Happy full moon! Today's Moon Prize, the sixty-fourth, goes to Joan Colby's poem "Dia de los Muertos." 

DIA DE LOS MUERTOS

by Joan Colby


It is the Day of the Dead
And I have no sugar skulls to offer,
No tequila, no red flowers,
Only the memory of your rictus,
Mouth open as if to curse.
I thought you were still living,
Small intestinal whispers,
But Gabriella said no, closing your eyes
With her palms. I would rather
Remember you, young in an apron
And your maroon sweater, making Welsh rarebit
For Friday supper. The cheese edged brown
On the toasted bread.

Today a raw drizzle and the oak leaves
Falling in a slow mournful chorus.
All Souls Day is what we called it,
This time of recollection. You had
Green eyes, black hair. I know now
You were pretty though as a child
I saw you as worried, a cigarette
In your stained fingers or a rosary.

On the Day of the Dead, the Madonna
Is honored. Or Santa Muerte
Who loves the assassinated.
The piñata of recollection
Breaks open and everything falls
Randomly. How eagerly we grasp
What we can. Mother, I can’t believe
What you believed. The better place
With your family gathered; someone about
To carve the turkey, your sister’s famous
Lemon meringue pie.

None of this matters on the
Day of the Dead. It is finished.
They carried you out on a gurney
Like a parcel. I wept with sorrow
And relief. It was over, your life that had
Diminished to a chair and a bed.
You were content, you said.
I was not. Shamed that I hated
This transformation. How you
Perpetually saluted the
Empty air.

On the Day of the Dead, the dead
Rise in my dream: Mother,
Father in the ’41 Dodge singing off-key
As we drive through the Big Horns
Where years earlier the radiator
Of the Model-T boiled over.
They filled paper cups from a
Mountain creek laughing.
I wasn’t born then. I was still
Where the dead are.


* * * * *

"Dia de los Muertos" was first published in Gargoyle (Vol. 71, 2020)

Joan Colby’s Selected  Poems received the 2013 FutureCycle Prize and Ribcage was awarded the 2015 Kithara Book Prize. Her recent books include Her Heartsongs from Presa Press, Joyriding to Nightfall from FutureCycle Press, Elements from Presa Press .and Bony Old Folks from Cyberwit Press.

‘those’ kind of girls

by Emalisa Rose


Janie was wayward..
butter blonde hair playing
tease with the wind...long
slender cigarette fondling
her lips

Debbie says she was one
of those that bud early…
girls becoming women
under the boardwalk back
at the Rock

she used those hard sticks that
you shove inside at that time
of the month...it proddles and
pokes with a string peeking out

i tried it three times and felt
if i pulled on it hard, my life
would bleed out

Deb said her aunt told her only
the bad girls would use them

today at the Port of NY...by the
stalls of the ladies room..scribbles
on walls wretching with “fuck you”
talk, like “call April for a banging
good time,” those machines were
there, selling them

some chick put her buck twenty-five
into the slot, grabbing one of those
things, making me cringe knowing
she’d be shoving it into herself.


* * * * *

Emalisa Rose grew up in a beach town. She lived in a city housing project with many friends of diverse backgrounds who were poets, artists, musicians. This provided much of the inspiration for her art. She is a macrame artist, dollmaker and animal rescue volunteer. She works as a lunch lady in a NY public school. Her work has appeared in October Hill, Beatnick Cowboy, Amethyst Poetry Journal.

No, I Don’t Want to Hold Your Baby

by Jean Ryan


One drunken night in college, in a dorm bed with my boyfriend, I was seized with an outrageous idea. We’d been chatting in a noncommittal way about the future, imagining lives in the suburbs, the sort of home and pets we’d like, and while we could not fathom the age of fifty, we could conjure a child, just one, who would receive the best of us: my eyes, his hair; my creative side, his sublime wit. For the first time in my life, I saw myself having a baby, not anytime soon of course, but there at last was the thrilling possibility, which stayed till I fell asleep and was gone for good in the morning.

From the time I could think, the thought of having a baby alarmed and repelled me. As a child, I did not know what to do with dolls; later, I felt the same way about babies. The only infants I want to cradle have fur coats and four legs. I’ll take a pass on your baby photos, but show me a blue-eyed kitten or a newborn gecko and I will buckle at the knees.

I did not opt for a childfree life: the decision was made for me, even before me, in a tiny swirl of the cosmos. Maybe this primal aversion comes from a gene—who knows? In any case, I’m grateful for it and endlessly amazed by the multitudes of women who readily submit to motherhood, who relinquish their bodies, their time, their hearts, again and yet again, as if this were a reasonable price. Can’t they foresee the pitfalls, the breadth of difficulty? Children are little sponges, absorbing all they encounter. They live every moment at the mercy of others.

It is hard for me to believe that my mother didn’t know what my father was up to, at night in our rooms. He was that reckless, that lawless. I shed him when I was 15, molted everything but the damage and moved on, even changed my last name for good measure. He died a few years ago, news that made no difference to me, aside from silent relief that the world had lost another monster. I cannot see any point in fathers, and what’s a mother love if it doesn’t have teeth? Maybe children should be raised in tribal fashion, protected by group oversight, saved from the prison of a single toxic household.

I realize that this bleak perspective arises from my own experience, that many others emerge from childhoods they would call happy. And I know too that early trouble does not preclude future contentment or diminish the capacity to give. Look at me now, fertilizing plants, filling birdfeeders, soothing my elderly cat. These are the acts that shape my life and make each day matter.

Some have asked me what will happen in my golden years, who will care for me if it comes to that. Well, from what I’ve seen, viewing your progeny as old age insurance is risky business. And who wants that dynamic anyway? My partner’s mother lived with us for 13 years, and believe me, it was as tiresome for her as it was for us.

I do wonder who will wind up with the art I’ve collected, the furniture my partner has built. Nieces and nephews, I suppose, as a favor to my sisters; knowing what they went through, I would do anything for them.

Investments, though, and the sale of the house, that money will go to animals, to whom we owe so much. Cash is a means of apology, a way to love them even after I’m gone.

Biologically speaking, it does not make sense that the reason I am childfree is genetic (to be entirely honest, the thought of a person growing inside my body gives me the willies). Conversely, I might be non-productive by design, part of an important group who keep the population in check—in which case there are not nearly enough of us.

But there is not much point in asking why of life: a force that creates both polio and penicillin will not be offering any existential answers. All we can do is come up with our own reasons for being here. I like to think that every creature I have given my attention to, even in passing, has benefitted; that subtly, immeasurably, my esteem has strengthened them, the way love profits everything.


* * * * *

Jean Ryan, a native Vermonter, lives in coastal Alabama. Her writing has appeared in many literary journals and anthologies. Her debut collection of short stories, Survival Skills, was published by Ashland Creek Press and short-listed for a Lambda Literary Award. Lovers and Loners is her second story collection. She has also published a novel, Lost Sister, and a book of nature essays, Strange Company.

Suitcase Full of Ordinary

by Joan Leotta


In the attic of my mind,
amid the detritus of childhood,
sits a suitcase full of ordinary moments,
days passed without comment,
waits…locked away.
Knocked about  by life’s larger forces,
its corners are rounded, red fabric
of colorful sunrise and sunsets torn.
Bits of “plaster” bumped from my
inner walls,
scratches on my own inner frame,
I pull this case down from that inner attic,
glad I’ve found it,
though I’m both curious and
afraid of what might be hiding inside.
Now, I need to find the key,
to unlock the importance
of the ordinary that rests within.


* * * * *

Joan Leotta is a writer and story performer, expressing her love of words and desire to encourage others on page and on stage. Her work has been published widely as poems, essays, articles, and books. On stage she most often performs folk and personal tales dealing with food, family, nature, and strong women. She has been published in Writing in Woman’s Voice, Silver Birch, The Ekphrastic Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, Tema, and others.

November wonder

by Mary Wescott Riser


Where two closed gates meet
at the end
of the road
beyond the Cedar Grove Baptist Church,
all is the color of Virginia November:
iron clay, oak leaves,
early dusk, gold rings.

The moon is a cradle of light,
rocking in the late afternoon sky.

So close beside the car window,
a cardinal grabs a branch and bounces,
red feather edges vibrant,
snapping up red berries,
from that scrubby bush.

How many times have we been here before
and why is it always new?


* * * * *

Mary Wescott Riser worked in Virginia independent schools for 30 years, most recently as Head of School at James River Day School, a K-8 day co-ed day school in Lynchburg, Virginia, where she served as Head for ten years. Mary received her B.A. in English and Philosophy from Georgetown University and her M.F.A. in Poetry from the University of Oregon. She writes the education blog “What’s Best For the Children?” www.maryriser.org. Mary and her husband, George, live in Covesville, Virginia and have two adult children.

High Noon

by Cynthia Anderson


The poet exits the building
in the middle of a reading,

leaves her papers at the podium
to heed the call of the trail.

She climbs higher, rounds
the bend, picks her way

through rockpiles, shouts,
Can you hear me?

Her voice carries all the way
back—everyone knows

where she is. Satisfied, she
descends to read a few more.

Instead of words, she lets
the scent of sage, chaparral,

and open space waft from
her body. The audience breathes
these poems of the desert
while the clock keeps ticking.


* * * * *

Cynthia Anderson lives in the Mojave Desert near Joshua Tree National Park. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals, and she is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. She has authored nine collections and co-edited the anthology A Bird Black As the Sun: California Poets on Crows & Ravens. Recently she guest edited Cholla Needles 46, which is available on Amazon. www.cynthiaandersonpoet.com

Bone Mother

by Cynthia Anderson


She dwells in the seat
of the sacred, building
the framework that lets you

move through this world—
stern and stoic, shunned
and unbeautiful, her face

a skull, a study in stone.
Used to being ignored,
taken for granted,

she walks within you,
every step an affirmation
of her power. She leans

on her staff, looking
straight into you,
twin suns for eyes,

crescent moons
on her cloak.
She has waited

for you a long time.
She knows how
your story ends.


* * * * *

Cynthia Anderson lives in the Mojave Desert near Joshua Tree National Park. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals, and she is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. She has authored nine collections and co-edited the anthology A Bird Black As the Sun: California Poets on Crows & Ravens. Recently she guest edited Cholla Needles 46, which is available on Amazon. www.cynthiaandersonpoet.com

     I Was A Nineties Girl

by S. J. Stephens
 

I wanted to be Madonna     with her stacked jelly bracelets and forbidden sexuality     a style of every nineties girl’s dream and every boy’s fantasy            she was more than ambition mocking      virginity and      scoffing the doctrine of her youth     daring to defy the laws of man and church     In my room singing     La Isla Bonita     with little idea of its meaning     A young girl with eyes like the desert     the music moved through my body     sang to my innocence at the first mention  of  wild dreams      and tropical storms gathering      I was touched beneath my skin through my bones     into the marrow     where all secrets are held      and wait  

It was a time of designer Guess jeans and peg rolled pants     high ponytails     and that guy who believed I was     on fire for the lord     and     I was burning in that fire      deeply immersed in the word     but also submerged in Bel Biv Devoe  Do Me Baby and Color me Bad    I Wanna Sex You Up     Boys to Men singing     I’ll Make Love To You

My first kiss, a dead thing flopping     on wet sand        before love          came with a second kiss     and his hand covering my breast     kneading my flesh     a deafening music     tuned to perfection        but boys make lousy lovers on driveways            with clumsy attempts at seduction     even when the stars are clear     warm air cooled by the hour     submerged in feeling     under a spell that resonates through decades of good lovers       and bad lovers   beneath those first moments of bliss        when rational thought lost       to the hum of lust     I want that magic in every kiss     in every touch of lips      and in my lover’s words  

We were     pretty girls with blue eyeshadow and black mascara     pink cheeks and frosted pink lips     teased hair three inches high     and hairspray stuck to the bathroom floor     we were girls on the verge     before cell phones and computers     a dark craze emerged     Madonna posed naked on the street     pushing the limits of virtue     beyond what my experience could beat out in time to the righteous music     playing in the background     a soundtrack to the nineties    

After rock n roll     Ruth Bader Ginsberg     and Madeleine Albright     gave way to the commercialization of my body      tricked into objectifying my sexuality     my body      until we     all women      bleed openly      reduced to sexuality        stripped of power          we slit our own wrists      in unwitted suicide 

I fear that legacy as I am the nineties girl    living proof that progress isn’t always progress      my misspent regrets are worthless in the currency of living     pennies on the dollar in the exchange of memories      at today’s rate     I’ll keep my memories     because I know this wild ride isn’t new      every generation     lives through decades of change     and at least I know        while you exploit          my girlhood                   

                       

I am an unapologetic bad ass feminist bitch.       

     * * * * *

S.J. Stephens lives and writes in the coastal town of Wilmington, North Carolina.  She is an MFA candidate for poetry at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. In addition to publishing in journals such as The Licking River Review and Sugared Water, she has recently published a chapbook, Where All the Birds Are Dancing, with Finishing Line Press. 

 

wrong turn

by Eve Rifkah


I walk into a spa, a bodega, a superette, a groceria
all faces unrecognizable

caught in mid-breath
all eyes focus
I the stranger
more lost than ever

all eyes focus
they wear the same plaid shirt
silence breaks across rows
of cans with muted labels of strange fruits,
coffee, corn meal, dairy creamer from the US

I ask the way beyond twisted streets
that end in dry fountains
blocked doorways
muffled birdsong

all eyes focus
on my confusion
pale skin
short skirt

the silence broken by scratches
as a raven walks across a counter
the motion breaks,
a still life of silent men,  brown roots
bulbous tubers

the men come to life
wave their arms attempt language
caws catch in their mouths
ricochet across the aisles
screech arrows into me

I spin in the doorway
face the blinding light of midday
run past dry fountains
through a stone arch that starts to crumble
stones rolling beneath my feet
gritgrey dust grabs my clothes, my skin 
I run to the next corner
where intersecting streets have no names
turn toward the scent of spices, yeast, perfumes, gasoline
race breath clogged
into crash of sound
rumble of traffic, of people
too many people all    
laughing, yelling, snarling, 
swirling in a ragged dance 

I stumble into a spa, a bodega, a superette, a groceria
all the faces unrecognizable  


* * * * *

Eve Rifkah was co-founder of Poetry Oasis, Inc. (1998-2012), a non-profit poetry association dedicated to education and promoting local poets. Founder and editor of DINER, a literary magazine with a 7-year run. MFA Vermont College.

She is author of Dear Suzanne (WordTech Communications, 2010) and Outcasts: the Penikese Leper Hospital 1905-1921 (Little Pear Press, 2010). Chapbook Scar Tissue (Finishing Line Press, 2017), At the Leprosarium, 2003 winner of the Revelever Chapbook Contest.

When My Heart Stops, I’ll Float My Boat on a Lake

                                                                       by Dianna MacKinnon Henning


far away. I’ll have my writing pens with me
to spear fish that flaunt their fluidity. When

waves tickle rainbow trout the stars will break
out in laughter. The water won’t be deep.

Just wet.

The shoreline is a girl’s kerchief. She’s bolts
across sand to escape the bronze gilded man
with his bow and arrow. He’s just a tan man
attempting to look like a shape shifter. Mud

fills his tracks.

A gale with a mustache tips my rowboat.
My liver is cast iron. It refuses to sink.


* * * * *

Dianna MacKinnon Henning taught through California Poets in the Schools, received several CAC grants and taught poetry workshops through the William James Association’s Prison Arts Program which included Folsom Prison. Henning’s third poetry book Cathedral of the Hand published 2016 by Finishing Line Press. Recent Publications: Pacific Poetry; New American Writing; The Kerf; The Moth, Ireland; Mojave River Review; the New Verse News; Sequestrum; VerseVirtual; Your Daily Poem and Naugatuck River Review. Four-time Pushcart nominee.

The Bird

by Holly Day


The tiny bird flaps in the grass near me
watches my approach with eyes like glass beads
opens its mouth as if expecting
random acts of maternal kindness from everything
around it, even me. Overhead

the mother robin peeps in distress, also
watching me with shiny eyes
a look of resolution on its face as if
it’s already decided I am incapable of love.


* * * * *

Holly Day (hollylday.blogspot.com) has been a writing instructor at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis since 2000. Her poetry has recently appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Grain, and Harvard Review, and her newest poetry collections are Into the Cracks (Golden Antelope Press), Cross Referencing a Book of Summer (Silver Bow Publishing), The Tooth is the Largest Organ in the Human Body (Anaphora Literary Press), and Book of Beasts (Weasel Press).

 

In the Grip of Sensual Illusion

                                                            by Holly Day


the pop star’s new album comes in the mail and I am uncomfortably aware
that time has passed, the man on the cover has grown older.
There are memories tied up in his musical legacy, indelible fingerprints
on my childhood: my mother humming along at the kitchen sink
my father playing along quietly on his beat-up acoustic guitar

others from when I started calling the music my own: a tiny apartment
with a shitty stereo that I loved, the lights off, the music loud
blissful in my solitude, later: in bed with my first husband, eyes closed
pretending to be asleep, pretending there was nothing wrong
the pop star’s then-new CD playing itself to the end in the background

even later: my son in my arms, face tiny and red, missing the last few words
from a well-worn song that finally put him to sleep.
I take the new album to my office, pull out the various incarnations of media
bearing the pop star’s name: two cassette tapes, four vinyl LPs, seven CDs, lay them out
in chronological order, like portraits of a family member never seen
yet sorely missed.


* * * * *

Holly Day (hollylday.blogspot.com) has been a writing instructor at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis since 2000. Her poetry has recently appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Grain, and Harvard Review, and her newest poetry collections are Into the Cracks (Golden Antelope Press), Cross Referencing a Book of Summer (Silver Bow Publishing), The Tooth is the Largest Organ in the Human Body (Anaphora Literary Press), and Book of Beasts (Weasel Press).

Spring, Early Summer, 2020

by Nonnie Augustine


Hard to admit I was failing at living.
Too loose. My seams frayed.
Friends knew, but what could they do?
My living brother too far away.

From my recliner I watched the virus take, take, take.
Shocked by the lock-down in Italy—empty piazzas.
Italians gather to eat, drink, argue, love, laugh.
I remember their vivacity, liveliness, pleasure. Now this.

Alone in my home, heart disease dizzy,
I fell often onto tile floors. Bruises, tears.
Then— I broke my leg— then a new deal.
Assisted living they said. Sell the family home.

I resisted, relented, regrouped.
Masked and socially distant in one big building
and our many small apartments we make a go of it.
I’m stronger now and the panic has almost subsided.

“Thank you for your patience.”

by Emily Strauss


I have none left, it's all gone
into every classroom I worked.
I want to shake my cell phone hard enough
for its head to come off when it doesn't
give me directions.

Patience? It all leached away
drop by hard mineral drop
in the cracks of limestone
crumbling under a desert sun.
I am too impatient to wait
in a boulder's shadow
for cool evening or your reply,
there is no benefit of doubt
no one will hear my answer
or catch the lizard scurrying away.

The room is empty finally
all the listeners gone
no one waits for me.
It's a mistake to think
time allows a pause now
just when I need to speak
impatient of delays.


* * * * *

Emily Strauss has an M.A. in English, but is self-taught in poetry, which she has written since college. Over 500 of her poems appear in a wide variety of online venues and in anthologies, in the U.S. and abroad. She is a Best of the Net and twice a Pushcart nominee. She is interested in the American West and the narratives of people and places around her. She is a retired teacher living in Oregon.

Before Dusk

by Padmini Krishnan


It is the last moment
of twilight
before the sky decides to pelt
the earth with
bullets of rain.
The eagles breeze along lazily
without flapping their wings.
Rodents hover outside their holes,
weaverbirds perch on the terrace
shaking their crest and
squirrels reluctantly
linger in the trees, never wanting
the smoke of darkness to envelope
their tiny world.


* * * * *

Padmini Krishnan was born in India and now resides in Singapore. She writes free verse poetry, haiku, and short stories. Her recent works have appeared in Stonecrop Review, Cafe Lit. Journal, Under the Basho, and Potato Soup Journal.

The Wall

by Alethea Eason


Metal shafts lay down shadows on the border,
south and north. Human tracks trace the line,
disremembering the grace of nature.

Javelina loses a baby through the bars.
Rattlesnake sneaks through, citizen of neither country.

Ocelot’s allegiance is forced and unexpected.
She slumbers beneath a cottonwood
that sips from springs on the other side.
Her thirst has declared its native land.

On the top of the shafts, blackbirds converse
in grackle language about their passports
made of sun and a wind whipping from the sierras.


* * * * *

"The Wall" was first published as one of the prize-winning poems in Desert Exposure's 2020 Writing Contest.

Alethea Eason is an award-winning writer and artist who has found happiness and her true home in the intersection of desert and mountains in southern New Mexico.

 

We Talked of Time 

by Cat Sole


Walking on the rooftops, talking of time 
A bare foot dipping into the city light and haze of traffic 
Unimportant, you said 
As a shoe tumbled onto a balcony (too) far below 
It will serve better as a stranger’s story
An odd disturbance in their ordered (chaotic) universe
Although 
It was a shame about the pot plant 

Last night I dreamt of playing cards, I told you 
You said you’d dreamt of sleep 
And hair tumbling down a shower drain
And babies
And the soft touch of clean bedsheets
Walking the edge of a building as if it were the path home 
Safe and familiar
(Never mind the drop)

Space was (never) unimportant
Like a fallen shoe and broken earth
So we talked of time instead
And made ourselves content 
With the abyss below 


* * * * *

Cat Sole is a kiwi writer based in Sydney. She is the writer of the web series "Six Short Weeks" and "The Strange and Infinite World of Numbers" and the producer and co-host of the writing podcast "Kill the Cat." She is currently struggling to write this bio because her calico cat is demanding to lie on her keyboard. 

 

Mother/Sister

by Marianne Renn

Why me? At twenty-six, I am the keeper of the heart, the holder of the ties that bind us together. I didn't ask, I inherited the task from Mom. And just like her, I wouldn't refuse.

 

Help. I am in a hospital for the criminally insane. Cindy's dead and the baby is with her grandmother. I don't know what's happening.

Scott

 

 

The world is spinning and the children have to be fed, four mouths constantly open — He is ranting. — driven to school, homework drills. — He will stand trial when his mind clears. Washing, ironing and wondering what I will do.

 

They have taken away my pictures, I have no pictures. Do you hate me? I don't have pictures of Cindy and the baby. I don't know what's happening. Can you help me?

Scott

 

                   Fat, soft, little faces and warm, pudgy arms. Sweet-smelling hair and damp kisses. —  Why? How? How could he? and why is he? – Eyes wide, trusting me to provide, and the love pours unbidden like milk from my breast to tiny lips. My sister and I cry together. Our brother. How can this be? – The children must be fed and protected. – Mom is dead. Thank goodness. My husband runs to his parents, and soon his whole family knows, aunts, uncles, cousins. I am ashamed. I don't want outsiders to know. Don't tell anyone else.

 

 

I spoke to Scott. He is really whacked out. I'm glad Mom didn't live to see this. Don't go up there. Wait until the trial. He might need someone then. They should execute him for what he's done. It's probably all the drugs he took. He's still getting the LSD flashbacks. He's better off dead.

David

 

 

What should I do? How can I help? Where is his baby?

Curtains billow in warm winds, blow dust through the screen and shift the blank sheet of paper I am trying to fill with the right words. Mom is dead. Why isn't she here to do this, instead of me? Sage from the hills flavors the breeze, brings sweet memories of my brother as he creates for my sister and me the story of the little girl who lives in the cake. Every night, before we sleep we beg him for more. He is nine and his patience is endless. – The pretty yellow flowers of my curtain shimmer in their white polyester field, flutter up and then down.

 

The baby is up here in the hands of the Religious Right who will raise her to know what an evil, corrupt man her father was—is.

Her grandmother

 

 

His blood runs in her veins. Will she hate herself? Hate that part of her that is him? How will she grow in hate? Will she know the good person he used to be? Before the drugs. – I have to cook dinner and the laundry waits.

Row on row of white cloth flutters, dries in the hot sun, the ultra-violet germ killer. It burns the microscopic violators of my children's skin. It warms my arms and hair, so I sit and soak up the magic rays until they burn little patterns in red patches on my open arms. I retreat inside, to hide.

How do I feel? What is stirring inside? Push it down. Everyone is looking to me to be the glue. I can't run away from this. (Where is my sister? Twenty-three and married three years, she could help. Why always me, and she gets to ride free?)

 

Don't come to the trial. I am ashamed and I don't want anyone there. I don't know what it will be like. It's a little town deep in the forest. It may be dangerous. The townspeople might turn on you. Don't come; I'll be fine.

Can you take the baby?

Scott

 

 

How do I feel? He can't be Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity. What does that mean? He did it; he's guilty. How can I comfort him when he has done such a horrible thing?

The heavy pen moves slowly across the paper, stumbles on the perfect raised flower, on the plastic tablecloth underneath. I trace around and around it, but I can't find the words. I must find the words. He is waiting for me to tell him I forgive him, but how can I forgive him? Can someone else write this for me? But I mustn't let down. Start again. Fight the feeling. Don't look around, just straight ahead.

 

I feel so bad. I am better off dead. The rest of my life I will remember what I did. I will never escape. I want them to kill me.

Scott

 

 

Details. The details. I can't know the details. I'm afraid of the words that will switch on the anger. – Math drills, reading drills, and Mommy and Me preschool class. –The rifle was so small. Only to kill rabbits. – Not yet three, my daughter's small pudgy arms encircle and comfort her twin brother, who cries. She is strong and waits to hand him off to me then runs to play. I dry his tears, stand near, and tell him one day he will be brave, like her. – How could she die from one small bullet? – I have to feed the children and wash all the sheets. They all wet the bed last night. – How could this happen? To us.

 

I hope they keep him in for the rest of his life. There is no way he should ever get out. He took a person's life. That's unforgivable.

David

 

 

We will go to court to fight for the baby. She needs protection from the memories, the gossip, the bias. Don't tell the children. Not yet. Just wash them and feed them and drive them to school, and keep up the drills.

What do I feel? Thy will be done. Thy will? My will? His will? Why will I have to take on this burden? Why won't my sister? She is riding on me. Will David? No, David will disinfect his hands, wash his conscience clean. No help with the lawyer's fees, I will work at night, then get up and feed the children, and drive them to school, and do the laundry, and cook the meals, and pick them up, and go back to work. Why me? Let this cup pass from me. Thy will be done. No one offers to help. They let me. I will be strong and will be strong. They will let me be strong.

Raindrops pour down the windshield as I wait in the parking lot after work, in the middle of the night, for the squall to blow over so I can go home to sleep. Large, round, wet, insistent, they pound the shell around me, and I wait, hoping they will go away. But the weariness is stronger, and I drive, slowly, with wipers whipping back and forth, showing me a small opening in the storm, and I head through it and hope it will lead me home.

 

When you pick up the baby can you bring her to see me? I haven't seen her since I turned myself in and gave her to the police to take to her grandmother. What does she look like? I would really love to see her.

Scott

 

 

The baby. Her huge green eyes stare at me, and the long dark lashes flutter down then up. His blood, my blood, Mom's and Dad's. And the blood of her dead mother. All of us in one small being. She is in my arms, warm and soft and beautiful. Eyes wide, trusting me to provide, and the love pours unbidden like milk from my breast. And from that moment she is mine. We fly away and she doesn't cry. She looks happy and curious. But I worry she will scream, "Who are you? You aren't my mother!" And will she know Scott? And will she remember that day? She wasn't there. She has nothing to remember.

 

The building is red brick and the doors are locked so we knock. We knock to get in. The others shuffle, they mumble, they stare, on meds. I hold the baby tight. But Scott looks normal and happy to see his baby. She has nothing to remember, but he tells me at six months she screamed, and he smacked and smacked her bottom until she emptied her bowels in temper. At that moment I hate him. But I mustn't. I am the glue who holds us together — the keeper of the heart, the holder of the ties. I will be strong. Will be strong.

So I smile at him but pull her close, and vow he will never, ever hurt her again.

 

* * * * *

Marianne Renn lives in southern California and enjoys reading, writing, traveling, and her family. After teaching writing to college students for twenty years, she’s finally enjoying the freedom to explore her own work.   

 

 

The Point(e)?

by Leah Pileggi


A plastic grocery bag with something inside
leaned with ease against the starving tree.
A damp twist of laundry?
Orphaned groceries?
Books with no words?

No

Three pairs of
Pink
Satin
Never worn
Ballet
Pointe shoes.

What I know of
Pink
Satin
Never worn
Ballet
Pointe shoes
is that they are made for
two particular feet
and
only those two.

How did she forget them?

Running for the bus that
almost got away?

Distracted by a
partner,
a pas de deux inside
a bubble,
ignoring, forgetting everything else?

Or did she quit dancing,
just as I walked down the street?


* * * * *

Leah Pileggi grew up in Kane, Pennsylvania, a tiny town in the middle of the Allegheny National Forest. She didn’t have many books as a child but now has more than one person probably should. She studied creative writing at Chatham University and professional writing at Carnegie Mellon University. Her work has appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Chautauquan Daily, Mental Floss, The New York Times Magazine, and Hopscotch Magazine. Her middle-grade historical novel, Prisoner 88, is an Indies First pick and an NCTE notable book. She lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Normal is Overrated

by Alexis Garcia


Normal is waking up, getting dressed and
Going about your day without
A second thought.
Not conjuring up different scenarios about 
What could possibly happen
Some of them minor
Some of them fatal
Normal is making a mistake
Learning from it and accepting 
That things happen.
Not spending hours figuring out
How you could’ve avoided 
Being so stupid and now everyone
Thinks that’s what you are.
Normal is taking what people say
At face value
Not convincing yourself that 
Everyone is lying and there’s
Always a hidden agenda, an ulterior motive.
Normal is a drink or two 
To blow off some steam
Not intentionally mixing alcohol 
And playing Russian roulette with prescription pills 
To set yourself free from your mental imprisonment.
Normal is flat tires, shopping for groceries,
Laughing at a joke from last week, 
Taking a chance on your heart’s desires,
Finally learning how to swim, 
Staying present.
Normal is overrated. 

* * * * *


Alexis Garcia is a queer Hispanic writer from New York, NY. She graduated from Manhattanville College in 2017 with a Bachelor of Arts in English. Since then, she has had some of her poetry published in a few anthologies: Volume Red and Volume Honey with Beautiful Minds Unite LLC and Upon Arrival: Threshold with Eber & Wein Publishing.   

Introducing Me

by Alexis Garcia


I’m an unfinished thought
A mosaic of melancholic memories
A misplaced comma
The unintentional pauses between
Phrases riddled with double meanings
A semi-functioning vessel on the surface
Covering up the frequent malfunctions
In desperate need of repair.
A questioned answer
An impenetrable equation
A hopeful variable seeking to 
Become a constant
A nuanced enigma
A fickle frenzy
Misinterpreted, unable to be contained
Misunderstood, wanting someone to match my refrain
I used to believe I was 
Better in theory and
Left much to be desired in practice
But the fact is, even stars collapse
I get pushed to the edge
On the brink of complete self-destruction
And dare to find my way back. 
This is me, in all of my hesitant glory
Eagerly awaiting to embark on
The next chapter in my story. 


* * * * *

Alexis Garcia is a queer Hispanic writer from New York, NY. She graduated from Manhattanville College in 2017 with a Bachelor of Arts in English. Since then, she has had some of her poetry published in a few anthologies: Volume Red and Volume Honey with Beautiful Minds Unite LLC and Upon Arrival: Threshold with Eber & Wein Publishing.

Beating Covid 19

by Myra King


At ninety-four
she never believed
in 2020
she'd be a war hero
a survivor
from the frontline

as a teen in 44
she worked in Munitions
nowhere near
the enemy
not fighting but supporting

her work, her country said
saved lives but she knew
in the darkest hour
of her nights
also lost them

now straight
from the frontline
healed and complete
she breathes
and smiles
at the reporters

amid the clapping
and flashing of lights
stay strong, she says
her bravery
reflecting in
their younger
restless eyes  
behind the cameras' lens


* * * * * *

Author's note: The wonderful story of the survival of a 94 year-old woman beating Covid inspired me to write this poem: https://7news.com.au/lifestyle/health-wellbeing/coronavirus-australia-94-year-old-victorian-woman-beats-covid-19-c-978608

Myra Kinglives on Worlds End Highway in South Australia with her rescue greyhound, Sparky. Her poems and short stories have been published in print and online by Writing in a Woman's Voice, Puncher &Wattmann, October Hill NY, Boston Literary Magazine, Rochford Street Review, EDF, EDP, Heron's Nest and San Pedro River Review.
She has won the UK Global, the US Moon Prize and been shortlisted for the US Glass Woman Prize and the Scarlett Stiletto SINC Sisters In Crime AUS. 

The Dybbuk 
(a love story)

by Katherine West


The dybbuk
blew in on the end of winter
wind
along with the long dead
leaves
and the skeins
of dirt
scarves of ghosts whisked across the road
to your door

It didn't knock
it swirled
around the corners
of your home
like a dust devil
a tornado
with you as the eye
quiet
at the center
innocent
unsuspecting
you read your book
pencil in hand
to underline
take notes

Nothing existed
for you
but the words
and the dybbuk
which part of you
(the oldest part)
waited for
had always
waited for

Had always
kept in a shoe box
under the bed
instead of God
someone to argue with
someone to hold
to account
someone to hold
as you cried
in the night
a kind of wife
you could love
and hate
without leaving your room
your books
your sticky history
your swollen heart
bursting all over the ancient pages
the white sheets
that gave the dybbuk shape

"What a bloody mess!"
the neighbors say
when they come to spring clean
when they come to make sure
you are gone
despite the two sets
of red footprints
side by side
walking out the door


* * * * *

Katherine West lives in Southwest New Mexico, near the Gila Wilderness, where she writes poetry about the soul-importance of wilderness and performs it with her musician husband, Yaakov. She has written three collections of poetry: The Bone Train, Scimitar Dreams, and Riddle, as well as one novel, Lion Tamer. Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Lalitamba, Bombay Gin, and New Verse News, which recently nominated her poem And Then the Sky for a Pushcart Prize.

Where the River Used to Run 

by Katherine West


It started in her foot
as if she had
stepped
on a rusty nail
a horse
badly shod
with lockjaw--
we watched
as she limped
from place to place
head down
hair in her face
Then she stopped
eating
until her vertebrae
ribs
could be counted
Then she laid herself down
in the dirt
and the dung
and closed her eyes

The moon was one day
short of full
The buff-colored owl
hooted
in the naked willows
by the river
the cold settled into the valley
like a dead lover
but we didn't sleep
we waited
silent
without a fire
and when the moon
reached the top of the sky
they arrived
rising right out of the ground
around her
like vapor
from a swamp
they rose
until they stood tall
and beautiful
as she used to be
dark eyes
long hair
like hers

The moon loved them
gave them light
and shadow
as if they were real
the way the cottonwoods were real
their sad
shade
reaching
across the dirt
to where she lay
as if they could wake
her
not sleeping
not light
not shadow
a thing of the past
we began to forget

until you
only you
revealed yourself
dark
and solid
as the trunk of an oak
blocking the moon
so completely
everything
vanished
except you
and the wound
lying at your feet
not sleeping
not waiting
eyes now opened

I never saw what happened
never saw you move
How could you
rooted as you were?
I never saw her rise
How could she
weak as she was?
But the next day
when the sun
took the place of the moon
there were two oaks
where there used to be one
and a hundred horses
running
where the river used to run


* * * * *

Katherine West lives in Southwest New Mexico, near the Gila Wilderness, where she writes poetry about the soul-importance of wilderness and performs it with her musician husband, Yaakov. She has written three collections of poetry: The Bone Train, Scimitar Dreams, and Riddle, as well as one novel, Lion Tamer. Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Lalitamba, Bombay Gin, and New Verse News, which recently nominated her poem And Then the Sky for a Pushcart Prize.

 

HOUSEKEEPING

by Alexis Rhone Fancher


Ashes to ashes dust to Swiffer.

I love you like a cat loves an ankle,
rubbed up against, territorial.

I love you like the Swiffer loves
the dust, deeply, with
an electrostatic charge.

When you’re gone
I shout your name.
I match your socks.
I scrub the kitchen sink.

Am I not your beloved?

Hidden in a heap of laundry,
I touch myself,
come on your warm, white
sheets.

If you see a trail of glistening
girl sparkling across your coverlet,
know it as a road map to me.


* * * * *

"Housekeeping" was first published in Loch Raven Review, 2015.

Alexis Rhone Fancher is published in Best American Poetry, Rattle, Hobart, Verse Daily, Plume, Cleaver, Diode, Duende, Pirene’s Fountain, Poetry East, Pedestal Magazine and elsewhere. She’s authored five poetry collections, most recently, Junkie Wife (Moon Tide Press, 2018), and The Dead Kid Poems (KYSO Flash Press, 2019). EROTIC: New & Selected, from New York Quarterly, and another, full-length collection (in Italian) by Edizioni Ensemble, Italia, will both be published in 2021. A multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, Alexis is poetry editor of Cultural Weekly. www.alexisrhonefancher.com

SHE SAYS STALKER/HE SAYS FAN

by Alexis Rhone Fancher

“If you can’t be free, be a mystery.” - Rita Dove, ‘Canary.’


She’s a singed torch song, a broken chord, the slip-shadow between superstar and the door. She’s that long stretch of longing riding shotgun from nowhere to L.A., a bottle of Jack Daniels snug between her thighs, always some fresh loser at the wheel. She’s the Zippo in your darkness, a glimmer of goddess in your god-forsaken life, her voice a rasp, a whisky-tinged caress. She gets you, and you know the words to all her songs, follow her from dive bar to third-rate club clapping too loudly, making sure she makes it home. She’s as luckless in love as you are, star-crossed, the pair of you (in your dreams). If only we could choose who we love! Tonight the bartender pours your obsession one on the house, dims the lights in the half-empty room as she walks on stage, defenseless, but for that 0018 rosewood Martin she cradles in her lap like a child. If you ask nicely, she’ll end with the song you request night after night, about the perils of unrequited love. You’ll blurt out your worship into her deaf ear, while her fingers strum your forearm and her nails break your skin. Give the lady whatever she wants, you’ll tell the barkeep. Like that’s even possible.

* * * * *

© Alexis Rhone Fancher, 2018, "She Says Stalker/He Says Fan" was first published in The San Pedro River Review (Music Issue. 2018).

Alexis Rhone Fancher is published in Best American Poetry, Rattle, Hobart, Verse Daily, Plume, Cleaver, Diode, Duende, Pirene’s Fountain, Poetry East, Pedestal Magazine and elsewhere. She’s authored five poetry collections, most recently, Junkie Wife (Moon Tide Press, 2018), and The Dead Kid Poems (KYSO Flash Press, 2019). EROTIC: New & Selected, from New York Quarterly, and another, full-length collection (in Italian) by Edizioni Ensemble, Italia, will both be published in 2021. A multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, Alexis is poetry editor of Cultural Weekly. www.alexisrhonefancher.com

 

Salome

by Carole Mertz


Flimsily draped
Sassy
All-too-ready

To follow
Mother’s
Greedy footsteps

Messenger
Of God
Soon beheaded

(John neither ate
Nor drank)
His head offered

While Salome
Danced
And danced and danced

Knife in hand
Platter
Dripping holy blood


* * * * *

"Salome" is part of Carole Mertz's forthcoming poetry collection Color and Line (Kelsay Books, November 2020).

Carole Mertz, poet, reviewer, and essayist, is the author of Toward a Peeping Sunrise (at Prolific Press) and the forthcoming Color and Line (with Kelsay Books). She is book review editor at Dreamers Creative Writing and served as judge (in formal poetry) for the 2020 Poets & Patrons of IL contest. Carole resides in Parma, OH.