Who are you in my dream?

by Judith Michaels Safford

Who are you in my dream?

I am the raven of your night

who snatches every broken heart you toss.

The one who stashes them tight in

your nightstand drawer,

the wounded hearts from childhood pain,

your broken heart from youth’s self-disdain,

and the hearts you’ve brushed aside like bread crumbs

when you thought you’d had enough and, yet, dissatisfied.

They sleep not, but lie in wait at the gate of each dream.

“Can you see me now?” They cry.

My wings spread wide as your protection

until your eyes feel safe to open.

And, even then,

I carry you.

* * * * *

In 2006, Judith Michaels Safford discovered a radio program on writing poetry. She followed the prompts and mustered up the courage to press the send button. She was invited to read and a door was open that had not previously existed. She finds that her emotions express more easily through poetry. Judith self-published her memoir in 2009. Don’t Sell Your Soul, Memoir of a Guru Junkie. Encouraged by a published poet-friend, she embarked on self-publishing a book of prayer poems. Joyful Surrender, A pilgrimage. Judith continues to practice a 23-year career as a licensed massage therapist. Today her home is Glenwood, New Mexico, where artists of many kind reside. Touching others with hands and poems brings a tremendous satisfaction of purpose to her life.

Chromosomes: Y-axis, solving for x

by Betsy Mars

Another night like the one you left

hanging, silenced. 

Another midnight chorus of why why why

shallows my breath, 

resounds in my brain -

beating, beaten.

The dangling ex ex ex, uncrossed: 

for wives, for chromosomes,

for kisses

shared or not -

a knot around your neck,

a not for your future, a not for your son

a knot in my throat, a not for any answers, 

X'd out. Suspended, 

with no hope 

to know your whys ways. 

* * * * *

Betsy Mars is a southern California poet who is in a perpetual battle with change – finally coming to some kind of a truce, and at times even love and acceptance. She is an educator, mother, animal lover, and over-excited traveler. Her poetry has been published in a number of places, both online and in print, most recently in Sheila-Na-Gig, The Ekphrastic Review, and Red Wolf Journal. Writing has given her a means to explore her preoccupation with mortality and her evolving sense of self.

Sub Rosa

by Betsy Mars

What’s in a name? A tale of many things
past and present.
As it happens, when I think
I remember childhood taunts
and oft-told stories of
the origins of my names, juxtaposed:
On the one side,
a beloved grandmother/mother surrogate
and on the other, an incontinent doll, Betsy Wetsy.
A savior, a cow, and a seamstress
all merged together under pressure to form
a multifaceted but conflicted image of what a
Betsy was
Davy Crockett’s gun. The woman who nurtured
the woman who nurtured me. A magic bus.

Betsy was expected to be rejected
for my middle name, Andrea.
More sophisticated, I was told,
but also indicative of dysfunction:
a tribute to my mother’s psychiatrist, André,
the man who nurtured the woman
who was neglected by her father
and rejected by her mother.
Not a common story in my white collar,
aerospace engineer, stay-at-home mom neighborhood.

What’s in a name? A chocolate bar
by any other name would taste as sweet.
The sound of Marsbar was cloying
and repetitive, alternating with
allusions to little green men and Uranus,
such ridicule unanticipated by my grandfather
as he abandoned his unspellable, unacceptable
name at the entry point
by force or by choice in favor
of the simplicity and grace and unbloodied
history of Mars, the God of War.

What’s in a name?
Had I arose by any other name, I would not be me.

* * * * *

"Sub Rosa" was first published by Silver Birch (July 2, 2015).

Betsy Mars is a southern California poet who is in a perpetual battle with change – finally coming to some kind of a truce, and at times even love and acceptance. She is an educator, mother, animal lover, and over-excited traveler. Her poetry has been published in a number of places, both online and in print, most recently in Sheila-Na-Gig, The Ekphrastic Review, and Red Wolf Journal. Writing has given her a means to explore her preoccupation with mortality and her evolving sense of self.

Broken Wings

by Karen Schauber

Janice woke up early. She meant to scrounge around for the sewing kit the night before but fell asleep with the bottle in her hand, again. She rummaged in the hall closet and pulled down the blue Samsonite from its upper perch. It wasn’t inside. Rifling through the stale pile of winter blankets in the laundry hamper also drew a blank. The last place she bothered to check was the cabinet under the bathroom sink. She got down on all fours pulling out the Ajax and spray bottles, flinging mouldy scrubs and crumpled toothpaste tubes behind her, and spilling the half-corked Pine Sol as she grabbed past the crushed box of sanitary napkins, feeling for the kit. A waft of chemical potpourri sent her reeling.  She put none of the wreckage back. 

Janice was getting right pissed off and needed a cigarette. Her familiar sense of defeat was almost in full swing, but she managed to keep her usual histrionics at bay and instead pulled on her shabby-chic pea jacket, stepped barefoot into clogs, and shuffled out the door to 7/11.

There wasn’t a lot of time and the kids might wake up before she got back. ‘They best not wander around the row houses looking for her, like the last time she left them alone and CPS showed up.’ - She promised herself that she would be quick. She would not hang around to chat, or to bum a cigarette. After all it was only the sewing kit she was after. 

She scurried past the low buildings and nasty bins down to the corner. Her unkempt hair plastered to the side of her face fazed no one. The neighbours had seen her in all her glory many times before. Harold was at the counter when she breezed in. He did not look pleased to see her. He watched her like a hawk whenever she came in, ready for her to swipe any number of items. She was straight up with him this time. “Do you have a sewing kit? It‘s my daughter’s first day at school and I have something special for her.” It wasn’t cigarettes she was after. Her simple honesty surprised him, and he came out from behind the counter to help her find the home supply items in aisle three. Without skipping a beat, she grabbed the package of needles and thread, slapped her food stamps card down on the counter, and waved off the offer of a bag.  

    

Janice made a beeline home. It was still quiet in the flat. In a few moments the little’uns would overrun her whining for something to eat, their bellies empty and needing filling. They would have to wait. She had more important stuff to do. She plunked herself down on the sofa and pulled the pink sparkly dress out from the cellophane bag. Janice didn’t feel half bad about nicking it from Marshalls. It was real fancy and she knew she’d scored a real prize. Laying it out flat, she was careful not to crush the ruffles or crinoline underneath. Her nimble fingers gently repositioned the broken wings on the seam, and with needle and thread brought the fairy princess back to life. Daisy would be over the moon. She would be the prettiest girl on the first day of school. 

Janice did good. She grabbed for her cigarettes and a fresh beer, and put her feet up. Parenting was damn hard work.

* * * * *

Karen Schauber is a seasoned Family Therapist practicing in Vancouver, British Columbia. Her earlier writing is non-fiction and details three decades of psychosocial and analytical cases. Flash Fiction is a new and welcome adventure for her. Fictional short stories are much more fun to read and write! 

As an emerging artist, Karen hones her craft at home and at the dog beach on the west coast (when it’s not pouring out). The upcoming Group of Seven Flash Fiction Anthology is her first editorial novella-in-flash venture. http://GroupofSevenFlashFiction.weebly.com. Karen’s flash fiction can be read at http://rebelshorts.weebly.com, at Spillwords, Blood Puddles, AdHoc Fiction, and forthcoming at Yellow Mama. 

She can be reached directly at: http://karenschauber.weebly.com

Today Writing In A Woman's Voice celebrates its 500^th post of poems and stories told in a woman's voice with:

A life in process

by Lynne Zotalis

Still so much fragility in me,

hidden by bravado.

The tears pour over a welling

of my lower lid

to cheeks

that anticipate anointing.

I lick my lip and it’s salty,

and I miss the taste of my sweet love.

Sitting on this faded plum, nylon chair

you bought,

I don’t remember where or when,

but you scoured the back roads along the Mississippi

before you discovered it,

paying twenty dollars.

Better than that was the wrong turn onto gravel,

“I found this clearing enclosed by walnuts and red oak,” you’d tell me,

knowing I’d fix a picnic basket

and we’d spend a sun-bathed fall afternoon there

immersed

in the nature

of each other.

I can still close my eyes

and feel your soft breath

in my ear

six years after the ocean

called your name.

* * * * *

As a freelance contributor and member in the Iowa Poetry Association, Lynne Zotalis’s poetry has been published in Lyrical Iowa for ten years running. She is a member of the Peace and Social Justice Writers Group at the Loft in Minneapolis, MN, with contributions to their chapbook and Turning Points: Discovering Meaning and Passion in Turbulent Times. Her poetry has appeared in Tuck Magazine and Poetic Bond VII , and Lynne was one of six winners of the RH Cunningham short story contest published in the book Life Dances. All available on Amazon.

Dead Hand Control

by Devon Balwit

If at the time of my death, I shall leave any incomplete manuscripts I hereby direct my executors (i) to destroy such incomplete manuscripts (including, without limitation, all copies thereof in physical, electronic, or any other medium…)

              E. Albee

If at the time of my death, like Albee, I am still writing,

pay no attention to any injunction such as that above,

but scatter far and wide, and in perpetuity, any and all

of my extant darlings. If any playhouse, small

and insignificant as it may be, even located in Oregon,

wants to cast a dark-skinned, dark-haired actress

as one I penned as white, by all means let them.

If they wish to translate my poems into Inuit, Haida, or

Tagalog, offer them coffee so they might work late

into the night and be up again at dawn. Should any poet

ask to engage my work in erasures, centos, or collages,

videos, animations, or AI LSTM recurrent neural networks,

fund them. As soon as is practicable after my death, fire

my works from cannons into sleepy suburban neighborhoods

and over the walls of each ivory tower. [E]nsure

that such materials are not copied, made available

for scholarly or critical review; In fact, grab critics

by the shoulders and sit them down until

they notice me. And should their verdict be grim,

shelter my work away like the seeds vaulted

in Svalbard, Norway, until the climate is more amenable

and they can be replanted for future generations.

This determination shall be final, conclusive and binding

on all parties who have any interest in my estate.

* * * * *

Devon Balwit teaches in Portland, OR. She has six chapbooks and three collections out, among them: We are Procession, Seismograph (Nixes Mate Books), Risk Being/Complicated (A collaboration with Canadian artist Lorette C. Luzajic); Where You Were Going Never Was (Grey Borders); and Motes at Play in the Halls of Light (Kelsay Books). Her individual poems can be found here as well as in The Cincinnati Review, The Carolina Quarterly, Fifth Wednesday, the Aeolian Harp Folio, Red Earth Review, Queen's College Quarterly, The Fourth River, The Free State Review, Red Paint Hill, and more.

how it begins, how it ends

by Elise Stuart

start loving right away in the morning,

realize this day is the only one you'll get.

contemplate, drink tea, read in the sun,

make a story, write it down,

wash the dishes,

sit on the swing,

follow the moon's path

through branches of the apricot tree.

keep loving far into the night,

even in your dreams.

feel the cat against your back.

imagine yourself living inside

a passionflower, a star, a sound.

now you exist everywhere—

quiet joy, your song.

* * * * *

Happy first day of May to all with this beautiful poem!

"how it begins, how it ends" is from Elise Stuart's poetry collection Another Door Calls.

Elise Stuart moved to Silver City in 2005, and her heart opened to the desert. She found the creative current to be strong in this southwest corner of New Mexico, and she found beauty in the land and rivers and sky and in the people who live here. In 2014, when she was chosen Poet Laureate of Silver City, she envisioned young people expressing themselves through poetry so during the next three years, so she gave over a hundred workshops to youth. She continues with this work.