen table
black coffee
in Mother’s old, chipped china cup
I spy a grackle
staring
from the sleeping cottonwood
outside the window ‘bove the sink.
Silent. Still. Framed
inside warped whitewash—
a stoic stain
against a wall of mourning blue.
It’s black feathers
iridize
gasoline purples,
greens, and pinks
by a caress
of warm summer sun.
Staring on—
neither of us
a flinch or a flutter—
I hear the trill of cicadas
still nestled
snuggly under their leafy blankets.
Why doesn’t he move?
Is he even alive?
Both of us, still
steely determined,
resolve, fixed,
to win the stare-down.
How sad this still life is, I think to myself,
noticing my coffee has gone cold.
Amen, he croaks.
shinrinyoku / Catherine Forest
Oak limbs akimbo
Sourcing water from deep earth
While throwing us shade
Our Wounds Will Show by Daylight / Erika Seshadri
Erika-1
Colonia Agrippina/Cologne/Köln / Arthur Turfa
I
When I was young and brimming with visions
you were the first I knew and loved, city
on storied river, ancient roots, later
glory, rebirth from hellish bombardments.
But for bureaucracy my first home in
the country pulling me like a magnet
Wandering on narrow streets discovering
wonders, slowly, oh so slowly trying
to echo the tones that came to my ears,
finding shelter on the opposite bank.
Graves of Magnus and Scotus grace churches
Rosy-fingered dawn heralds pub crawl’s end
II
In years to come on trains passing
going to the city I love
or heading towards parts unknown.
A day trip with youth walking on
familiar streets beholding the
new alongside of older things.
III
Recently a day spent on river’s edge
showing my love scenes of long-lost splendor:
the cathedral, sun-filled streets. Then to a
rococo residence, savoring Kölsch
at dinner before boarding our ship to
glide away from the city I first loved.
Those visions transition to memories;
I preserve them for all time reminaing.
