Rapunzel Recovers from a Stroke

by Ellen LaFleche

  

Rapunzel’s hair has grown wild in her old age. It flows past her ankles, it moves in silver shivers as she waters her rock garden. Rapunzel can smell her hair - the Prell shampoo, the conditioner. The scent of illness lingers in the roots. Sick-bed smells: starched pillows, bitter-tasting pills in their fluted paper cups. Locked for three months in the rehab ward, worse than all those years in the tower. The nurses wanted to cut off her hair. No! Not that again. Rapunzel hissed fire at the student nurse who approached her scalp with scissors. The blades clacked. Rapunzel spat hot cinders. The nurse backed away, her young skin blistered. A woman without words in her mouth has to spit fire to be heard. Back to the rock garden. Rapunzel’s yard is lush with fragrant green moss, purple phlox. Miniature rose bushes. Rapunzel is careful not to tangle her hair in those thorns. Rapunzel holds the hose in her good hand. Her other hand is weak from the stroke. The water bucks through the hose. She feels the sexual charge. She remembers. All those years of marriage. Those once-upon-a-time times. Rapunzel’s life is no fairy tale. Before the stroke, there was the breast cancer, the radiation treatments. A husband with an eye for beautiful women with ropes of golden hair. A daughter on drugs. Rapunzel could tell the Grimm Brothers a thing or two about “happily ever after.” But the stroke, that wicked curse, has snatched the words from her throat. Rapunzel has to spit fire to be heard. But every curse has its blessing. Rapunzel misses the words in her mouth, true, but she loves the taste of flame on her tongue. 

* * * * *

Ellen LaFleche is the author of three chapbooks: Workers' Rites (Providence Athenaeum), Beatrice (Tiger's Eye Press) and Ovarian (Dallas Poets Community Press.)  She won the Tor House Poetry Prize, the New Millennium Poetry Prize, the Hunger Mountain Prize, and the Joe Gouveia Outermost Poetry Prize.  She is an assistant judge for the North Street Book Prize and a freelance editor.  She is currently finishing a manuscript tentatively titled Walking into Lightning with a Metal Urn in My Hands, a collection of poems following the death of her husband to ALS. 

Where two closed gates meet

by Mary Wescott Riser

at the end

of the road

beyond the Cedar Grove Baptist Church

the world is the color of Virginia November:

clay, oak leaves, early dusk, gold earrings.

You touch my fingers as if for the first time

lean back into the evening air

sending your breath to the stars

behind you the moon is a cradle of light, rocking,

and we can see a road

unbarred, ahead.

Her nest is right there!

Only your fine eyes

would see it so close beside the car window

those cardinals hopping, vibrant red feather edges,

snapping up red berries,

living a whole life right there

in 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.

Early Winter Rain

by Katherine L. Gordon

The rains have melted the sun

wrapped all the trees and grasses

in a mist of mystery,

lands and waters no longer separated

as in ancient decree,

no rigid order present to affirm

that we are singular in creation.

A cedar-wind scents

the circle of stone and moss

hinting preservation.

The morning swallows me

and I am a rusk of leaf,

hungering winter bird,

knowing there is no certainty

even in the shift of season.

* * * * *

Katherine L. Gordon is a rural Ontario poet, publisher, judge, editor and reviewer, working to promote the voices of women poets around the world, as they are now flowering into acclaim.  She has many books, chapbooks, anthologies and collaborations with fine contemporaries whose work inspires her.  Her poems have been translated and awarded internationally. Latest books: Piping at the End of Days, Valley Press, and Caution: Deep Water will be released by HMS Press, London, Ontario in late 2018. 

Untitled Poem

by Rebecca Turner

The singe from a father turning his back.
The pit in your guts from the confidence you lack.
The pang of harsh words sent from a friend,
And the first heartbreak that never seems to mend.
You swallowed it like a pill.
Every ounce, no big deal. 
Incalculable pain of creating life.
The hollow sobbing from being an invisible wife.
The ball of barb wire collected so tight
From all the decisions made that were never right.
Seeing your children cry and you can’t save them a single tear. 
Watching your parents grow older each year. 
You swallowed it up without making a sound.
Keep walking so tall while your heart drags the ground. 
No wonder we change in our later years,
We women are salty from swallowing our tears.

Wi-Fi Is Free

If You Can Afford It             

by Sarah Henry

                                                                                                                                   

Welcome

to the resting place

of suicides who

have crawled

across Route 30.

During my two-day

employment,

I’m afraid of finding

a body in a shower.

The owner is never

on the premises.

He hides away

on purpose.

His cheap portrait

hangs in the lobby.

We maids don’t

know each others’

real names.

The name stitched

in red on my black

uniform is Janet.

I plow through

the trashy rooms

with a heavy hand

on the Orrick vacuum.

Without a paper trail---

no punch, unlikely pay.

White grains stretch

along the baseboards.

So this is what

is meant by

“a seedy abode.”

At Disney World,

employees take pride

in their product.

They rush

to pick up litter

in the wholesome                                                                                  

surroundings.                                                                                                                                              

Meanwhile, I sweep

the disconsolate

parking lot of

the Welcome Rest.                                                                  

My broom pushes

the dirt around,

like a wet mop                                                       

anointing

the bathroom floors.

* * * * *

Sarah Henry poems recently appeared in Defenestration, Turtle Island Quarterly and Leaves of Ink. She lives and writes in a small Pennsylvania town with no distractions.

What Little Girls Are Made Of

by Christine Elizabeth Ray

she had always been puzzled

by the idea that little girls

were made of sugar

and spice

and everything nice

in her experience

that’s not what

little girls

were made of at all

the mean girls smelled

like cruelty mixed with uncertainty

disdain peppered with insecurity

ravenous hunger and envy

some girls smelled like

saccharine sweetness

and copper wire

wound too tight

always trying to please

to be liked

to be popular

others just wanted

to fly under the radar

to escape the notice

of mean girls who torment

of chameleon girls who offered

friendship only to shun them

the moment the mean girls

or a boy

beckoned

she was a different

kind of girl

the quiet, watchful kind

she had ageless wisdom

in her heart

steel in her spine

fire in her blood

and patience

her time would come

there weren’t many

girls like her

but when they brushed

past each other

in school hallways

or crowded streets

the recognition

was like lightning

eyes would meet boldly

and they would smile

the secret smiles

of their kind

* * * * *

© 2017 Christine Elizabeth Ray – All Rights Reserved

Christine Elizabeth Ray is an indie author and freelance editor who lives outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is the creator of the blog Brave and Reckless and Managing Editor of The Sudden Denouement Literary Collective (Blood Into Ink, Sudden Denouement, Sudden Denouement Publishing, & Whisper and the Roar) as well as Indie Blu(e).  Her writing has been featured on SpillWords, fēlan poetry & visual zine, Nicholas Gagnier’s Swear to Me (2017), and his upcoming collection, All the Lonely People. Christine’s first book of poetry, Composition of a Woman, was published by Sudden Denouement Publishing in July of 2018. Her second book of poetry, The Myths of Girlhood, is scheduled for release later this year.

Seed

by Christine Elizabeth Ray

they tell me

I am no longer

a bringer of life

since monthly ruby tides

synced to moon rhythms

have ceased

they call me

desiccated

crone

barren

obsolete

they do not know

my truth

my womb

my soul

primordial oceans

humming with

single cell organisms

itching to divide

multiply

to explode with

fecund creativity

feminine power

waiting taut

to be unleashed

with passion

with fury

recreate this universe

in her image

realign the stars

this is why the world

of men

in the armor of their three-piece suits

and patronizing voices

fear the sexuality

of middle age women

orgasmic contractions

of our womb

acid words from our pens

our combined voices

a hail of silver bullets disrupting

the smoke of illusion

shattering the mirrors

of status quo

* * * * *

© 2017 Christine Elizabeth Ray – All Rights Reserved

Christine Elizabeth Ray is an indie author and freelance editor who lives outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is the creator of the blog Brave and Reckless and Managing Editor of The Sudden Denouement Literary Collective (Blood Into Ink, Sudden Denouement, Sudden Denouement Publishing, & Whisper and the Roar) as well as Indie Blu(e).  Her writing has been featured on SpillWords, fēlan poetry & visual zine, Nicholas Gagnier’s Swear to Me (2017), and his upcoming collection, All the Lonely People. Christine’s first book of poetry, Composition of a Woman, was published by Sudden Denouement Publishing in July of 2018. Her second book of poetry, The Myths of Girlhood, is scheduled for release later this year.