Before she invented the ladder to the sky, she first invented the sky to have somewhere to go. Then she pulled the ladder up after her. But she was kind enough to leave a few clues behind— here and there— about how to build a ladder but without using wood, or nails, or hammers to pound them in. Robert Harlow resides in upstate N.Y. He is the author of Places Near and Far (Louisiana Literature, 2018). His poems appear in Poetry Northwest, RHINO Poetry, Cottonwood, The Midwest Quarterly, and in other journals. He is a … Continue reading The Emily Dickinson Revery Construction Guide by Robert Harlow→
Did the G-d of the South finally begin perspiring and give that little knob a flick, mid-September or if lucky, August 22nd? Now the wind is an aloe blanket, remedy for a stove-burned arm—a refrigerator door held open for three cooling minutes; humidity an afterimage on my retina of summer. And sunlight glows like maple icing on a cake baked daily. Autumn resurrects every annual cycle, but peeling off the dried glue of August, I comprehend that redemption and renewal are all books to be read again and again. Gary Grossman’s work appears in forty-four … Continue reading Flipping the Switch in Georgia by Gary D. Grossman→
Does her dimpled-cheek delirium still thrill you? Or her death escalate as you try to focus, cataracts pixilating her image, static of hail in late-day snow? Do her eyes ring almonds of tender memory? Times I wrestled your camera away so you’d stand with her. Mom’s little-girl smile, head on your chest you contain her, blue-sweatered, small in your bulky leather-jacketed arms. She secretly hated your obsession. Told me so, yet smiled dutifully, willed your Kodak to break open, admit its blindness, thirsty glass eye hiding yours. These mounted prints— all you’ve had of her … Continue reading Portrait of My Father the Photographer as a Dying Man by Bobby Parrott→
for Nana Pansy “Give these to Weaver,” you said. The books that saw you through sleeplessness. “I’m done with reading.” You already knew how it ended. You were done with Who Done Its. “Give these back to Weaver.” Like a good sergeant you gave me the case, the tough one called Life after you. I’m on it, Nana, like a small dog who’s just unearthed a dinosaur’s femur. A passable conundrum, but not one you expect me to solve. We both know the pleasure’s in the chase, the day-to-day details, not the inevitable solution. We … Continue reading Last Words: Mysteries of Life by Richard Weaver→
—article title by Gwyn Wright, via swns.com …………….. …..Let me make light of the situation, travel to the nearest interstellar hotel. I don’t want to be maudlin, but I’m going to pack all my favorite mementos of mortality—a photo of my grandmother, the last slice of chocolate cake, and the only shirt that makes me look like I’ve got something going on. Believe me, I know ………….. ……..this is serious. There are lakes drying out, spitting up bodies and boats. There are fires so wild they scour towns down to foundations and loose strings of … Continue reading Scientists Say it’s Time to Prepare for Human Extinction by David B. Prather→
Buying one I thought of my mother, dead three months. How she loved the easy peel, the seediness! Long ago on Christmas morning I discovered A tangerine pushed into the toe of my stocking. Loving better the cheap, swiftly broken toys— A yo-yo, a plastic watch—what did I know? Tonight I strip the rind with my teeth. Bitter. Bury the shine in the trash. Tasting it segment by segment I hear the rain Rattle beer cans piled in my neighbor’s yard. In the gilt-covered cardboard box, Mother’s ashes Dream between Ulysses and Invisible Man. One … Continue reading O TANGERINE by Christina Hauck→
Samadhi By day it hides in the bones, disguising its rich scent with worry and talk. At night it falls lightly, dips fingers in water, crosses itself on the steps of a shuttered church. The hand tingles, cool as quartz in an atmosphere of stone and wood and wax. As a child it dwelt under the skin, then beyond the edge of a paperback book. Now I bite the inside of my cheek, taste metal where it tries to form words. It is promise, night blooming flower, jasmine tree at the end of Rose Lane … Continue reading Samadhi and The Genesee River, 2 poems by Victoria Korth→
We Were Bag People Life is no knock-off handbag, no purse ordinary as any K-Mart pocketbook. No. Worse. Life is a brown paper bag, plainest container, what my father called a poke. Run get me a poke for these beans now. My father talked like a Hank Williams song: Life is a sack of shit sometimes. A&P store bags jam-packed our slumping shelves—our lunchboxes our backpacks our suitcases. Life is utilitarian and pitiful sometimes, papery thin as bird legs. Life is a grease spot in the corner of a lunch sack, stained like a workshirt … Continue reading We Were Bag People and Lament for my Late Cousin While Feeding the Dog, 2 poems by Marianne Worthington→
your namealways tasteslike a palindrome across my tongue minnowingpond wide words stained red as pomegranate arilsthe sun dies between us painting ripples aquarelles what is left to say when there is no way forward that doesn’t feel like retreatwhen clouds lit citrus bright over lakeside cypress hold that dream i can’t whisper B. Luke Wilson grew up in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and his fiction and poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Moon City Review, LIT Magazine, Artemis Journal, and elsewhere. He is the assistant … Continue reading say goodbye, without disappearing by B. Luke Wilson→
I know people who know horses They ride them and own them and talk about their different points. They look at a horse in a field or paddock, and evaluate it, speak of its attributes. In all the Westerns I read growing up, there were always characters who knew “horse flesh.” I don’t. I know nothing. All horses are beautiful to me. A faculty member at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Joseph Mills has published eight volumes of poetry, most recently Bodies in Motion: Poems about Dance. His book This Miraculous … Continue reading Horses by Joseph Mills→
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