Backyard Clothesline / Joanna Grant
Always just within my reach—
always snapping back just
as my small fingers thought
they’d finally finally caught it—
As if I could just hang up enough
sodden cloth diapers, enough frayed
old towels, enough of the grownups’
faded old clothes, for once they might
look at me like something they’d want,
not just something they’d been lumbered
with and had to keep.
When that work was done
I’d take a worn-out sleeping bag
and sling it unzipped over the
ridgepole of the old swing set—
now it was a tent whose earth floor
I’d carefully sweep, where I’d carry
and keep my most special leaves,
my best colored rocks.
It wasn’t much, but it was what
I had, and I meant to make of it
what I could. Some kind of home.
Haptic knowledge / Judit Hollos
Through squiggling corpse roads I carried her inside me
long after the almond petals turned to ashes and the last members
of the funeral procession got married,
I wrapped her up in the silver strings of ill-trodden paths
until my back crisped open under grief’s weight,
I rested my burden on coffin stones, adorned it with moonlight lace,
and when that failed I enshrined it in wooden lychgates,
weeding the hungry grass that wildly grew in its place,
and when even that liminal space was not enough to house
the private khipu scriptures of cell fates,
inherited memories encoded in brightly dotted yarns,
tactile systems attached to my base cord,
trying to capture the screaming wraiths that lurked in all corners
I just got myself entangled in my own winding maze.
seascape, internal / Zach Hauptman
seascape-internal
fight test / Brice Maiurro
he’s grown pale from the shadows
of too many buildings
hands too soft the ancestors
will never take pity on him
obsessed with finding the north star
& refuses to look at the sun
loves to love but loses sight of
what is in his palms as soon as it lands
knows the words to every love song
& couldn’t handle a dance in the dark
with his soulmate on a sunday
jumps like a cricket at any soft flicker
of light any new mask to wear
calls himself a storyteller but dances
with deception
chases after the moment until the past
catches up with him
too afraid of the future to make it pretty
doesn’t dream so much as he
conjures new terrors to sleep beside
he’s like a wolf with no teeth
a dog with too much violence
maybe a dog with just enough teeth
heart beats fast into midnights
that’s the medicine of his drum
he lives & breathes in the space of dreams
is careful to wander a path
that will lead somewhere for someone
knows there’s too much to love
to be so caught up on mastery
we all dance with deception
he’s learning to walk its line to find
his truth if not some truth beyond him
takes off the masks he wears
holds all of his characters in his heart
loves the way they stage his complexity
he can handle a dance with his soulmate
on a sunday he just needs room to practice
feeling so much in a world so full up
with things to feel
his empty palm is the inevitable grief
of cherishing flowers he picked
his hands are soft in part
because he washed them clean
of the shadow of the men before him
he has grown pale from the shadow
of too many buildings
but he knows this as he knows himself
& he is stepping into the light now
illegal / Kimberly O’Connor
interdependence.
the plump jewels in my oatmeal
are fresh strawberries.
how did they get here?
you feel that something has been
stolen from you when
she when he when they
[Darien Gap] they were not
thinking about you
at all. we all want
options. meanwhile the berries
appear magical
A Conversation between a Wolf and a Raven on a Clear Day with Nothing Else Happening / Michael Schad
A Conversation between a Wolf and a Raven on a Clear Day with Nothing Else Happening
Wolf: Why don’t you come to play?
Raven: Not today.
Wolf: The sky grows dark from
the shade of your wings.
How does it feel to fly?
Raven: It feels as if Holy Spirit is
carrying me in his hands;
showing me lands from so high.
I feel at home.
I have seen
Herds of Elk run from you as you
devour their sick, their young.
There is fear. How does it feel
to be feared?
Wolf: When I was a young pup still
suckling, I did not know what power
and desperation are hung around
the wolf’s head. It is right.
Don’t you fear me?
Raven: No. I fear not flying. I fear not being
what God intended.
You know when
we can’t.
We die.
Wolf: Yes, I worry about that too.
Raven: Do you have love?
Wolf: Oh yes, the hunt, my pack, the kill.
Do you?
Raven: My family, finding food, puzzles.
Wolf: It is getting cold.
Raven: Winter is almost here. Would you
like to play a game? Catch me if you can.
Wolf: Yes, if I catch you,
may I eat you?
Raven: You will never catch me.
Self Portrait with Great Egret / Elizabeth Wolf
The egret overheard all my crisis calls
during the keelhaul of my divorce, salt rubbing
raw in open wounds, eyes, my tongue. I would
pick up my notepad, phone, look at my watch,
as if leaving my cubicle for an urgent meeting,
then slip out the loading dock doors. I walked
down past where the side road dead-ended,
sat on a fallen tree, dialed down my list. Calls
to my lawyer. To my best friend, my older brother,
my dead mother; to my daughter’s therapist,
her guidance counselor; my life bleeding into
packets of bytes passed between hand-held phones.
The egret waded, elegant white silhouette stark
against the reeds and brackish marsh, occasionally
extending her long lovely neck to gulp down
grasshoppers, small fish, frogs. She—
I’m sure it was a she—
heard it all. Before I slid the phone
back into my pocket to return to my desk
I’d stand a few minutes to watch her
breathe
spread her magnificent wings
and with a few majestic beats
rise
and fly away free.
