Blondes on the Bardo / Joanna Grant
(An Ekphrastic Series Inspired by Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks at the Diner)
Sylvia wanders out of the fog into the all-night diner in housecoat, nightgown, and slippers, hair long and loose to her waist. Wisps of blue mist trail her as she steps across the neon-lit threshold, the chrome and glass door whooshing shut behind her. A little dazed, she takes a seat on a red pleather stool at the Formica counter. The red-haired waitress ashes her Virginia Slims menthol in a chipped saucer and pours her out a cup of thick black coffee without a word. Elbows on the tabletop, Sylvia pours in a stream of sugar and then cream. The contents lap up over the rim of her cup, ripples spreading. Marilyn sweeps back in from the powder room in a cloud of Chanel No. 5, her winged eyeliner flawless. Oh my dear, she breathes to Sylvia, oh, my dear girl. Let’s do something about this, shall we. I think I know just the thing.
Resurrectia / Judit Hollos
arriving too late
the starlight of a white dwarf
layer by layer
an archaeologist digs out
the playground in our park
resurrection
an unlit Christmas tree trapped
inside a staircase
the black and white dreams
we inprison ourselves in
on the refuge
a lonely spirit hiding
in an amulet
returns to the soul tree
that once gave her home
land raised concrete dandelion / Zach Hauptman
I have a strange relationship with the land
the way it spreads out under my feet
the crawl of succulents and sea grass
the push-pull of recognition
watching the tide roll out
Maybe it’s the way I was raised
singular bottlebrush trees, scraggly
rosemary bushes, half-unearthed tulip bulbs and
the puffy white of dandelion flowers breaking
through patchy concrete
Maybe it’s the way I was raised
with a bag packed, one eye always
on the horizon, and the other on waves
of violence waiting to drown me or crushed
by the deep sea pressure of my hypervigilance
Maybe it was the way I was raised
swallowing alienation and grief
tending to the torn roots bleeding my soles
and following the faint red footprints
like a path home
I have a strange relationship with people
who have a relationship with the land
the way their roots, pulled out grow back stronger
it gifts them loving fruits of its body and in return
they love it back
Envy is a chokecherry stone I swallow
tugging up my shallow and torn roots
reaching for roadside blackberries
I travel from forest to ocean
let the salt water suck stinging kisses
and hope that their land loves me
as much as I long to love it
a door / Brice Maiurro
After WS Merwin
this is a place where a door might have been
here where i am standing
my toes intertwined with the wet grass
it might have opened to a porch
opening to a rain soaked night like this
or perhaps it opened to a tirelessly tended garden
somewhere near haiku
on the north shore of maui
no matter
i open the door now
hear the creak feel the air sweep in
& there you are dear william
your life opening yet again before me
Rearranging / Kimberly O’Connor
Deconstruction: how
many trinkets collected
all these years since
the last time. Golden
caramel wrappers sparkle
in the dust where we
shoved the bed aside.
At day’s end we
’re not half done.
Tomorrow, we hope,
we’ll be different,
new, closer to who we wished
we’d be today. We
wake in the night un-
certain of where we sleep.
Strange shadows writhe and leap.
The Price of an Elephant / Michael Schad
Elephants are big beautiful beasts
that can move trees and stomp
on many things found in the wilds.
Hannibal used them in battle
after crossing the Alps.
This elephant was just as any
large war elephant which stomped
on Romans, or knocked down trees.
But it only cost ten bucks to ride
and went safely in circles for an hour
after the circus was finished
and the clowns lingered tying balloons
for loose change as I walked up
the stairs to a platform to allow
myself to be lowered atop of an elephant.
I felt the immensity and cried.
Dear Myself / Kashiana Singh
(after the hill that raised you)
your first kingdom was sloped—
a hill station where walking was an act of togetherness
feet mapping friendship, errand, rumor
each path a braided thread of belonging
innocence was communal:
it arrived in handfuls of mango,
in the juice running down elbows
in mothers drunk on each other’s laughter
children asleep mid-giggle,
carried like offerings on swaying hips
your emptiness now holds boiled eggs—
the devil’s snack, they said, sold midnight-hot
from the cycle cart beneath the rain tarp
the yolk soft as a secret
shared with strangers wrapped in the nip of night
as if hunger was how love first learned to knock
innocence had a scent too:
wet earth, burnt sugar, rusted tin roofs
a language of bonfires and whisper-chants
beneath the sickle moon
that absent god worth watching
or fearing
you thought the clouds were shy animals
they came low, shoulder-brushed,
your cheeks damp with blushed shyness
you thought they were lovers
the kind who leave no trace but wind
rocks stabbed at the sky with their stony dreaming
and you believed in dragons
because the mountain did
your emptiness is shaped like that stair-step throne
outside the corner shop
where you ruled as the last emperor of nothing
half-shelling your egg
as if it were a ritual of becoming
Dear myself—
what a feast it was, that unknowing
to mistake cloud for touch
to mistake silence for peace
and still be right
and here—
the body, strapped inside obligations,
still remembers the myriad ways
the hill across the lake lit up
on a no-moon night—
as if gods themselves had arrived.
Word Cloud / Elizabeth Wolf
She gathered all her wondrous words,
fed them into an app, and waited,
waiting a few seconds more
until they emerged, a word cloud
shaped like a butterfly, hesitant,
sticky and new. The biggest boldest
most colorful words looked delicious;
she took a bite, sopping up spilled juice
with sponge cake. The thin, brittle
edgy words snapped off in crisp strips;
she spread those with strawberry jam.
Plain, mid-size, ordinary words
were loaded onto crackers and
topped with brie cheese. Pinpricks
of small font filled interstices;
she brushed them up, using her
hand as a dustpan, and dumped
the dry crumbs in the trash. Finally
she gathered all the leftover words,
tucking them into the cupboard with
cereal, snacks, a yellowed box of
corn starch, extra- virgin olive oil.
Satiated, she settled in the sitting room,
picked up her knitting, content
to stare at the flickering light
from the large flat screen.
