Lessons from an Uneducated Master

by Evie Groch


An immigrant with broken English
stitching his way to tailoring mastery
cutting on and out bias
to pattern a life in America.

Education not bookish, diploma
not earned, certificate not awarded,
but possessing such undeniable smarts
that others held him in reverential awe.

With an algebraic work problem
I’d run to him, translate the poser,
get the answer in a second,
but not the how.
That’s your job, he said. Now
you can start with the end in mind.

Free 5^th grade violin lessons
I feared to take.
No need to fear he reassured.
Always try; you’re not signing
up for life. I heeded and later
joined the orchestra, played
through the end of high school.

Dad, can you teach me how to drive?
I asked at fourteen, too young for a permit.
In his ’51 Chevy with a grey repair patch
he ignited my love for cars and driving.
Going down the street too slowly,
others honking at my crawl,
he’d say, Just ignore the honking.
Focus on your control.

When I mentor administrative
students today, his words slide
in my ear. I hear myself advising
them as he once advised me.
When the door’s ajar is when
you enter, even if you’re not ready.
For when you think you’re ready,
the door may not be open.
They always remember this when
they come back to visit and thank
me for his advice, make me smile,
and elate us both.


* * * * *

"Lessons from an Uneducated Master" was previously published by Kosmos Journal – Spring Gallery of Poets 3-17-22

Evie Groch, Ed.D. is a Field Supervisor/Mentor for new administrators in Graduate Schools of Education.  Her opinion pieces, humor, poems, short stories, recipes, word challenges, and other articles have been widely published in The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Contra Costa Times, The Journal, Games Magazine, and many online venues. Many of her poems are in published anthologies. Her short stories, poems, and memoir pieces have won her recognition and awards. Her travelogues have been published online with Grand Circle Travel. The themes of travel, language, immigration, and justice are special for her.

 

All Contingencies Accounted For

by Evie Groch


One door slam, then another.
One door shut, another locked.
A third signed with ‘No Admittance.’
Rude and crude and unforgiving,
yet we managed to alter the building’s
structure and interior design.

First we widened the threshold
to accommodate one toe to keep the door ajar.
Then a shattering of the transparent ceiling.
Next, an office, not a cubicle, in which
we too wear the pants,
and dresses if we want.
Then a conference table
with room for us.

Finally, in case they don’t
give us a seat at the table,
we always carry a folding one
in the trunks of our cars.
Excuses a thing of the past.


* * * * *

Evie Groch, Ed.D. is a Field Supervisor/Mentor for new administrators in Graduate Schools of Education.  Her opinion pieces, humor, poems, short stories, recipes, word challenges, and other articles have been widely published in The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Contra Costa Times, The Journal, Games Magazine, and many online venues. Many of her poems are in published anthologies. Her short stories, poems, and memoir pieces have won her recognition and awards. Her travelogues have been published online with Grand Circle Travel. The themes of travel, language, immigration, and justice are special for her.

 

The Hymns We Used to Sing

by Claire Matturro

We were civilized as we walked.
The food we’d taken with us, mostly
Cheese, bread, and dried meats, we shared.
There was water, and as we moved along,
Some of the children sang
Hymns and patriotic songs.
No one complained. We were kind to each other.
Then the food ran out, the water gone.
We had to look toward creeks and rivers
Where sometimes dead bodies floated,
Foul and smelling of rot. We were
filthy. We itched, and our breath stank.
We pulled away from each
Other, suspicions grew. And there I was,
Alone, my husband having died in
The first rush toward fighting, the line
Between bravery and foolishness as
Scant as the things left us
To live on. My belly round with a child
I might not live to deliver, and above us
Still the planes and bombs.
My grandmother’s voice rises above the cry
Of the children who do not sing anymore.
“Do not be afraid,” she whispers and I
Think of how I had wanted her with me
When I push this child inside me
Out into the world. Now I wonder
If it would be better to lie deep in dirt
With her, dead to the stink, the pain,
The shrill whistles of the mortars.

As I rest on the side of the road,
My worn-down shoes in tatters,
An old man stops in front of me.
I tense to run—or to fight, fingering
The kitchen knife inside my fraying coat.
He reaches into his pocket and
Pulls out a candy bar. Handing it to me,
He says “Don’t chew it. It’s the last one.
Chocolate and mint, a bit of cream.
Let it melt slow upon your tongue
Like the hymns, we used to sing.”

* * * * *

“The Hymns We Used to Sing” was previously published in Topical Poems, April 24, 2022
The Hymns We Used to Sing - Topical Poetry

Claire Matturro is a former lawyer and college teacher, author of eight novels, including four published by HarperCollins. Her poetry has appeared in Kissing Dynamite, New Verse News, One Art, Muddy River Poetry Review, Topical Poetry, and is forthcoming in The Tiger Moth. She is an associated editor at The Southern Literary Review.

The Generous Stranger       

by Claire Matturro     
           
 
Carried on the back of a generous stranger,
an old woman takes only what she can
hold in her bare hands as they cross
a shaking plank of wood placed over
the rubble of what was once
a concrete bridge. Cold river washes over
the feet of the generous stranger, but
he is steady. In the hard wind
which smells of burnt plastic and gunpowder,
the woman clutches the photo of her son who died.
On the bent fourth finger of her left hand,
her mother’s wedding ring rests
on top of her own as she hopes
to sell them both for food if they make it
to Poland. Behind her and the generous stranger,
her daughter sludges along, holding a
small stool for her mother to rest upon.
Wrapped in head scarf and coat but shivering
still, the daughter also carries their cat
in a soft canvas sack slung over her shoulder.
The animal is strangely quiet as if she fears
her howls might bring the cruel whistle of
more Russian missiles. Behind them all, 
Irpin, Ukraine burns into ruin and wreckage.
The generous stranger, breathing heavily
from the weight of the old woman, steps
over a dropped shoe and keeps walking.


* * * * *

"The Generous Stranger" was previously published in Topical Poetry, March 27, 2022.
The Generous Stranger - Topical Poetry

Claire Matturro is a former lawyer and college teacher, author of eight novels, including four published by HarperCollins. Her poetry has appeared in Kissing Dynamite, New Verse News, One Art, Muddy River Poetry Review, Topical Poetry, and is forthcoming in The Tiger Moth. She is an associated editor at The Southern Literary Review.

Keep in Touch

by Michele Rule

 
Don't
drift too far,
your little rowboat caught in the current
straying ever away from me.
Too distant
for me to reach out
and touch the rough boards.
I worry
about frightful storms,
holes wormed through the keel,
making it all the way to sea,
forever lost to me.
Keep in touch
I say as you wave and 
float 
away.
 

* * * * *

Michele Rule is a disabled poet from Kelowna BC. She is especially interested in the topics of chronic illness, relationships and nature. Michele is published in OYEDrum, Five Minute Lit, Pocket Lint, WordCityLit, the anthologies Spring Peepers and Poets for Ukraine and others. Her first chapbook is Around the World in Fifteen Haiku. She lives with a sleepy dog, two cats and a fantastic partner and thinks about her flock of children every day.

 

Seeking Something Sweet
                           After Salvador Dali, Still Life - Fish in Red Bowl 1923–24*

by Laura Ann Reed


She wakes from a dream, pads downstairs seeking
something cool and sweet. Chilled cantaloupe cubes
would do. Better still, peach-flavored frozen yogurt.
Instead she finds a crimson bowl that holds a dead fish
whose open eye is fixed on her. Outside the window
a crescent moon looms close. It seems to watch
her every move. Unnerved, she peers at the floor,
discovers it’s covered by a shallow sea of green that laps
at her ankle bones. As she looks in disbelief, tiny waves
recede back to the breakfast nook, then surge toward her
higher than before. Now they reach her knees, her thighs.
Now her nightie’s soaked. Damn moon. Damn tides.
All she wanted was some frozen yogurt flecked
with peach. She’d eat the fish, but what good’s a fish
that’s so fish-like it might as well be painted by Dali.
Art—inedible, useless as feet on a snake.


* * * * *

"Seeking Something Sweet" was originally published in Ekphrastic Review. Here is a link to the artwork: https://www.wikiart.org/en/salvador-dali/still-life-fish-with-red-bowl-1924

Laura Ann Reed received a dual BA in French/Comparative Literature from the University of California, Berkeley, and subsequently completed Master’s Degree Programs in the Performing Arts and Psychology. She was a dancer in the San Francisco Bay Area prior to assuming the role of Leadership Development Trainer at the San Francisco headquarters of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. She and her husband now reside in western Washington. Her work has been anthologized in How To Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope, and has appeared or is forthcoming in MacQueen’s Quinterly, The Ekphrastic Review, and Willawaw, among other journals.  

 

 

How I Want to be Wanted
             After Henri Rousseau, The Dream (1910)

by Laura Ann Reed

That man who painted me nude in his Paris studio
and later seduced me on a velvet divan—
he was no kind of match for his lions and snakes.
I missed being ravished by wildness.
In the end, I dreamed myself back
to the rain forest, to those tropical snakes
so inflamed by my beauty they had to be soothed
by a flute player while they writhed into shapes
that mimicked my hips, my breasts and my thighs.
That’s how I want to be wanted—
with the type of desire the lions had for my throat.

* * * * *

"How I Want to be Wanted" was originally published in Ekphrastic Review.

Laura Ann Reed received a dual BA in French/Comparative Literature from the University of California, Berkeley, and subsequently completed Master’s Degree Programs in the Performing Arts and Psychology. She was a dancer in the San Francisco Bay Area prior to assuming the role of Leadership Development Trainer at the San Francisco headquarters of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. She and her husband now reside in western Washington. Her work has been anthologized in How To Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope, and has appeared or is forthcoming in MacQueen’s Quinterly, The Ekphrastic Review, and Willawaw, among other journals.

Mornings                                             by Jeannie E. Roberts

are my favorite
the hint of radiance
the kind that glows
purrs along the horizon
whispers in glints of color
and the gifts of a new day
Like tender renderings
shadows subside
settle along the walls
between the spaces
of the place
we call home
Our hearts unite
in the sweetness
of simplicity
the subtleties of light
where we wait for the music
watch from the window
as the sun’s intro
eases in notes of gold
expands into stanzas
of stillness and quiet truth
Mornings are my favorite
they remind me of you


* * * * *

Jeannie E. Roberts has authored seven books. Her most recent collection, As If Labyrinth – Pandemic Inspired Poems, was released in 2021 by Kelsay Books. Her eighth book, The Ethereal Effect – A Collection of Villanelles, is forthcoming from Kelsay Books (2023). Her poems appear in Blue Heron Review, Sky Island Journal, The Ekphrastic Review, Verse-Virtual, Visual Verse, Writing In A Woman’s Voice, and elsewhere. She’s an artist, animal lover, a nature enthusiast, Best of the Net award nominee, and a poetry editor of the online literary magazine Halfway Down the Stairs. 

CHILDREN OF THE RAIN             

by Emily Black


Daybreak arrives to the patter of soft rain
on our shingled roof. A hollow sound
of water running in copper downspouts

makes a symphony of comfort, a symphony
of remembrance. I begin to feel immortal as I
ponder on memories that feel eternal―as though

they always existed, long before the beginning of
time. Rain is my mother; she’s always nurtured me.
She will still sing to me in my grave, lay her love

over me, at least when she does not choose to vent
her torrential feelings, but that is only natural and
we children of the rain often do a lot to provoke her.


* * * * *

Emily Black was the second woman to graduate from the University of Florida in Civil Engineering, then engaged in a long engineering career as the only woman in a sea of men. Lately, she’s been writing poetry, has been published in numerous literary journals, and was a recipient of the 79th Moon Prize awarded by Writing In A Woman’s Voice in 2021. Her first book of poetry, The Lemon Light of Morning, published by Bambaz Press, was released in February 2022 and is available on Amazon. Emily wears Fire Engine Red lipstick.

UNDER THE INFLUENCE
     OF RICHARD GARCIA

by Emily Black

  
I don’t remember exactly what it was,
but it was like slanted rain.

I tried to talk about it but no one
was interested, so I talked

to myself. Maybe that was when
it all started―talking to myself

like my mind was slanted,
my mouth too, I guess.

Nothing came out straight, nothing
made sense, but it sounded

pretty, like a new language, a language
of winged words, words that flew,

words that soared, words
that everyone understood.


* * * * *

Emily Black was the second woman to graduate from the University of Florida in Civil Engineering, then engaged in a long engineering career as the only woman in a sea of men. Lately, she’s been writing poetry, has been published in numerous literary journals, and was a recipient of the 79th Moon Prize awarded by Writing In A Woman’s Voice in 2021. Her first book of poetry, The Lemon Light of Morning, published by Bambaz Press, was released in February 2022 and is available on Amazon. Emily wears Fire Engine Red lipstick.

 

Tribute

by Sandra Kohler


I'm reading the tribute a young woman who is being
honored as actress in an annual ceremony gives to
her father, who's also there, in the elegant room where
the award banquet takes place, as he is every working
night – he's head waiter there, a pillar of the place –
and I start to think of my father, of how impossible it
would be to credit him with my success, as she does
hers. I'm struck newly with the ways in which he did
not father me, mentor me, teach me. Oh yes, he was
proud when he could stump me with a Shakespeare
quotation, or a question about what opera a certain
aria came from. It was a game, like his wordplay, his
punning. It was cunning, a sham, a competition in
which he always was winner, one of many ways he
failed to be model or coach, provider or support.
His weakness was a contagion I had to learn to flee,
his love possessive lust I didn't recognize yet feared.


* * * * *

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.

 

What We're Taught About Beauty

by Sandra Kohler


Snow, moon, flowers: these are the three
most beautiful things in the world, Tang
dynasty poetry tells me, answering its own

question, I read in the Hokkusai exhibit
at the museum last week. This morning,
at the elementary school bus stop, trying

to distract my grandchildren from thinking
about how Nina, their little schnauzer, is
going to be put to death this morning,

I tell them about the question, its answers,
ask what they'd say if the poets asked. "Stars,"
Sam pipes up, before I've even said "what else?"

then Katie, "trees," asks if I agree with the list,
I say yes, but not when snow's seven feet high,
the way it was this past winter; then say I'd

add the rising and setting sun. What I want
to add is comfort; I don't know where to find
it. When I picked up the children for the walk

to the bus stop, I gather that what's most
painful for my son was to watch his daughter
say her goodbyes to Nina, his first pet too.

We each grieve our own loss, the losses of
those we love. I grieve for all of us, want to
comfort us all. I don't have the words, just
fleeting images: snow, trees, stars, flowers.


* * * * *

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.

If Only My Mother Was Still Alive

by Margaret Duda


I was not surprised to see that so many Hungarians
were taking in Ukranian refugees and made sure
they had a safe, warm place to stay and plenty to eat.

As a teen, I never knew how many were coming for dinner,
but I could be sure that no one left hungry or unhappy.
First we eat, then we talk, my Hungarian mother would say.

My mother had always loved to cook and garden and we had
a basement crammed with her canning jars filled with food
grown in the garden she tended with love behind our house.

When she was ready to open her little Hungarian diner,
she chose a spot across from the local air base because
seventeen thousand airmen were hungry and lonely.

She became their surrogate mother and confidante
and the diner always bulged with airmen eating goulash
and telling her their problems as she made time to listen.

If she was still alive, she'd probably get on the first plane
to Ukraine to help the civilians hiding in basements
leave the country in safety, sending most to Hungary.

And then she would ask Zelensky and Putin to dinner.
First we eat, then we talk, she'd tell them, asking to meet
in a small restaurant which would let her cook the meal.

Chilled cherry soup with sour cream to start,
stuffed cabbage or chicken paprikash for an entree,
and for dessert, crepes stuffed with berries in thick cream.

She always felt that anything could be solved with talk
and kindness, but not if the people were hungry, convinced
it was hard to be compassionate on an empty stomach.

"Now what is the problem, boys?" she'd ask the leaders.
"You cannot kill innocent people. Have some more
of my husband's homemade wine, eat, and tell me all."

And soon they would be discussing a cease-fire and peace.
Her food and lots of empathy was all that she would need.
IF ONLY my Hungarian mother was still alive.


* * * * *

"If Only My Mother Was Still Alive" was first published in POETRY FOR UKRAINE by Robin Barrett (THE POET) in England in April 2022.

A daughter of Hungarian immigrants, Margaret Duda has had poems, short stories, and five non-fiction books and numerous non-fiction articles published. One of her short stories made the distinctive list of Best American Short Stories. She recently compiled a collection of her published literary short stories about immigrants, is working on publishing her poems for a collection, and is on the fifth and final draft of an immigrant novel. Her poems have appeared in Verse-Virtual, Muddy River Poetry Review, Silver Birch Press, and numerous anthologies by THE POET and Sweetycat Press and other journals.

Letting Go

by Marlene DeVere


            Here I was, nearly 40, trying to get knocked up. The joke’s lost on me. I had borne ten years of fear and avoiding what I was now trying do. IVF sounds like it belongs in an investment brochure not a clinic with a doctor probing deep within my inner sanctum, millimeters away from penetrating my heart. The needle goes beyond acceptance of what is, with hope for what might be. I hope to be a mother.
             The light is subdued, almost nonexistent. A reminder of what fading into emotional oblivion feels like. The table is cold, unyielding, not unlike my body. The smell is more antiseptic than Cupid’s Quiver.
             The journey begins. The expectation is great. It is always great and powerful and oh, so challenging. The loci of control—the husband and the doctor—perform their duties.

Unsuccessfully. 
Nothing is easy.
Nothing does hurt.

             The dove builds a nest of twigs and feathers and does so out of evolutionary need; yet the baby chick fails to thrive, has fallen or has been pushed out onto the hard, stark, sun bleached sidewalk to be swept away.
             Life has taken its capricious turn into nothingness.
The choices that remain are to try again and risk failure.

Or to just let go.


* * * * *

Marlene DeVere is retired from a career in teaching, broadcast journalism, and advertising. She has lived in most sections of the country and in the Middle East. She is now living in Tucson, Arizona and working on a collection of short stories. She has been published in Harpy Hybrid Review, Scarlet Leaf Review, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Bright Flash Literary Review, Oddball Magazine and Angels on Earth. 

Photo of Raphael

by Jo Gram
                                                                                                           

Greetings to you, Raphael.
I recently received your photo
an apron at your waist
a buttoned shirt and rolled up sleeves.
Looking proud to stand in the sun
at the door of your Fiesta Cafe.

I wonder if you looked this way to my aunt
my real mother, now dead.
I wonder if you had already met
when this was taken.
I wonder, did you know about me then?

I can’t tell if the window with a
mariachi musician and cactus
was painted in bright colors.
This photo is black and white and blurred
like the lies I heard as a girl.
The photo is undated although
the hood ornament on a piece of car
is a clue that doesn’t matter.

A sign on the door says open
but you are dead, unknown to me
My spit in a tube traced extended family
They have reached out
would like to know me
but at this late date
it seems too late to answer real questions.
I know enough to check a survey box
but hesitate to claim anything
I have not lived.
You get that, right?
You can’t check any boxes for me.

Questions go unanswered.
Like, what was the nature of
the interaction that made me?
Like, what did you know?

Still I know who I am.
Your investigated genes
flow through me
flow from me.
In spite of photo flaws
I can’t help but know
the nose, the brows
of my family.
Greetings, Raphael.


* * * * *

Jo Gram lives in Lansing, Michigan and has an MPA. After many years as a practitioner/scholar, she has left public service as well as the writing and presenting of academic papers. Jo is now pursuing poetry and a more creative life.

The Wild Wide Open

by Cristina M. R. Norcross

 
The welcoming of the wide open
is
a releasing of breath,
an expansion of lungs,
the lengthening of limbs.
The mind unfolds itself from 
an accordion of layered thoughts—
the brain’s mille-feuille.
 
The heart once enclosed by a sturdy ribcage
suddenly sees the world for its
multiplying dandelion self.
Wild mushrooms appear,
curtains open,
we feel the depth of everything—
the quiet longing,
the nostalgia that comes with grief,
the spark of joy’s cartwheels
and the ache of pain,
like a tooth with a cavity.
 
Like Anais Nin’s tight bud
that risks blooming,
seek the space between,
the mystery of the unknown place
without sound, 
the wide-open field you walk past every day.
Step through the fence—emerge.
 
Your hands now catch laughter,
releasing orange and black wings.
You allow bare feet to feel 
the pain of loss in exchange for
the tender remembrance
of how your father used to sneeze
with boisterous abandon.
 
Grow tall, like the unruly grass 
at the edge of the pond.
Risk falling in,
ruining your shoes, getting wet.
Risk feeling, risk living 
in the wild, wide open spaces,
where the boysenberries flourish,
where the soft earth touches your feet,
where the deepest things grow.


* * * * *

Cristina M. R. Norcross is editor of Blue Heron Review, author of 9 poetry collections, a Pushcart Prize nominee, and an Eric Hoffer Book Award nominee.  Her most recent collection is The Sound of a Collective Pulse (Kelsay Books, 2021). Cristina’s work appears in: Visual Verse, Your Daily Poem, Verse-Virtual, The Ekphrastic Review, Pirene’s Fountain, and others, as well as numerous anthologies. Cristina has helped organize community poetry projects, has hosted many readings and is co-founder of Random Acts of Poetry & Art Day. Cristina lives in Wisconsin with her husband and two sons. www.cristinanorcross.com

 

Catching Feathers
(Inspired by Rene Magritte’s The Victory*)

by Cristina M. R. Norcross

 
The soul should stand ajar, says Dickinson,
so I stand at the doorway of joy,
where land meets sea,
the waves of life’s small crashing moments
licking my feet with salt,
ushering me into the next breath
and then, the next.
 
I sit further up on the beach,
contemplate the clouds,
their pillow softness,
and imagine every sun-filled memory
I can touch—
the quiet exhale of my first-born son
after nursing,
when his head rested on my shoulder,
his tiny form, barely reaching my waist.
 
Another cloud passes by.
I get lost in the opaque white,
think of the waterfall in Ambleside
where we took that family photo,
mist coating our faces as we smiled
for the camera.
 
I look deeper into 
the blue expanse of ocean, 
see my father eating a bowl 
of clam chowder in the pub in Newport,
called The Black Pearl,
how happy this made him,
this simple pairing of black pepper,
clams, and cream.
 
I leave my soul ajar
so that joy may find a way in,
like mist,
like memory,
like life dropping a feather 
from the clear blue sky.


* * * * * 

*A link to Rene Magritte’s The Victory: https://www.wikiart.org/en/rene-magritte/the-victory-1939

Cristina M. R. Norcross is editor of Blue Heron Review, author of 9 poetry collections, a Pushcart Prize nominee, and an Eric Hoffer Book Award nominee.  Her most recent collection is The Sound of a Collective Pulse (Kelsay Books, 2021). Cristina’s work appears in: Visual Verse, Your Daily Poem, Verse-Virtual, The Ekphrastic Review, Pirene’s Fountain, and others, as well as numerous anthologies. Cristina has helped organize community poetry projects, has hosted many readings and is co-founder of Random Acts of Poetry & Art Day. Cristina lives in Wisconsin with her husband and two sons. www.cristinanorcross.com
 
 

This month, an additional Moon Prize, the 99^th, goes to Nina Rubinstein Alonso's poem "On the Train to Vigo."

On the Train to Vigo    

by Nina Rubinstein Alonso


Spanish children chewing bread and cheese
grandparents taking them somewhere 

sturdy people like short towers
holding the little ones in between

the conductor pats the boy on the head
lends him his clumsy man-sized cap

walks him grandly around the train
gives him an orange cotton scarf

brings him back holding his hand
calls him an excellent little man

the girl grips her grandmother’s arm
five years old already feeling how

to fold envy shrink it small
drop it into her secret well

we wonder if she’ll grow up wild
casting off traditional ways

or will she live in the usual style
favoring the male children

today there's little she can do
sadly jealous stubbornly proud

knowing she’s only a girl who must
wait pretending patience being good.


* * * * *

Nina Rubinstein Alonso’s work appeared in Ploughshares, The New Yorker, Ibbetson Street, Taj Mahal Review, Bluepepper, Bagel Bards Anthology, Black Poppy Review, Southern Women’s Review, Peacock Literary Review, Writing in a Woman’s Voice, Cambridge Artists Cooperative, Broadkill Review, Muddy River Poetry Review, etc.  Her book This Body was published by David Godine Press and her chapbook Riot Wake by Červená Barva Press.

 

On today's full moon, the 98^th Moon Prize goes to Mara Buck's poem "The short story of an American girl."  


The short story of an American girl

by Mara Buck


I dream that she is my daughter.
I shake her and shake her and she will not rise.
Wake up darling. I have written a poem.
I have painted a picture. I have put forth a theory.
Yet she does not rise.
There is no magic—
only tears and spent cartridge casings
on the schoolroom floor.

Your daughter goes out one day, springtime-excited,
jazzed for the future, your baby, your own.
So alive that the air sparkles around her.
So innocent that Disney bluebirds encircle her head.
She laughs, See you later… but she never does.
Small metal fragments piece her precious holy skin,
and you cannot protect her.
For your daughter goes out one day,
and you relive that moment,
a road to be worn thin with the traveling years from now.
And they, they may tell the story,
but for you it will not matter—
because for you it will always remain,
one Tuesday morning in May.

In the United States there have been many school shootings. May 23, 2022 nineteen schoolchildren were murdered in Texas. The ripples of such grief are profound.


* * * * *

Mara Buck writes, paints, and rants in a self-constructed hideaway in the Maine woods. Finalist for the Gravity Award, recently short-listed for the Alpine Fellowship. Winner of The Raven Prize, Scottish Arts Club Short Story Prize, the Moon Prize, F. Scott Fitzgerald Prize, Binnacle International Prize and others, with works in numerous literary magazines and print anthologies. The ubiquitous novel lurks.

 

Woman Reflected

by LJ Hughes


I see you looking at me,
that twinge of pity in your eyes.
You see my hair thin and white,
hear my creaking joints
and watch me shuffling along.
And you think I’m just another old one
who won’t be around for long.
Your hair in dark and shining glory
was mine half a life ago,
Skin soft as yours
once held in my lover’s touch.
My voice sang alto in the opera,
my legs danced half the night away...
I laughed and loved,
rocked my babies in my arms...
and now it’s all gone.
Strange how the years go by,
I look in the mirror and in my eyes
see that who I am now is who I was then.
You see me looking off somewhere
and think my mind is gone.
It’s gone to 40 years ago,
to the man who loved me once,
who went off to war and never returned.
It’s gone to crossing the ocean 
alone with our child,
to a new world and a new way of life
and my dreams left behind.
When they lay me down,
don’t look at this old body.
But see me dancing freely in the sun,
off to be with my love again
in that place we all will go.
And when you pray for my soul,
remember this,
that I am now, who you will be
half a life from now.


* * * * *

LJ Hughes is a former Nurse Practitioner living in coastal Oregon where she writes poetry and is a member of her local Florence Poetry Society. LJ has been interviewed by radio station KXCR where she read several of her poems on air. In the fall 2021 Oregon Poetry Association contest she won 1st Honorable Mention in the Members Only category with her poem “Perspectives”. She is known for her love of the outdoors and involvement in social justice issues—both of which are often reflected in her poetry.

 

Mother’s Milk

by LJ Hughes


Breasts engorged with mother’s milk, 
awaiting baby’s latch.
That first meeting of skin to skin,
exchanging pheromonal bonds,
forging between us a lifetime connection.

I prepared for this, I thought.
Read all the books, took the birthing classes,
rubbed my nipples with a towel to “toughen them.”
Women, after all, have been made for this, they said.

But was I prepared for that sweet baby face,
those fluttering lashes, baby’s breath and soft sighs,
that slackened mouth dribbling milk
and tugging at my heart?

So many nights of losing track of time,
up every few hours to nourish a squalling babe,
interrupted sleep with fettered dreams,
and somehow functioning for another day.

I wasn’t told about the loneliness of this,
about the cracked and bleeding breasts,
about the colostrum for lost babies,
nor the screaming child who couldn’t latch.

I didn’t know about the anger I would have
towards a partner who didn’t do enough,
or about feeling insufficient as a mother
for failing to manage it all.

How could I have prepared for returning to work too soon,
for the wrenching separation from this tiny soul,
for hand pumping breast milk while on break
in the stairwell or bathroom stall?

Yet I persisted, as women have before me,
to feed my offspring in my arms,
to gift us with the bonding snuggles
while baby’s at the breast.


* * * * *

LJ Hughes is a former Nurse Practitioner living in coastal Oregon where she writes poetry and is a member of her local Florence Poetry Society. LJ has been interviewed by radio station KXCR where she read several of her poems on air. In the fall 2021 Oregon Poetry Association contest she won 1st Honorable Mention in the Members Only category with her poem “Perspectives”. She is known for her love of the outdoors and involvement in social justice issues—both of which are often reflected in her poetry.

Recalcitrant Defector                                                                                                                      
                         Mrs. Helland, an indictment, circa 1973

by Julie Allyn Johnson


I take your silly Women’s Liberation quiz,
                         pencil in the obvious answers
             to every question.

The other girls’ indignant       opposition chatter
             stuns and disquiets my initial enthusiasm.

                         The responses I’d given, so out of sync
with those of my classmates…

You label me recalcitrant defector,
                          some bluestocking moniker you hurl my way,
             smug with contempt.

 
                           I don’t even know what that means.


Gorgeous hair flawless skin   oh, so stylish—
             powerful evidence
                                      you cannot possibly
relate to this plain girl’s insecurity,
this struggling young  miss     mess,   yearning
             for any boy to choose me
                                       to want me
                          to favor              me
                                       so that I might enjoy
the refuge,       the status         of his reverence.

I’ll take what’s offered

             grateful for what’s given.
             grappling for balance atop that pedestal

content with the confinement of my placement there.


                                     Lessons I’ve learned
from every female in my orbit.

* * * * *

Julie Allyn Johnson, a sawyer's daughter from the American Midwest, prefers black licorice over red, cigarette-size Tootsie Rolls and Hot Tamales, practically the perfect candy. Her current obsession is tackling the rough and tumble sport of quilting and the accumulation of fabric. A Pushcart Prize nominee, Julie’s poetry can be found in various journals including Star*Line, The Briar Cliff Review, Phantom Kangaroo, Haven Speculative, Anti-Heroin Chic, Coffin Bell and Chestnut Review.