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

DIA DE LOS MUERTOS

by Joan Colby


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

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

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

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

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


* * * * *

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

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

‘those’ kind of girls

by Emalisa Rose


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

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

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

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

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

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

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


* * * * *

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

No, I Don’t Want to Hold Your Baby

by Jean Ryan


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


* * * * *

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

Suitcase Full of Ordinary

by Joan Leotta


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


* * * * *

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

November wonder

by Mary Wescott Riser


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

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

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

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


* * * * *

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

High Noon

by Cynthia Anderson


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

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

She climbs higher, rounds
the bend, picks her way

through rockpiles, shouts,
Can you hear me?

Her voice carries all the way
back—everyone knows

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

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

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


* * * * *

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

Bone Mother

by Cynthia Anderson


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

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

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

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

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

crescent moons
on her cloak.
She has waited

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


* * * * *

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