Haven

by Nina Keen


            At the end of the street, there's a clearing full of dead shrubs and sky. To get there, I pass the find a job you'll never find a job screech of my mother and the house of the old woman my sister thinks is a witch and I can stand here, for a long time on the dirt in the scent of dry sage borne on the weaving wind from the canyon. My cat followed me here today just as he does all the days that I’m not smoking. Something is written on both of us, maybe in our yellow eyes, that says stay away or love me I know you'll stay away. But here we're a part of the landscape – the empty beer cans and faded dollhouse and the coiled snakes that sleep feet away from my roughened bare ones. I picture us, my cat and me, in the dollhouse on the stones that made me bleed the first time I came here and we're miniatures of ourselves and locked away with no one looking in. That's how it feels to be here: me and him and me, him rubbing against my furry legs.


* * * * *

Nina Keen received her Master's degree in English literature from Loyola Marymount University. Her flash fiction pieces and poetry have appeared in LA Miscellany, The Fifth Di, and Coffin Bell Journal. She enjoys old fairy tales, modern horror, and all kinds of poetry. Nina currently lives in Los Angeles and enjoys going for walks, drinking lots of coffee, and collecting tiny trinkets.

Fatigue

by Nina Keen

                                                                                                                       
He talks so much.

Sometimes I hear his voice in my dreams:
"Did you remember to wash the pan?
Did you put your things away?
When will dinner be ready?
Did you know the earth was made
by a fist of steel and hot liquid fire?"

He would know because he's been there,
or so I imagine:
standing on some infernal mountaintop,
eyes wide open, a multitude of thoughts
racing in his mind,
he's waiting for the first human to be created
so he can unload unto them from his mouth.

I'm supposed to be a woman,
I'm supposed to be his.
But all I want to do is
not have to be.

A warm spring afternoon,
pink blossoms are swirling in the breeze.
A soft yellow light spills through
the curtains, jerry-rigged,
on our single-paned windows.
I find the mattress lying on the floor,
lined with my stuffed animals and
baby blanket,
I take all of them up in my arms,
close my eyes,
and cohabit with them,
their living-dead space:
Asleep, not dead, asleep, not alive.

I'll
paint glassy black eyes on top of my
lids,
and let him talk to her
while I sleep and
take care of this terrible
fatigue.


* * * * *

Nina Keen received her Master's degree in English literature from Loyola Marymount University. Her flash fiction pieces and poetry have appeared in LA Miscellany, The Fifth Di, and Coffin Bell Journal. She enjoys old fairy tales, modern horror, and all kinds of poetry. Nina currently lives in Los Angeles and enjoys going for walks, drinking lots of coffee, and collecting tiny trinkets.

 Writing In A Woman's Voice is on equinox break. New posts will resume on March 27, 2022. 

This month, the 91st Moon Prize goes to Melanie Zipin's poem "Move."

Move

by Melanie Zipin


sometimes
going at your own pace
            in your own words—
feels so right
more than right
beatific­— divine

but then,
you share it

it’s easy to say don’t
but you want to
some part of you
even
needs to

and then,
someone
(with the best intentions)
suggests…
your step might be better
slightly faster—
or slower…

maybe it needs a bit more
of this, a slight dash
of that

a step to the right
is a straighter path
but left,
and then a few steps back
might be better still

make it clearer
cleaner
crisper
shorter
longer
right

they’re trying to help
but you discover
everything
that felt
so right
to you
so connected
between you
and all
that sustains you
is somehow
wrong
or, at the least,
not right—
enough

and now,
you Can’t Move
you’re twisted
because you want to,
you really, really want to
get it right

is their right
better
than your right?
because, if it is
you want to
see it
you have to
feel it
you need to
know

you try to
change you
you rearrange you
alter your step
revise your tone

but that doesn’t
fit right either
now, everything
is out of order
and steeped
in doubt
you’re not sure
whose voice
to listen to
there’s no clear path
no way out
you Can’t Move

it’s easy to say
listen
to your own
but we rely
on each other
and everyone
has intuition
a sense and sensibilities
they just don’t all
come from the same place
at the same time

so many ways
to think about it
nature, nurture
big things don’t matter
little things are beasts
and now, I can’t breathe
so now,
I Can’t Move

have you felt this?
you were dancing,
sometimes, flying
falling, flailing,
laughing, weeping,
gathering every bit
and rolling on
putting the pieces
into pictures
in ways
that felt to you
that meant to you
that spoke to you

but now,
you Can’t Move
you can’t decide
which way to go
which pieces
should stay
which pieces
should go
if the order
is ‘right’

if you should listen
to the ones
who said,
go up
or down
or over
or under
or less
is more
fill in every hole
so we don’t miss
leave gigantic holes
so we can leap
and feel like bounds
discover new
break the rules

how much to take
how little to leave

it’s a blurred
recovery
murky and shadowed
always someone
looking over

a squillion decisions
even more unimagined
outcomes

until
finally,
hopefully,
eventually
just one
step
whispered or vociferous
infinitesimal or titanic
outside
in any direction
face to the sun
or head in the clouds
eyes open, or closed
spinning or still

to start
again
where I am

at my own pace
in my own words


* * * * *

Finding beauty, even solace, in the everyday, multi-media artist, Melanie Zipin, composes her musings from the material that surrounds her. Taking an early departure from her inner-city roots, the high deserts of New Mexico provide ample opportunity for such an introspective watcher. Her writings are an amalgamation of joy and sorrow, reflecting on the commonality of our individual contrast.

Zipin has one son and lives with her husband, far from the concrete, thankful for the rainwater that sustains them, in a house they built from hand-piled mud, where she makes art and music, and writes and writes and writes.

It’s as if

by Brooke Herter James


Under the full worm moon of March
the meadow mice scamper
across a field of light,
the ewe leans her wooly chin
on the split rail fence,
the pig ambles out of doors
on her cloven hooves,
the donkey refuses
to lay down in the hay
and I, in my bare feet,
stand in the doorway
of soft midnight,
in a moment that opens
wide like a prayer
under the first full moon of March —
it’s as if we can hear the sap rise.


* * * * *

Brooke Herter James is the author of two poetry chapbooks, The Widest  Eye (2016) and Spring took the Long Way Around (2019), one prose poetry/photography collection, Postcards from Montana (2020) and one children’s book, Why Did the Farmer Cross the Road? (2017). Her poems have appeared in Mountain Troubadour Poetry Journal, Tulip Tree Review, Orbis and Rattle, as well as the online publications Poets Reading the News, New Verse News, Flapper Press, Typishly and Writing in a Woman’s Voice. She lives on small farm in Vermont.

 

Proof of God

by Myra King


I always wanted proof of God
even as a child
I remember my mother's eyes as I hid a note
in the dry dirt of our backyard
written words - mine - asking God to take the paper
if you are really there
my mother told me God does not work like that
you should not question
her eyes squinted the sun and me in turn
a look as if someone she was unsure of wanting
could not share her belief
years later at her graveside with my final proof of if or not
I recall her long last months
cruel duality of cancer and dementia
when she was only enough of herself
to pray in little girl voice every day
for Jesus to take her
she was ready now ready for this to end
her eyes squinted me that look
now a shared betrayal to her faith 
that she still half clung to
even like a child


* * * * *

Myra King lives on Worlds End Highway in South Australia with her rescue greyhound, Sparky. Her poems and short stories, many of which have won awards, have been published in print and online, in literary magazines, anthologies and papers including Puncher &Wattmann, October Hill NY, Islet, Boston Literary Magazine, Rochford Street Review, EDF, Heron's Nest and San Pedro River Review. She has won the UK Global, the US Moon Prize and been shortlisted for the US Glass Woman Prize and the Scarlett Stiletto SINC Sisters In Crime AUS. http://myrakingprofile.webs.com/ 

Turn around and gone      

by Eve Rifkah
                                                     

she found herself on the wrong balcony
looking in

she had stepped out
              under reflected glare of city light
leaned over rail      looked up
and down empty street

turned       to step back     inside
now dark                
                    all the faces gone
                    glint on glass
                    the kaleidoscope of dress spun
                    in a fusion wine-y drift
                    gone

now darkness other side
fists on glass     a beat
                     a keen pours over the balcony
                     washes down the streets
                     slides off walls dwindling
                     into this dark night


* * * * *

"Turn around and gone" is from Eve Rifkah's 4th book, Lost in Sight (Silver Bow Publishing, 2021).

Eve Rifkah was co-founder of Poetry Oasis, Inc. (1998-2012), a non-profit poetry association dedicated to education and promoting local poets. Founder, and editor of DINER, a literary magazine. She is the 2021 recipient of the Stanley Kunitz award. She lives in Worcester, MA with her husband and cat, Bela.