Molly's Moon

by Petra F. Bagnardi


Bathed in honeyed and milky perfection,
the moon shrouds Molly in a glow of childhood bliss;
so she doesn't perceive her parents' fighting words.
From the window ajar of her bedroom the girl reaches upwards,
to graze the kindness of the sphere with brave fingertips.
Dad's skin is brown, whereas Mum's is white – at times the tones clash;
but more often than not, she believes, they create magic.
Molly dances with her parents to the sound of fairy lights,
reverberating off the dense foliage of the trees;
they mirror the stars, while the moon rests upon the inky sky.


* * * * *

Petra F. Bagnardi is a TV screenwriter, a theater playwright and actress, and a poet. She was short-listed in the Enfield Poets' Twentieth Anniversary Poetry Competition, and was featured in Masque & Spectacle Literary Journal. Writing as Petra March, she won several awards and honors. She is also a Library Journal Self-e Select author.

What is rape? I asked my mother
the summer when I was nine

by Nina Heiser


Rape, she said, is
what men do to women.
Her answer was vague enough that
rape remained not so threatening until three
years later when the neighbors’ son, a youth leader
in the local church, took me into their house to punish me,
because I was the oldest of the kids playing on the porch swing
that broke and he could call the police or he could mete out the punishment.
Make a sound and I will kill you, he told me, when there came a knock on the door
and I made no sound. I was silent when he took me across his knee, tore my underpants off and shoved his fingers up me with one hand while striking
my bare ass with his other hand until he’d had enough pleasure and
threw me onto his parents’ bed. If you tell, he said, I will rape
you. Do you know what that means? I nodded dumbly.
And then I will kill you, he said, quietly enough
to be his church voice, and I will rape you
again. And he pulled me down the
stairs, out the backdoor toward
the car but I got loose and
ran, faster than I ever
ran since, and I did
tell what he had
done but we,
we never
spoke
of it,
my mother and I,
and he became every
dark-haired young man I saw
until my sixteenth birthday when
his face covered the front page because
he had raped and murdered a  young woman.

Did you know there is no synonym for rape?


* * * * *

"What is rape? I asked my mother the summer when I was nine" first appeared in Gargoyle Magazine (2021).

Nina Heiser is a poet, writer and retired journalist currently living in central Florida and New York. Her work has appeared in Tuck Magazine; Cadence, the Florida State Poets Association Anthology; Vociferous Press anthology Screaming from the Silence; Embark Literary Journal; and Gargoyle Magazine. Her poetry and photographs have been featured in Pendemics Journal, and Of Poets & Poetry.

Old Sorrow

by Sandra Kohler


Today it's my mother's, dying, knowing
she is terrified of death and at once pulled
by the desperate longing to be done, have
it over with. Sometimes now, at a concert,
from the first row of the second balcony,
I look down at the tiny figures sitting in
the orchestra, feel how easy it would be
to stand up, lean forward, jump. Terror,
desire: mine are a mirror of hers.

Last night dreaming I find heavy boxes
of books that were my father's: Dickens'
novels, Shakespeare's plays, volumes and
volumes. They are gift, burden. Which
he was, I begin to see, to my mother, to
each of his children. Jester, lover of music,
language, artist manque, but no provider,
a man who told his ten year old daughter
that he feared not being dead but how it
would feel to be struck, killed by a falling
tree in a thunderstorm as he was walking
home from work. Every day after that, I
imagined his dying that death. How much
more his child I believed myself than I
did my mother's: my fantasy, fallacy.

All of their children are dead now except
me. The oldest brother who hated her and
loved him; the next brother who did the
opposite, yet blamed his older brother for
father's death: the symmetry of their mutual
distrust, fear, envy. The sister who thought
she was mother's favorite and hated me for
intruding, unwelcome latecomer, accident.
Each of us struggling with love or hate,
each struggling to connect or to banish
all connection to this family. Each bound
inextricably to all the others, each bound
most in the self those others have shaped.


* * * * *

Sandra Kohler’s third collection of poems, Improbable Music (Word Press), appeared in May, 2011. Earlier collections are The Country of Women (Calyx, 1995) and The Ceremonies of Longing (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003). Her poems have appeared in journals, including The New Republic, The Beloit Poetry Journal, Prairie Schooner, and many others over the past 45 years. In 2018, a poem of hers was chosen to be part of Jenny Holzer’s permanent installation at the new Comcast Technology Center in Philadelphia.

The people in the wicker basket

by Dörthe Huth
 
 
The people lie in a wicker basket
under grandmother´s phone in
black & white, unsorted & ignored since
over 50 years - once again I take
one of them in my hand & recognize:
                             a human being
with familiar facial features - maybe
a relative or simply a coincidence &
again, the child I was once wants to
learn about the past & I ask: who is that?
But my grandmother says: there is
no time for that now - I have to
cook / make phone calls / water the flowers
and the next time comes
the uncle / neighbour / some visit
maybe a photo has been taken of
a person whose face later on I can
not classify.
 
When her eyes wane, my grandmother says,
we'll do it when your aunt is here
she knows these people too.
The aunts come, talk a lot & die;
my questions remain unanswered.
One day, my grandmother says,
Here: you have the photos you always wanted.
My eyes no longer focus, anyway.
I take the bag home and
look at each person again.
I can do something with a few
known facial features but no acquaintances:
No one is left to tell me about my story
 
so I throw them away.
 

* * * * *

Dörthe Huth is a writer from Germany, holding an M.A. degree in German, Psychology and Computational Linguistics. In addition to several book publications about joy of life she is also represented with her poems and essays in anthologies and literary magazines. See her English website: https://doerthe-huth.jimdosite.com/
 
 

The long summer of my mother’s dying    

by Mara Buck
                                                                     

She smiles. A young nurse fusses with spiderweb hair;
busy hands assuming much ado anoint the demented, yet
the smile reveals a wet sheet, revenge for all the condescension,
the humiliation of a plastic flower placed doll-like
behind a semi-comatose ear on Luau Lunch Day.

Because they print it out in black and white
does not make it so.

The coffee cup floats in space, a pinpoint of reality
in this darkened room of hope and horror and
I am shocked to note the wrinkled skin of my
forearm as my pen speeds along.

May poetry protect me from the reality
of my mother and the prancing
reindeer of memory.

My mother’s hands are thin    How many names
Her veins are thinner              Are there
Her eyes bulge                       For death.

Death comes in bed pans. A scatological
pressure sore not so innocently steals life
in inches of erosion, while soft smooth hands
of young women change bedding, thinking thoughts
of what to serve for dinner when the neon lights click out.

Only the welcoming fire bequeaths the final dignity.

Who is there but me to see the rictus, the jester’s
cap and bells that lies just beneath the smile of beatitude.

That she should live beyond her breath, beyond the carbon
of her bones, as the name of a flower, a smile in a painting,
the grace of words on a page to make the centuries wonder—
who was this? To marvel at her bird-light hand, the whisper
of her voice, the promise of her scent that hangs
in the air of her closet when the clothes are gone.
                                                                                                  
Death is not pretty. Death is not sweet.
Death does not come on little cat feet to
tidily steal us away in a warm Sandburgian fog
to somewhere over the rainbow.

We smell the intoxication of the lilies
and we heave.


* * * * *

Mara Buck writes, paints, and rants in a self-constructed hideaway in the friendly Maine woods with enough food and medications to last the duration. She studied in New York, worked there for years, and loves it passionately. She grieves for her city. Winner of The Raven Prize for non-fiction, The Scottish Arts Club Short Story Prize, two Moon Prizes for women’s writing. Other recent first places include the F. Scott Fitzgerald Poetry Prize, The Binnacle International Prize. Awarded/short-listed by the Faulkner/Wisdom Society, Hackney Awards, Balticon, Confluence, and others, with work in numerous literary magazines and print anthologies. https://www.facebook.com/mara.buck.9 https://twitter.com/mara_buck

On today's full moon, this month's Moon Prize, the 75th, goes to Heather Nanni's poem "Fox."

Fox

by Heather Nanni


How she got in
I do not know.
She breached the fence
Somehow. Perhaps burrowing under
Like the weeds that invade from the neighboring
Yard. Or maybe she leapt, like a stallion
Over the wooden planks.

I watch her through the window.
Gorgeous, predatory,
Ready to lurch and bury herself
Into the leaf pile to play or
To snatch up the unaware chipmunk and
Sink her teeth into its soft, fur-coated flesh.

I envy the fox,
Her bold assertion of her self
Claiming a territory that is not hers to claim;
In the moment, uncaring
Of anything other than her desires
And what sates her appetites.

I watch her.
She stands at the edge of the leap, heart
Racing with the anticipatory heat of excitement.
Still. Alive

Yet, she knows death.
She screeches in the night
Like an owl or a woman stalked
And caught, her gut about to be cut by the blade
Of a predator whose evils the fox cannot conceive.
The fox screams for her young.
Stay away. Stay away.

I watch through the window.
I too am standing at the edge of a leap.
And I remind myself that I too
may live.


* * * * *

"Fox" first appeared on Heather Nanni's website, https://quirknjive.com/.

Heather Nanni is a writer and college professor who resides in New England with her husband and two children. She is the author of The Cat In The Wall and Other Dark and Twisted Tales of Women in Strange Situations and her creative and academic works have been published in Her View from Home, LD Access/AECOM Manual for Literacy Practitioners, Haunted Waters Press: Splash and on numerous commercial websites. Heather holds a bachelor's degree in English from Fordham University and a master's degree from the Applied Educational Psychology: Reading Specialist program at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Bread crumbs and bay leaves

by Emalisa Rose


Shrinking in stature,
a myriad of maladies wraps
round her shriveling body,

enduring calamities, as life’s
now elusive, someone else's
to enjoy.

In between rantings, in
the old mother tongue

she’d remember -

the baby she nursed through
the night,

the two secret ingredients in
her special sauce, that she’d never
divulge to us, and

how the sparrows would wait 
for her, top of the morning, to toss
out some bread crumbs.


* * * * *

When not writing poetry, Emalisa Rose enjoys crafting and birding. She volunteers in animal rescue, helping to tend to a cat colony in her neighborhood. Living by the beach, provides much of the inspiration for her art. Her work has appeared in Writing in a Woman's Voice, Spillwords and other fine places. Her latest collection is On the whims of the cross currents, published by Red Wolf Edition.

Fox

by Heather Nanni


How she got in
I do not know.
She breached the fence
Somehow. Perhaps burrowing under
Like the weeds that invade from the neighboring
Yard. Or maybe she leapt, like a stallion
Over the wooden planks.

I watch her through the window.
Gorgeous, predatory,
Ready to lurch and bury herself
Into the leaf pile to play or
To snatch up the unaware chipmunk and
Sink her teeth into its soft, fur-coated flesh.

I envy the fox,
Her bold assertion of her self
Claiming a territory that is not hers to claim;
In the moment, uncaring
Of anything other than her desires
And what sates her appetites.

I watch her.
She stands at the edge of the leap, heart
Racing with the anticipatory heat of excitement.
Still. Alive

Yet, she knows death.
She screeches in the night
Like an owl or a woman stalked
And caught, her gut about to be cut by the blade
Of a predator whose evils the fox cannot conceive.
The fox screams for her young.
Stay away. Stay away.

I watch through the window.
I too am standing at the edge of a leap.
And I remind myself that I too
may live.


* * * * *

"Fox" first appeared on Heather Nanni's website, https://quirknjive.com/.

Heather Nanni is a writer and college professor who resides in New England with her husband and two children. She is the author of The Cat In The Wall and Other Dark and Twisted Tales of Women in Strange Situations and her creative and academic works have been published in Her View from Home, LD Access/AECOM Manual for Literacy Practitioners, Haunted Waters Press: Splash and on numerous commercial websites. Heather holds a bachelor's degree in English from Fordham University and a master's degree from the Applied Educational Psychology: Reading Specialist program at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Tide

by Heather Nanni


The tide moves in with certainty
and violence that is difficult to detect
when it is rolling, not thrashing,
when it slides in gently
caressing the silken pebbles
lolling upon the shore.

It is difficult to spot the rage hidden
beneath the soft lapping. But
I hear it; I see
its relentless motion
onward, onward
onward until it reaches its destination
and slaps it,
tenderly sometimes. Then
after a moment, it pulls back
out, spent. I cannot hear it go.
It slips under the cover of oncoming
waves and retreats,
silent and, perhaps, guilty.


* * * * *

Heather Nanni is a writer and college professor who resides in New England with her husband and two children. She is the author of The Cat In The Wall and Other Dark and Twisted Tales of Women in Strange Situations and her creative and academic works have been published in Her View from Home, LD Access/AECOM Manual for Literacy Practitioners, Haunted Waters Press: Splash and on numerous commercial websites. Heather holds a bachelor's degree in English from Fordham University and a master's degree from the Applied Educational Psychology: Reading Specialist program at Teachers College, Columbia University.

After Twenty Years, We Stop Giving Each Other Cards

by Cati Porter


Because what’s the point? It’s only paper and ink,
sentiments written hastily out of a perceived obligation,
and always with a degree of trepidation—because, 
what is there really to say when your 
infant has just thrown up on your sweatshirt
toddler has just thrown his Hot Wheel car at your face
grade schooler still needs homework help 
so you are late leaving for dinner
tween has just been caught smoking pot
(and really what is there to do about that
except keep mum about your own
pot-smoking days, how you used to clean your house
with the curtains drawn, inhale hard from the bong,
light a candle and crank up Pavarotti, or the B-52s)
and now tween-turned-teen is a full-fledged adult 
who still lives in your house and eats your food
and your youngest, the one you thought might be an artist
or an architect, is a sophomore in high school 
and failing, and smoking pot too, 
and your oldest’s girlfriend has moved in with you— 
and you have just moved from your old, beaten down house
where every ding or smudge on the plaster lathe walls, the carpet, 
a souvenir from those days where you believed in everything, 
where you wanted and that wanting was a thing 
you could taste in the air of that house
and even the toilet with its blue branding
on the rim proclaiming only its maker 
was a harbinger of what was to come: Wellworth,
that in your head every time you read it
reminded you that good things are well-worth the wait,
so that here you are, nearing the half-century mark, 
and your husband now able to legitimately order off the senior menu,
and he has bought you the house you have always wanted,
the one with stairs, and wooden floors that creak 
so that you learn the sound of each other’s footsteps 
so that you know which of you is coming up those stairs,
but in the clearing out of your old bedroom before that old house
is sold to someone new, to begin again,
you find at the back of the closet that card from your 15th anniversary,
and though there have been anniversaries since, and still to come,
you are grateful for the waiting, and the gift
of that find, a token of years spent, for this—


* * * * *

Cati Porter has been writing and publishing for three decades. Her most recent poetry collection is The Body at a Loss (CavanKerry Press, 2019). She lives in Inland Southern California with her family where she runs Poemeleon: A Journal of Poetry and directs Inlandia Institute, a literary nonprofit. You can find her on the web at www.catiporter.com.

Ibeji

by Barbara Sabol


The Yoruba believe that the soul of a dead twin can be carved
into a wooden figure, called an ibeji, to honor her and protect
the surviving child. 

I have become a strong swimmer, double-sinewed,
since washing out alone to the lip of this world.
 
Nearly a woman, I still tuck your ibeji, earth-walking
alternate, in my wrapper, carry you to market and mosque. 
             
Yet you appear in every mirrored pool: my eyes, hands
afloat. At night, I dream you in water beyond

the visible edge of our shore―too far to swim back.
Sister, it would swallow me, too. 

To hold us here, I consecrate your figure with oil
of the red camwood; work indigo blue into the maze
 
of your carved braids, for protection. Beautiful, you are
adorned with white cowry beads: good destiny. 

My blue-black, slack-lunged shadow self, no longer
cradled to the bosom of night,

dwell here in this anointed child of wood. Even then,
I could not swim back for you, and live.


* * * * *

"Ibeji" was first published in The Comstock Review (Volume 30:2, Fall/Winter 2016).

Barbara Sabol's fourth poetry collection, Imagine a Town, was published in 2020 by Sheila-Na-Gig Editions. Her work has appeared most recently in Evening Street Review, Mezzo Cammin, Literary Accents and One Art. Barbara conducts workshops for Lit Youngstown and Lit Cleveland. Her awards include an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council. She lives in Akron, OH with her husband and wonder dogs.

Charmed

by Ellen Roberts Young


A flaunted bracelet:
Eiffel tower, tower of Pisa.
Trajan’s column, bridge of sighs.

“I’ve been there, and there and
there,” I could have said, smug
in my poodle skirt and matching
sweaters, chain holding the cardigan.

I could not. I’d have snagged
the sweater, torn the poodle’s tail.

And they don’t make charms
for dunes or brown rivers,
a steep, wet cobblestone street,

the click of stiletto heels on
terrazzo, or the tiny lizard
in the Villa d’Este garden
hooked to my chain of memory.


* * * * *

"Charmed" is from Ellen Roberts Young's chapbook Transported (Finishing Line Press, 2021).

Ellen Roberts Young’s chapbook, Transported, describes her travels in Europe and Egypt when she was twelve and their after-effects. Her poems have been published in numerous print and online journals; she also has a new full-length collection, Lost in the Greenwood, about unicorn tapestries of five hundred years ago. She is an editor of Sin Fronteras/Writers Without Borders Journal and blogs at www.freethoughtandmetaphor.com. Her website is www.ellenrobertsyoung.com.

 

                                                           BLACK WIDOW SPIDER

                                                                  by Sherry Shahan

Daddy had on his red swim trunks with fish that squirmed when he walked. Stains rimmed the armholes of his wife-beater undershirt. The worst name ever. He pocketed his car keys and grabbed the deck of playing cards with pictures of naked women.

I pinched his arm hair. “Can I go with you, please? I won’t make a peep. Promise!”

“Not this time, honey. Besides, Mom is on her way home.”

“Fine!”

He could’ve at least pretended to have a job—to pack a lunch pail and head out in regular clothes. Every time he left I had this fear he might not come back. He was in such a damn hurry he forgot to kiss me good-bye.

 

His shadow wobbled inside the truck cab as he backed out the driveway. I pressed my nose to the smeary front window and flipped him the bird. He slowed at the curb to wave but my nine-year-old fists were frozen to glass.

The truck evaporated and I wondered when mom would really be home. First she had to stop and scoop up my little brother from a lady with a house full of other people’s kids.

I slid off the couch and attacked Daddy’s argyles with scissors making a spiffy skirt for my doll Carol Sue. Then I scampered off to the bathroom, squinting at the peach fuzz between my eyebrows. Mom said I was too young to pluck. Maybe a razor would work?

In the kitchen I stretched the curly cord on our Bakelite phone. It had a pullout drawer with a thin pad inside. The number of Mom’s work was written in red pencil. I’d only called a couple of times because the manager always sounded like he wanted to smack someone.

I traced a hole on the dial with my finger, wondering if my friend Bonnie could come over and practice smoking? We’d never truly be grownup until we could inhale without coughing. And I wanted to teach her the right way to hold a cigarette. Not between her two middle fingers.

Our wall clock said six-fifteen. She’d be combed and spruced at her dining room table with cloth napkins her mother had ironed while wearing red bareback pumps. Her father would be passing a bowl of fluffy potatoes made from a box and a platter of pork chops with crispy fat.

Sometimes it was hard being Bonnie’s friend.

Roger would ditch dinner to come over; he loved me that much. I picked up the phone and started to dial his number, then slammed it down, because there was this birdbrained rule against girls calling boys. Instead I called the cocktail lounge around the corner. “Is my daddy there?”

The guy who answered said, “What’s his name?”

 “John.”

“Hang on, kid.”

I heard him holler, “Anyone in here named John?”

“Sorry, kid,” he said when he came back. “He’s not here.”

“Are you sure there isn’t a John?”  

“I’m pretty sure.” 

“Then what do you people do? Pee on the floor?” He laughed before hanging up, but it didn’t make me feel better.

I slid a stick of Beech Nut into the phone drawer for later, snatched a steak knife off the kitchen counter, and wound it in a paper napkin.

The sun gave up the day beyond the window and backyard fence. It blew me a fiery kiss and I blew one back, heading to the tree in the front yard. It grew from a square of dry weeds between the sidewalk and gutter.

Since our nosy neighbors were probably watching I made a big show of hiking up my skirt before hoisting myself onto the lowest limb. From there it was an easy climb to the branch that was all mine—the one near the top under the streetlight. Not that I was afraid of the dark. I liked places where no one could see me.

My legs dangled, ankles hooked, as I uncurled a thick strip of bark. The flesh underneath glistened, and smelled slightly sweet, as if Green Apple Kool-Aid gushed through its veins.

I felt light-headed from going all day on a single peanut-butter-and-graham-cracker sandwich. The leftover goop that stuck to the roof of my mouth was long gone. I carved a lazy S, pressing down hard, watching the tree bleed. I didn’t care that I was scarring it, because there was love in what I was doing.

“Cheryl and Roger sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g . . .” I hacked a crooked W for my last name. “First comes love, then comes marriage . . . ” I wiped the blade on my skirt, then dug in to carve Roger’s R.

I heard our Rambler before it floated below me into the driveway. Mom got out and walked to the passenger’s side, her kitten heels clicking. She moved slowly, like she didn’t want to get to where she was going.

Once inside the house, the lights flicked on. She’d put my brother to bed, probably still in his play clothes, without brushing his teeth. I’d never get away with that.

Would she come outside to look for me? Maybe if I faked a cough she’d smear an old t-shirt with Vicks VapoRub, wave it over a flame on the stove, and smooth it on my chest.

The porch light twitched. “Sherry, are you out here?” Mom moved into the amber light, shading her eyes, a skinny shadow of herself. “Are you up in that tree?”

“Coming!” She hadn’t forgotten about me after all.

“Oh, honey. You shouldn’t be up there in the dark. Where’s your father?”

“Um, at the Piggly Wiggly?” No way I’d rat him out. He got in enough trouble on his own.

Mom took my hand as soon as I hit the ground and I knew all I needed was her warmth. “Have you had dinner?”

I took off my headband because the metal teeth were scalping me. “Not yet.”

“How about a fried Spam sandwich? I’ll let you open the can.”

I loved the tiny key that hooked over the thin sliver of metal. I loved twisting it and hearing the sucking noise of salty-jelly just pink enough to let everyone know a pig had been pulverized before being squeezed into a tin. And I loved my mom because she never forgot I loved those things.

The next morning I threw back the covers and slid from bed, hoping to catch her in the bathroom before work, drawing on cat eyes with liquid pencil. She’d paint her naturally plump lips with Pink Minx lipstick in a hairspray fog. I doubted Daddy appreciated his wife’s movie star qualities.

“Mom?” No answer. “Mom!”

The house was quiet. Nothing left but her smells. I stood in the bathroom where they were strongest, inhaling sprays, sticks, and creams, wondering if my parents even liked each other.

I’d seen the employee’s lounge at her work—a square room behind the office where the mean manager hung out when he wasn’t bossing people around. The room had a midget refrigerator, a portable hot plate, and a square table to eat on. If I squinted hard enough I could picture Mom’s overnight valise and fuzzy slippers between the wooden legs of the cot.

I climbed on the kitchen counter for a box of Cocoa Puffs figuring Daddy spent the night somewhere else. Then I saw him in the backyard through the window. He was dead asleep in the hammock in a weird position, looking like a rubber toy.

Some kids learned to tiptoe on days when their dad worked graveyard. I learned to do the same after one of Daddy’s all-nighters. I eased the sliding glass door over its gritty runners, stepped out and dropped to my hands and knees, then crawled toward the hammock.

There was no reason to sneak. Daddy probably wouldn’t wake up if I turned the garden hose on him. He never looked like this, not even on his worst hangover days. Pale and grinning too hard, matching that awful snapshot in my dreams.

I got that upside down fizzy feeling in my stomach and inched closer seeing a spider on his shoulder. I figured a spider could kill a man who cheats when playing checkers with a fourth-grader.

“Daddy, wake up! There’s a spider!”

He jolted from his stupor. “You trying to give me a heart attack!” 

“S-s-pider . . . . your shoulder!”

Daddy jerked and the hammock swung, nearly dumping him on empty beer cans. He seized the culprit, squished it gutless with his fingers, and displayed what was left on the tip of his thumb.

“Damn black widows. Females are the worst. That’s why you have to clap your shoes together before putting them on. Always remember that, okay honey?”

“Okay, Daddy.” He pulled me in and I pressed my cheek to his t-shirt, because stinky dried sweat was better than nothing. “You saved my sorry ass, honey.”

That life-saving deed did something to me, made me feel it was my job to look after him. Maybe because we didn’t have a dog or cat that would scratch my eyes out or one of those goldfish from the school fair that you get when your Ping-Pong ball lands in a glass bowl. Or maybe because no one else cared enough about him.

That night I felt like such a baby cradling Carol Sue, when just the day before Roger and I had been practice kissing on top of my bedspread. She shook in my arms when wordless voices bled through the wallpaper. First rat-a-tat anger, then a dull sob. “Can’t take it anymore . . . . .”

I stroked Carol Sue’s stiff hair and told her the lie that everything would be okay.

 Mom pleading. “Just sign the papers.”

I slipped from bed and pulled a sheet of paper from my notebook. Using my ruler I drew a straight line down the middle. A stick figure of Daddy on one side and Mom on the other. I set the paper on my dresser, folded it in half, and creased it until my thumb hurt. Then I folded it the other way and did the same.

Daddy’s voice. “I’ll get a job.”  

“Really? Who’ll hire you?”

I tore the paper carefully, starting at the top, working to give my parents equal halves because I wanted to be fair. The teensiest scrap fluttered away on its own. I figured that lost piece was me.

I grabbed a bobby pin off my dresser and stuck in Carol Sue’s skull. Dumb doll.


* * * * *

Before, Sherry Shahan watched the world from behind; whether in the hub of Oxford, an alley in Havana, or alone in a squat hotel room in Paris; whether with a 35 mm camera or an iPhone. Today she hangs out in a laid-back beach town in California where she grows carrot tops in ice cube trays for pesto. Her work has appeared in Oxford University Journal, Exposition Review, Los Angeles Times, F(r)iction and is forthcoming from Fiddlehead and Progenitor. She holds an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults.

Shattered Glass

by Angela Walden


Some of my best motivation came wrapped in sandpaper,
came wrapped in thorns, razor blade tongues &
fire.

Don't you let anybody snuff out your flame, Love.
Discouragement is a disease of the mind!
Even empty-handed, 
you've got plenty fuel
so long as you don't you let a single thing
they throw your way
go to the wayside -
go to waste
go to make you
turn your face downward
& take your eyes off the prize.
Keep the daggers, Love.
They are tools for hunting; for nourishment & survival.
Keep all the bricks that come through your window.
Forget the broken windows; Build. Your. Mansion.

You are not broken, love; You. Are. Evolved -

with sharper edges to cut through tangled obstacles.
A vase is only a vessel to hold things,
but darling, shattered glass can become so much more,
with unlimited potential -
a magnificent mural,
& under enough heat, 
transformed 

into a million marvelous & unimaginably beautiful things.

Make no mistake, Love -
you are sharp; not fragile. 


* * * * *

"Shattered Glass" was originally self-published in Angela Walden's book Where All Paths Converge (2020).

Angela Walden is a Kentucky native poet, spoken word artist, & author of Echoes: My Journey From the Ledge to the Mountain Top, Soul Revision, and Where All Paths Converge. Her contemporary, free-written poetry covers an array of topics including relationships, mental health, spirituality, abuse, trauma, recovery, motherhood, grief, & loss. 

She sells her books independently/directly at https://authorangelawalden.etsy.com

Right of Passage

by Angela Walden


I gave birth
alone, in a dark room.
It took ten hours with no one believing
the labor was real.
The rails of my bed shook in near-screaming,
white knuckled grips, minute by minute -
the entire night,
as I
doubted myself, not knowing what "real" labor was.

It was a color I had never seen,
a song I had never sang, & I
was so used to bearing pain
alone
that I did not protest.

Ten hours I jotted down the times of each pain,
just as they’d instructed me to do
until the numbers wouldn't go
onto the paper
legibly anymore.
I scratched them down through a flood of tears,
tearing the paper, breathing & carving through
monstrous pain.
Silence,
my only company.

Two minutes apart.
“Two
Minutes
Apart!”
I cried to the nurse.
The call button hadn’t brought
anyone or anything to my aid
in hours.

I held on through hours of darkness, exhaustion &
horrific fog
until
lights went up,
I was fully awake &
her face revealed her mistake -
"I've got feet," she said, flatly,
& ordered me to cross my legs.
There I’d laid
all night, laboring alone,
all the way to the finish.
I had given birth
in a dark & empty room,
no one hearing my cries.
I had picked up the phone, but
the whole world, it seemed, was too asleep
to notice; to care
that Life,
in all its most beautiful, tragic, painful
& desperate splendor
was happening
to me;
to us.

And as if I hadn't done
the job
well enough,
she told me to
"hold it in,"
to keep my legs crossed, &
to give the doctor more time to arrive, &
to cut
my baby from me.

I just wanted
someone to care;
to hold my hand;
to see my strength & weakness
all at once;
To comfort me;
to console & congratulate me.
This was my birth -
in this dark, empty room.
As everyone chose to look away,
I had no choice but to
warrior on
& ignore the pain,
& through suffering,
perform
the miracle
I had been assigned -
to bring forth
Life.


* * * * *

"Right of Passage" was originally self-published in Angela Walden's book Where All Paths Converge (2020).

Angela Walden is a Kentucky native poet, spoken word artist, & author of Echoes: My Journey From the Ledge to the Mountain Top, Soul Revision, and Where All Paths Converge. Her contemporary, free-written poetry covers an array of topics including relationships, mental health, spirituality, abuse, trauma, recovery, motherhood, grief, & loss. 

She sells her books independently/directly at https://authorangelawalden.etsy.com

One month since

                                          by Carolyn Martin


the baby died and weeks-worn clothes languish
on the floor, days of dishes in the sink.
My ragged husband tries, but can’t get near.
He summons up, A short life is life.
As if five syllables could heal.
I despise his words and turn my back.

Weeks and friends shy away after casseroles
and cakes and awkward sympathy.
Calls stop and cards stack unopened in the trash.
My body hugs the indent on our bed.
We kept him warm and prayed.

Thirty days since and I cannot bear the sadness
I’ve become. But then his sister’s voice –
three-years old, brave – breaks the dark, startles me.
Pancakes, Mama. Please? As if my hands could find a way.

She doesn’t know I cannot stand her father’s eyes
or mop a floor or dust the last photograph.
Or how I scream, A mother never loses loss,
when no one wants to hear. Yet I claw my way
across unwashed sheets, past pillows pounded
down to half their size. Perhaps today one thing,
I surprise myself. Today. Perhaps. One.


* * * * *

"One month since" was previously published in The Delmarva Review and is part of Carolyn Martin's poetry collection The Way a Woman Knows.

From associate professor of English to management trainer to retiree, Carolyn Martin is a lover of gardening and snorkeling, feral cats and backyard birds, writing and photography. Her poems have appeared in more than 125 journals and anthologies throughout North America, Australia, and the UK. Her fifth collection, The Catalog of Small Contentments will be released in 2021. Currently, she is the poetry editor of Kosmos Quarterly: journal for global transformation.

Good news! Writing In A Woman's Voice is up and running again and is now a secured blog, thanks to Google and a bright suggestion by a friend. Welcome back!

Dear authors and readers of Writing In A Woman's Voice: It appears that my blogspot has been hacked and I therefore ask you to not go here anymore, for your security and mine. I will resume Writing In A Woman's Voice or something similar on my secure website on WordPress at some future time, but that will require some doing and restructuring from my end, and I cannot at this time provide a timeline. Wish me luck. Thank you for all your contributions and reading time in the past. You've been awesome.

How to explain death to a three-year-old

by Carolyn Martin


Hold the stethoscope to her ears.
Hear your brother’s baby heart?

When she nods an unsuspecting nod,
brush a kiss across her auburn hair.

Guide her hand to his chest. Feel the up
and down? She’ll learn the feeling fast.

Keep it physical: a ritual of sound,
of rise and fall. Do not talk of afterlife,

a better place, the angels who will fly
him home. Stay practical. Chart his life

in months and days. Enshrine his photos
on the walls. Ensure she won’t forget.

Then, when he dies in your bed
before the firs release the summer sun,

send your husband to invite her in.
She won’t need words to understand.

The stethoscope is mute.
Her hand will rest on still-warm skin.


* * * * *

"How to explain death to a three-year-old" was previously published in Verseweavers and is part of Carolyn Martin's poetry collection The Way a Woman Knows.

From associate professor of English to management trainer to retiree, Carolyn Martin is a lover of gardening and snorkeling, feral cats and backyard birds, writing and photography. Her poems have appeared in more than 125 journals and anthologies throughout North America, Australia, and the UK. Her fifth collection, The Catalog of Small Contentments will be released in 2021. Currently, she is the poetry editor of Kosmos Quarterly: journal for global transformation.

Memories in Mother’s Bed

by Pat LaPointe


It’s nearly midnight. You are exhausted and hopeful sleep will come soon. You crawl into your mother’s bed where you have slept for several weeks. The sound of your father’s rhythmic snoring in the next room reminds you of your childhood. It evokes a peaceful feeling, knowing he’s OK.

As you begin to rest your head on the pillow, memories of the events of the past weeks flood your mind. Sleep will not come easily.

The phone call that changed your life nearly a month ago:

“Mom’s hurt. She’s in the hospital.”

The diagnosis: A fall, her head slamming into a dresser, caused bleeding on the brain. No telling how long it will take for the bleeding to stop.

Someone will have to stay with your Dad. His dementia is too severe to have him live alone. The siblings can’t/won’t stay with him. It was left up to you to take over.

Your days were filled with caring for him and as well as being at your mother’s side in the hospital.

You gave him his insulin. Made breakfast. Called a neighbor to stay with him. Raced to the hospital. Asked how Mom was doing. Very little progress each day.

Your mother could not eat. She had a feeding tube. She could not breathe on her own. A machine breathed for her. She could not/would not speak.

Then a surgery to ease the bleeding. Was only successful for a few days.

Then you glanced at your Mother as one side of her body began shaking hard enough to loosen some of the tubes and wires which kept her alive. You screamed for the nurses. Your Mother had a stroke.

A week passed. Another surgery. They removed part of her skull. You saw an indentation in the bandages wrapped around her head.

The bleeding lessened for the first time in several weeks. There was talk about what she would need when she left the hospital, maybe in a month or so.

You hoped Mom could hear when you told her the good news.

For the first time you felt so relaxed that you began to nod off in the chair next to your mother’s bed.

Almost immediately, loud, repetitive sounds were coming from the monitors. When her heart rate increased, her blood pressure dangerously decreased. Nurses came and demanded: “Go to the family room. The doctor will meet you there.”

You waited and waited.

You began to curse the damn clock with its loud ticking. It reminded you of every minute you were away from your mother’s side.

The doctor arrived. “We’ve done all we can. We have tried for at least 30 minutes to get her to breathe on her own. It is likely she will have some brain damage and be on a ventilator for the rest of her life. It is up to you, you must decide. We can work on her a while longer until we get her set up with a respirator OR....It’s up to you.”

“Please keep working on her just until I get back to her room.” And for a few seconds you asked yourself “Am I killing my Mother?”

You reached your mother’s room and the doctors and nurses quickly left. The lines on the heart monitor read out were flattening. You told your mother you love her just as the monitor quit spiking and the lines went flat.

Now, three days later you again try to sleep, but remember that the funeral home needs some of mom’s IDs. You reach for your mom’s purse and begin to riffle through it. You laugh as a notebook and miniature dictionary fall out followed by no less than three rain bonnets all of which were essentials in your mom’s purse. Your mother had been overprotective of her weekly hair styling, often wearing two bonnets when it began to drizzle.

Suddenly you become very sleepy, return the items to the purse and drop it on the floor, a few feet from the bed.

You are just nestling down under the covers when you hear a crinkling noise. You turn on the light and see one of the bonnets lying alone on the floor, just inches from the bed.

You begin to laugh loudly. “OK, Mom, I got your message. But even if it rains, I’m not using those bonnets.” You place the single bonnet under your pillow.

The next morning all the visitors at the funeral home have one last chance to say goodbye to your mom before they leave for church. You are last in line and take the other two bonnets from your purse and place them in the casket.

“You never know, Mom, it might rain.”


* * * * *

Pat LaPointe, editor of Changes in Life, a monthly online women’s newsletter, is contributing editor of the anthology, The Woman I’ve Become: 37 Women Share Their Journeys from Toxic Relationships to Self-Empowerment. In addition, she conducts writing workshops for women — both online and onsite. Pat’s essays and short stories have been published widely. Currently, Pat is completing her first novel, forthcoming late 2021.

Finding a Photograph of an Execution in Time Magazine

by Gail Davern


Here in the jungle, after a rainfall,
the colors so vivid from trees and birds
that this little grove where the army
has chosen to stop is illuminated.
A photographer hiding, zeroes in from
200 feet on the one small prisoner
digging a hole with bare brown hands,
in brown pants and brown shirt.
When he’s finished, he lies down and crosses his arms.
Climbing in on top of him, the chosen soldier
plunges a knife into the prisoner’s throat.
A gun shot would bring the enemy.
After the first cut, another is inflicted
into the jugular then the abdomen.
With blood gushing into his coarse black hair,
the earth is kicked over him and the jungle
is put straight before the next rain washes away
the sins of the trespassers and before the film
is put in the mail to New York. The photo
appears in Time magazine as a write-up on execution.
The prisoner’s right leg rose a little off the ground.


* * * * *

Gail Davern was born in London, England. She emigrated to the U.S. where she completed her university undergraduate and graduate degrees. Her work has appeared in Aileron, Alura, CQ, Crosscurrents, and the Salal Review, among other literary magazines. She was recently name finalist for the International Literary Awards: Rita Dove Award, and her chapbook, From the Island at the End of Winter was published by Finishing Line Press. She teaches at Skagit Valley College in Washington state and lives on Whidbey Island.

Piano Lessons

by Gail Davern


They lasted until ten at night,
the continual counting
and striking of wrong notes.
My life at home was
a musical parade of students
my mother taught while I was
in the back of the house
doing homework and
preparing dinner, so she
wouldn’t have to leave her
chair by the piano.
“No, no. Play it again.”
I would cringe to hear,
wanting the right note to be struck.
Twilight ended and the lamp
would be turned on to cast
a honey glow over the keys.
When the student left,
there was a brief silence
until the next student came.
I fantasized that the silence
could go on forever and my mother,
after a long day of work, could rest,
but Brahms interrupted and the
music lulled me to sleep.


* * * * *

Gail Davern was born in London, England. She emigrated to the U.S. where she completed her university undergraduate and graduate degrees. Her work has appeared in Aileron, Alura, CQ, Crosscurrents, and the Salal Review, among other literary magazines. She was recently name finalist for the International Literary Awards: Rita Dove Award, and her chapbook, From the Island at the End of Winter was published by Finishing Line Press. She teaches at Skagit Valley College in Washington state and lives on Whidbey Island.

Memory of Mom 

by Lisa Reynolds


I'm sitting here, drinking coffee. 

Mom's cup is on the kitchen table beside me; her instant Maxwell House Coffee on the counter.

She loved that brand; black with two heaping scoops of sugar. 

Every morning, I would make her a cup the moment I heard her moving around.

She'd come down just as it started to cool, tell me it was perfect, then sit on an ottoman in front of the patio door and watch the birds. 

The Doves stay throughout the winter. The little Jerichos too, dashing about.

Mom would point and say, "They're at it again" and I'd look over and see black and white feathers on bare branches.

And today...

I'm sitting here, waiting to hear her but the only sound is the hum of the furnace as heat rises through the vents.

No Mom. Just me.

Feeling very sad.


* * * * *

Lisa Reynolds is a Canadian writer of poetry and short stories, living in a small community east of Toronto, Ontario. Her works are published in print and online.

"Memory of Mom" is a reflective poem written about her mom, Joan who passed away on February 21, 2021. 

A Sonata For My Mother

by Dulce Maria Menendez


Because her mother died when she was five.
Because a child should not lose her mother at the age of five.
Because the nuns dressed her as baby Jesus.
Because she wasn't educated past the age of 13.
Because she had to stop going to school to work for her aunt's who beat her and made her wear shoes which were a size too small.
Because she had to give up ballet.
Because she was a lion with green cat yes and her tresses swept past her round
face in the breezes of Havana.
Because she met my father at a bus stop.
Because someone forgot to tell her he was psychofrenic.
Because she was happy for three months before she found out.
Because she left Cuba for US(A).
Because she held my hand as we walked the streets in Miami.
Because she stopped driving after almost killing us in an automobile accident shortly after arriving in Miami.
Because she almost broke her back hunched over a sewing machine.
Because she waited for my father to come home.
Because she waited for my father to come home again.
Because she waited for my father never to return.
Because she left my father.
Because she left my father again.
Because she returned to my father.
Because she loved my father more than me and my sister.
Because she called me hija.
Because she lost her mind.
Because she regained it after my father's death.
Because she wrote poems. 
Because she listened to Rubinstein play Chopin over and over again.
Because she never said a bad word.
Because my sister was her treasure.
Because I was a daddy's girl.
Because she was a work of art.
Because her name was Salome and she carried the beheading of all eternity upon her elegant shoulders as she turned her head to see you as if for the first time.

And why does my mother listen to Chopin?
And why does the sonata bring her comfort?
And why is the sky blue? I asked her once.
Any why did she play Chopin to offer me an answer?
And why does my father leave us again and again? I asked her.
And why am I incarcerated in my own home so far away during this pandemic without my mother?
Listen.
Listen.
Listen. 
The sonata plays.
The phone rings.
It is someone from long ago who remembers my mother.
And why does my mother die on the day of the innocents?
Does Chopin have the answer?
I don't know other than at death as in the sonata
we play alone.

----

For Maria Salome Menendez Planes born October 22, 1932 and died April 1, 2020.


* * * * *

Dulce Maria Menendez publishes artists and poets.

 

About this already

by Lorelei Bacht


You trip me, watch me fall 
Down the stairs, rumble tumble 
Of broken limbs and hair,
Knocked head, you blame 
Me for making such a fuss. 

You entertain other women,
Old bathwater, everyone gets 
A turn, I ask about the hair,
The smell of another, you say: 
Stop being so fussy.

You take scissors to the fabric
Of our relationship, our family,
The very fabric of reality,
Every morning is the morning
After, you say we've talked 

About this already.


* * * * *

"About this already" was first published in OpenDoor Magazine: https://www.opendoorpoetrymagazine.com

Lorelei Bacht is a European poet living in Asia with her family. Her recent poems have appeared and/or are forthcoming in OpenDoor Magazine, Litehouse, Visitant, Quail Bell, Wrongdoing, and SWWIM. She can be found on Instagram: @the.cheated.wife.writes and @lorelei.bacht.writer

 

Beach Fun

by Lorelei Bacht

 
Heavy rain. The sea,
Suddenly troubled, struggles
To read its own face.
 
What a drag! My heart
Broken beyond repair, when
I should “just relax.” 
 
Daddy watches them
Build sandcastles while I drown 
In my middle age. 
 
Bottom of the sea, 
Smooth black hand of cold water – 
Irresistible. 
 
I was lonely once. 
I was lonely twice, and then
I just stopped counting. 
 
Corals, dead white bones –
Soon, everything about me
Will cease to matter.
 
Murmur of the waves:
When I made you, you made me.
Walk out, and happen.
 
Reverse of the sky,
The sea welcomes everything,
Birth, death and the rest. 
 
Rolling hopes and hurts
Between its invisible
Fingers, it forgives.


* * * * *

"Beach Fun" was first published in Litehouse, a journal which promotes the work of exophonic writers (who write in a language other than their mother tongue): https://tothelitehouse.com

Lorelei Bacht is a European poet living in Asia with her family. Her recent poems have appeared and/or are forthcoming in OpenDoor Magazine, Litehouse, Visitant, Quail Bell, Wrongdoing, and SWWIM. She can be found on Instagram: @the.cheated.wife.writes and @lorelei.bacht.writer

A Pocket Full of Questions

by Francesca Brenner


Do butterflies dream?
Do I dare hold a candle when it burns from both ends?
If salt is poured on a wound will it preserve the memory?
If I take my vitamins every day, I don’t have to eat, right?
Is the oldest organized crime group a murder of crows?
If you sleep too much do dreams come true?
Do dust bunnies hop in the dark?
Does a cup of water get mad if you put it in the microwave?
Why can’t we grow back another finger or arm?
If there were flying carpets they’d have seatbelts, right?
Why can’t we create a new primary color?
What is the point of a floating rib?
Why are feet so small when they have to hold up an entire body?
Do tide pools get jealous of oceans?
Do oceans get jealous of tide pools?
Do flowers speak to each other through color?
Do stalactites and stalagmites secretly want to swap definitions?
Does a crossword puzzle get mad if you don’t finish it?
How will I ever learn to fly if I don’t keep trying?


* * * * *

Francesca Brenner grew up in NYC’s Greenwich Village and on The Cape in Massachusetts. She currently lives in Los Angeles though her heart remains bicoastal. Her poetry has appeared in After the Pause, The Alembic, The Best of the Poetry Salon, Common Ground Review, Crack the Spine, Cutthroat, FRE&D, Halfway Down the Stairs, OxMag, Sanskrit, Slab, and Talking River. <ticklefish1@icloud.com>

Cinco

by Julia Fricke Robinson


more hungry than cautious
he crossed the wooden bridge to my porch
on the fifth of May
stalked the offered food, ate
with expeditious nibbles, one eye watching
me, frozen, appreciative, watching back

as he ate, wary, I noted his marks
a broken tail, a festered eye
his unique creamy beauty
one eye blue, one green
named him Cinco
silently begged him to stay

not unlike men I've loved
he resisted, indicated difficult logistics
the need to be satisfied without being trapped
domesticated without giving up freedom
to come and go at will to visit other
generous benefactors with comparable charity

each morning and each evening
he comes, proud and circumspect
rubs his young wildness against me
eats to satisfaction, and is gone again
his free spirit denies ownership
resists an easier way, and me


* * * * *

"Cinco" is part of a new memoir in progress, a follow-up to Julia Fricke Robinson's memoir All I Know (2020).

Julia Fricke Robinson divides her time between visiting children and grandchildren in Colorado, Indiana and New York and living, dancing and writing in a community of artists, writers, performers, activists and otherwise interesting people in beautiful Silver City, New Mexico, where the weather is just about perfect.

 

I don’t

by Carrie Lynn Hawthorne
 

My engagement ring is back in the drawer, a lonely tan line the reminder that you are drinking again. It took me eight years to get the damn thing, and now it spends more time in the drawer than it does on my finger. I remember how your voice trembled at dinner; you’d never taken me to a restaurant that expensive before. I knew it was the night. We drove up the entire coast, the beach was too dark, bitter cold. We cruised through downtown L.A. looking for the perfect spot to stop for ice cream, but my stomach wasn’t right. We ended up back at City Hall, on a park bench. You knelt in the dirt, on your bad knee. Like we were in someone else’s memory.

“I want to marry you, I guess that’s what I’m trying to say. Can I give you this, so we can go home, and go to bed?” You put the ring on my finger, and it seemed so dinky, not at all how it looked in the store. Like a façade at a carnival, nothing real behind it, a rigged game. It’d be almost a year before you paid me back for it.

Now I’m washing the dishes with my bare finger, and you’re outside with your IPAs. At least you drink outside now, my sponsor insists it’s better for my sobriety. Our little boy sits in a camping chair beside you, drinking root beer, reading comic books. And we’ll go to bed in our separate rooms, the walls shuddering as you choke through your sleep apnea.

I’ll lie awake and think of that gorgeous dress my father bought me, stored at his house because it wouldn’t fit in any of our closets. I imagine my father walking me down the aisle of the antiquated church we picked, the one I paid for, the one you canceled. My father is turning eighty this year, and with a bad heart. I imagine burying my face into his chest during the father daughter dance, the pride in his face as he gives me away.


* * * * *

Carrie Lynn Hawthorne is a writer, mother, and yoga teacher from Pasadena, CA. She seeks spiritual purpose, being of service, and belly laughs. Her work will be featured in the Fall 2021 issue of Cultural Weekly.

Botany Lesson

by Lillian Necakov


The world asleep in the wolf moon’s arms
March already here, again at 5am
and I am not asleep thinking
about the woman who died
under Pennsylvania Avenue under a bridge
that was her own private heaven and
sometimes trickster

Angela at 5am walking gently off this earth
while the botanist talks to her trees
in the forest hospital
cooing to the balsam fir, sassafras, oak
you are a book not yet written
she whispers
p-i-k-o-w-a-h-t-i-k

robins at 5am stitching together a song
from snow-melt, pine needle, sapwood
against cold-morning skin
I am thinking about the zoologist’s
long arms catching every leaf falling
to pleat into a dead woman’s hair
underpass eulogy
the colour of apricot.


* * * * *

Lillian Necakov is the author of six books of poetry, numerous chapbooks, broadsides and leaflets. Her new book il virus is forthcoming from Anvil Press (A Feed Dog Book) in April 2021. In 2016, her chapbook The Lake Contains an Emergency Room was shortlisted for bpNichol chapbook award. During the 1980s she ran a micro press called “The Surrealist Poets Gardening Association” and sold her books on Toronto’s Yonge Street. She ran the Boneshaker Reading series from 2010-2020. She lives in Toronto and just might be working on a new book.

Transition

by Judy Clarence

 
Now that you've died, you are more alive
than anyone. I see you daily: memorials,
tributes, photos, poems not seen before,
the sly smile, the words
not read ‘til now.
You’re more alive than ever!
 
I only thought about you now and then;
a glimpse sometimes, here and there,
lines, images, reminders. Now
they’re everywhere, embedded in the cool air.
 
Your death. As when a dried-out, whitened
dandelion, still and ancient on its stalk,
is grabbed by an ambling child
who blows its seeds across the vast curve
of earth.


* * * * *

Judy Clarence, a retired academic librarian, currently lives with her daughter, grandchildren, three cats and two dogs in the Sierra, California foothills after many years in Berkeley. She plays violin (baroque and modern) in several orchestras and chamber groups, sang in two classical choruses in pre-COVID days, and writes poetry constantly. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Amarillo Bay, Shot Glass Journal and Allegro.