The sexiness of the ancient world whether in cities still intact or now in ruins is pretty hot, I admit it. But, come on, compared to the miraculous pastel clarity of environment that the bells of the ice-cream truck engender as their tinky peals mix with their lover the air as the truck wends its […]
Poetry 68
Joelle Hann: Order
Let’s deal with the brilliant forsythia and the strangle of lilacs that beside the train tracks bloom and burn, yellow, mauve, erratic, effusive, firing flames beside the train’s upstate roar even as it shrieks by at no matter what speed tell these seasons they can’t go on like this— oh just a glimpse of the […]
Marj Hahne: To a Mother in Washington Market Park
You will tell her it’s dirty the pigeon she chases her tiny hands open through the park Not a mom I don’t know what makes one freeze or flee pull the lips back to bare teeth I only know that I love the white ones brushed with shades of brown of pink so like doves […]
Kathy Graber: Topography: Pineland
You can always get a National Geographic back issue at the county library for a dime. What you want though are the maps, the way they marry their words to the world— because mostly we just come to go by going. I took 347 for weeks before I knew it had a number. I thought […]
Leonard Gontarek: Home
You are crying for something in the past. Fair enough. Your mother is dead here. A praying mantis eats through a leaf. They’ve changed over the streetlights to the safer, apricot-hazed ones. Bang your fist on my heart if you understand. Raunchy, whispering ghost, one streetlight on earth, out. The maples & moving clouds go […]
Sally Dawidoff: Self-Portrait Before An Open Window
A bee nearly killed me. Fourteen years of shots I got! It’s something special about me, my allergies: Peppermint. Bees. Silk. The odd flower. . . The negligee leapt from the ledge. The bouquet came to grief beside the recycling. So much you gave me I couldn’t use. “‘Special’?” You were amused. Naked, sneezing, rubbing […]