As in the parable, the truant lover arrived. Morning, not a sample a quotation, It was only a bird! but let’s forget about those hidden references touched by something the I don’t know that keeps flying out of your mouth when I’m talking. To believe or not believe that is not the question. Why not […]
Poetry 73
Darin Ciccotelli: Right of Way
That other self isn’t difficult. It piano-vamps to conversation, is errand-happy, and roams the lamb-colored earth. At Christmas, it dotes on upholstery flowers. Time-dull cars, W.C.’s, dubs— I have faltered in my tries for more. Who doesn’t halt at the fireworks? Yes, it is eelkissing, love of bubble-wrap noise, the hybrid musk of gardenia and […]
Robin Beth Schaer: Restraint
There were no solid walls or impossible locks. I was the Queen of Birds, with a metal shim beneath my tongue and a shoulder slipped from the socket. My escape was always astounding; the art was finding the slack. Then you, my sweet locomotive, careened. Your impact shook loose sequins and concealed keys, released a […]
Pit Pinegar: November First
Today is the day I don’t want to get out of bed, the day the backyard maple is gold heading for ochre, the day the bed has yellow sheets and quilt, yellow roses and baby’s breath in a bouquet much too large for the room, the day the air coming through the window gusts copper, […]
Carla Panciera: The Memory I Would Have Chosen
Autumn nights with a moon, my grandfather napped on our couch, the green afghan covering his brief and sober slumber. Outside, the last cow milked, my father shut the milk house down. Night lost the lulling pulse of work. He brought the truck around and idled while my grandfather took two apples off the table […]
Kazim Ali: Love Note
a window from the afternoon dreams the evening nomad, again the wind’s eye is asking to see you bound as you are by the chords pulled down from the sky afternoon’s restless discussion scatters the years are pulled taut as strings and it is frightening not to know what these days will sound like at […]