This month, an additional Moon Prize, the 86th, goes to Jen Schneider's poem "fourteen reasons to always say goodbye."


fourteen reasons to always say goodbye

by Jen Schneider

1. i never got to say goodbye. to the man in the white tank. ribbed cotton. vertical stripes. a smile as wide as the ocean from which he/my love for him grew.
2. i saw his footprint in the sand today. toes on souls, he’d say.
3. i placed my sole in his and waited for the crushing wave. the ones we’d wade in, talking about things we’d like to do in/for/of the next five years
4. scuba dives and cycle rides. travel of various degrees – far north. further west. city hopping. baby popping. tail wagging. down payments. no more basements. upward acknowledgments. butterfly wishes. afternoon kisses. lemon spritzes. sunday drives to nowhere. up coasts. down mountains. in theatres. of books. menus of letters. letters of love. diner specials from everywhere. days of nothing special. evenings of everything.
5. thought of our lists. sketched on throw away napkins and drive through receipts. doodled on diner placemats. traced on palms of grease and backs of oil.
6. things that made us happy - hearts of palm. palmetto trees. trees of bees. honeysuckle vines. scrabble lines. slot machine dimes. love. lovely lists. 
7. the ones we’d compose then compile while consuming things that made our hearts ring – crosswords and curry -- and our voices sing – lennon and mercury
8. talking about things that made me/us (he often, not always, agreed) angry – incarceration rates, feuding states. states of suspension. days in detention.
9. pondering things that he/we (I often, not always, agreed) found interesting – me. us. education baits, soulmates. historic dates. unknown fates.
10. why wait, he’d say. too many reasons to count.
11. i sat in the sand and counted. waves. gulls. children. shells. grills. sandy hills. unpaid bills.
12. then counted letters. letters in bottles. on ice cream trucks. on chair backs. on bare backs.
13. anything to forget when I could only remember.
14. i never got to say goodbye. to the man in the white tank.

  

* * * * *

Jen Schneider is an educator who lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Pennsylvania. She is a Best of the Net nominee, with stories, poems, and essays published in a wide variety of literary and scholarly journals. She is the author of Invisible Ink (Toho Pub), On Daily Puzzles: (Un)locking Invisibility (forthcoming, Moonstone Press), and Blindfolds, Bruises, and Breakups (forthcoming Atmosphere Press).

This month's Moon Prize, the 85th, goes to Eve Makoff's poem "Hourglass."

Hourglass

by Eve Makoff


The hours flip by on the mud-brown digital clock on my dresser.
Fluorescent red. 
1:21. 2:34. 3:18. 4:25. 
I am awake because I am counting. 
My waist is a 27 but should be 24.
An hourglass. 
36-24-36.


Toes dug into the sand, face-down on my towel, whispering under my armpit. 
“I’m so fucking fat.”
I’m 13 years old and I ate 5 brownies.
I should always weigh 125 pounds. 


Peanut butter. 
188 calories in 2 tablespoons. 
16 grams of fat. 
Thickly spread on soft white bread in the cafeteria at the camp under the redwoods. 
No peanut butter for 20 years.


Grade point average 
SAT/AP scores
Class ranking 
Tennis games 
Extracurriculars
Friends Suitors Colleges


3000 miles away.
The freezing air whips my face on 116th Street and Broadway.
40 degrees and I’m barefoot. 
On my stoop an old man says I had Michelangelo toes.
In 1984 the drinking age in New York is 19.


Married at 32 
9 pounds 11 ounces
8 pounds 7 ounces
8 pounds 15 ounces
Divorced at 42
Married at 49


Carbs Laps Miles 
Degrees Jobs Salaries


[Belly laughs-Soulmates
Awe-Transcendence-Grief
Poems-Music
Words
Silence]


Time
How much do I have left?
X


* * * * *

Eve Makoff is an internal medicine and palliative care physician. She is studying narrative medicine at Columbia University and reads and writes in her spare time.

UPWARD

by Marguerite G. Bouvard


After a heavy and prolonged rain
the flowers whose stalks were
bent on the ground like a waterfall
in stasis, are beginning to slowly

rise up, at a time when we all
need to move upward from what
assails us. The trees are making new
shoots, people are reaching out

to each other in small ways;
the quiet ongoing process in Israel
with Sheikh Raed Bader and
Rabbi Michael Melchior working

together for peace in a country
where religions and nationalities
are raging against each other,
showing us that our Creator

does not have only one name,
that we need to honor every
life over the distinctions
that separate us when the colors

of the sunset with its intertwining
clouds bring together the sea,
earth and sky, the light that ushers
each one of us to life.


* * * * *

Marguerite G. Bouvard is the author of 11 poetry books, two of which have won awards including the MassBook Award for Poetry. She has also written a number of non-fiction books on women's rights, human rights, social justice, grief, and has just finished one, Healthcare Workers on the Frontline of the Pandemic. Her poetry collection The Cosmos of the Heart came out fall 2020. Her poetry collection Shades of Meaning will be out late December 2021.

 

Trust

by Joanne Durham

Her hand steadies
his wobbly neck, his bottom
rests in her curled palm.
For a change, her eyes are shut,
his open,
grazing deep pockets
of space and sound,
sudden drafts and shifting heat
he doesn’t yet know
as the ceiling fan
and slant of morning sun.

He clutches the fold of her sleeve,
seeking the same heartbeat
that sustained him
tucked away in her womb.
His body born
from the thrust of a hard
push, trust born    
from moments
like this.


* * * * *

Joanne Durham is a retired educator lucky to live on the North Carolina coast, with the ocean as her backyard. She has been writing poetry since childhood, but in the last few years has brought it center stage in her life. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in Third Wednesday, Juniper Poetry Journal, Evening Street Review, Eunoia and other journals. Please visit https://www.joannedurham.com/ for more about her background and poetry. 

Brittany, 1978

by Betsy Mars

 
If you don’t like it, get out of the car
he said after a week of travelling.
 
Starting from a darkened garage
in London, hidden like a slightly older Lolita –
I huddled in the backseat of a station wagon
loaded down with provisions
for our continental road trip.
 
We crossed the Channel wordlessly.
On land again, he drove
and I fended off his suggestive tongue,
his critiques of my eating habits, too.
 
I watched, wrote in my notebook
all along the Normandy coast.
 
We slept in the car, on beaches
though neither of us ever rested.
 
By day, we irritated and repelled,
drew into our corners,
prepared for the next night
in too-close quarters,
both ready for a fight.
 
On the fifth day, we arrived at dusk
in another gray stone village.
Stopping at a tiny market
I found an apple and a yogurt,
and a freckled cashier
who made me welcome.
 
In search of a hotel and strengthened
by that moment at the register, her kind face,
when he said
 
If you don’t like it, get out of the car,
 
I climbed out and stood unsteadily
on the curb, crying, but free.


* * * * *

"Brittany, 1978" was first published under a different title in the San Pedro River Review. 

Betsy Mars practices poetry, photography, pet maintenance, and publishes an occasional anthology through Kingly Street Press which she founded in 2019. Her poetry has recently appeared in One Art, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Sheila-Na-Gig, and Autumn Sky, as well as numerous anthologies and journals. She is a Best of the Net nominee and her photos have been featured in various journals including RATTLE and Spank the Carp. Betsy is the author of Alinea (Picture Show Press) and co-author of In the Muddle of the Night with Alan Walowitz (Arroyo Seco Press). 

Meta California Dreaming

by Betsy Mars

 
Walking by the beach watching
a guy about my age
leatherbacked and tan
with salt-stiffened hair –
maybe Duke or Ken –
 
riding at the beach on his beach cruiser
listening to the Boys of Summer by the Eagles,
 
wondering if he knows
he's a stereotype, maybe
that's his intention – does anyone else notice,
or are they too busy watching
 
the volleyball players in their skimpy clothes,
the un-selfconscious
guy dancing down the path, invisible
earbuds blasting his silent soundtrack,
 
the seagulls spinning overhead,
pelicans plummeting for a snack.
 
It's only April and we're still masked.
What will come when summer comes
I wonder, walking in solitude, tuned
to the changing mood, unobserved –
 
another older woman, unattended hair
gone gray this careless year –
monitoring my pedometer, the time,
another season slipping away.


* * * * *

Betsy Mars practices poetry, photography, pet maintenance, and publishes an occasional anthology through Kingly Street Press which she founded in 2019. Her poetry has recently appeared in One Art, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Sheila-Na-Gig, and Autumn Sky, as well as numerous anthologies and journals. She is a Best of the Net nominee and her photos have been featured in various journals including RATTLE and Spank the Carp. Betsy is the author of Alinea (Picture Show Press) and co-author of In the Muddle of the Night with Alan Walowitz (Arroyo Seco Press). 

I saw my ex on LinkedIn

by Nicole Bird


Your picture popped up today
and your hair looks different.
It’s smooth and frames your face,
in a professional way,
Since you’re a VP of marketing now.
When I knew you,
you were a vagabond musician,
equipped with a fro of fire and
anyone could spot you from a mile away,
a dot of rust among the multitudes
and cacophony of Hollywood Boulevard
with icy blue eyes
cold like a lie.
All those moments
flood my mind,
tangled sheets
and soft laughter,
lips grazing,
inhaling your exhale,
so much fiction and warmth.
But, there was nothing like the frigid spike
of your betrayal
after so much truth.


* * * * *

"I saw my ex on LinkedIn" was previously published in the Ariel Chart International Literary Journal. 

Nicole's career began with a degree in Creative Writing. Her focus then shifted to garnering degrees in Film Production and Screenwriting. Afterwards, Nicole worked in film, while writing and producing her own short films. Now, Nicole works as a Creative Writing professor and is currently at work on a collection of poetry, as well as honing her gluten free baking skills developed during the 2020 quarantine. Her work has appeared in the Ariel Chart International Literary Journal.