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Frances Sjoberg Absence in Ghazal The patient, extubated, does not speak. His reticence the voice of one’s haunting, one hears. — Narcissus, fixed to his face, quick in the current, is released should the lake dissolve what it mirrors. — To the wind, for the gavel, the clown leaves his horn. To judge convicts for money, he newly careers. — Tomorrow will have been perfect. Yesterday was passed. Leaving’s participial; but now’s the here’s. — And France’s slipped into the tide once again. Monsieur, too, would sink there, distinct while he disappears. |
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Joshua Edwards from Sag Harbor So European the past is exposed Some business about a betrayal Up to a psychological meaning That is a small airfield now in disuse When suddenly there appears a glider On the horizon to end retirement Or maybe further enhance tragedy With the suspense of a Greek heroic A nude locked in battle with a monster Both just poised on the verge of innocence |
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Ed Skoog Quadrants in the French Window In this pane the gray cloud is my mother in her housecoat. And here the neighbor’s quiet chimney trunk gathers elephant-timber. I then am Portuguese, spying through a glass, leafing through maps up sort of the Nile. Or I am returning home, my knapsack a jumble of unbearably small jade statues. |
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John Colburn organized by good government In the town where I grew up, the phone rang. The driveway let a cold sparrow walk on it. Limestone basements crumbled. We thought it might hurt a little, to know another thing. We studied the mystery of the barely dreaming phone; how its bells traveled in the walls. I knew the schedule of a motel maid two towns over. The chronic, lush sound of a county road. My room was my lifestyle. Summer went one way, half of myself forgiven by the phone. Trees became themselves. Yards waited. We all had to live somewhere. There in the exposed listening-in of summer, the phone told its lie, a year’s worth of crickets opening a purse. Did we know what passports were? For emphasis, we added the word ass to the end of other words. Big-ass. Dusty-ass. The telephone rang until another friend gave up. We lived as though machinery might copy us down. Our sky could hardly hold up the body of a bird. I was only a boy. The telephone rang. The tiny meat of the sparrow’s eyes reacted. Summer went one way, like an everglade. The shingles and rooftops became unbearable company. The phone finished ringing. Mention was made. We heard airplanes but never saw them. I knew the tide of hours at dusk. The fruit of a clock’s quiet-ass hand. The rinse of mystery in a six-pack. In the town where I grew up, the children made a cloud boil. The telephone rang. The driveway let a cold sparrow walk on it. |
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Anonymous Ingredients for 10,000 Chocolate Chip Cookies As found posted in the bakery of the retired Aircraft Carrier U.S.S. Yorktown (Charleston, SC) 112 Lbs of Chocolate Chips 165 Lbs of Flour 500 Eggs 100 Lbs of Granulated Sugar 87 Lbs of Shortening 75 Lbs of Brown Sugar 12 Lbs of Butter 3 Lbs of Salt 3 Cups of Vanilla Extract 1 Quart of Water 1 1/2 Lbs of Baking Soda |
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Shane Sullivan This Village Trees break and whisper They’ve made time with the wind; I collected dried beans and berries To complete our meal of crushed love. The bananas shine out of reach And a jumbled sun blinds us. The ocean is a pit of salt And we lost touch with the boat so many days ago. We make our memory and tie it to our backs, We trot our bloody feet off to war. The woman in front of me whispers: “Love would be eating an orange right now.” |
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Lisa Olstein Man Feeding Bear an Ear of Corn What we need is an allegory. What we want is a parable. What we remember is a face, a movement of hands like wings. If god is an absence, what’s missing is blue. If god is a book, its pages are blue. Doorways appear green. Night is a small patch in the distance where everything swirls inviting— a place, from this distance, you might like to stay for a while. An arm extends an ear to an arm extended. If you have a hand place it over your heart. This necklace will not be mistaken for its chain. |