Journal

A Vision of Colleen

No longer a fish in an inland lake,
impatient to be born in the vigilant room,
Colleen blurts into the doctor’s waiting hands
bird-bright and wary.

Her skin’s fine translucence
exposes the ruddy blood beneath
pulsing with secret calmness
as if saying, “See how relevant I am.”

In this exact moment Colleen, miniature bride,
marries the harsh air. Arms flung wide, she startles—
then impossibly—reconciled to the expansion,
anchors to the full weight of gravity.

I will never forget bending down to see
the vision of her pansy face,

I imagine panné velvet, perfume,
white chocolate and tulle ballet costumes.

Her miraculous compendium of cell after cell,
an embryonic construction
transformed into limbs, fingers and toes,
the arch of her fine foot, a graceful arabesque.

She is herself as independent
of her mother as her mother is of me—
complete and individual.

And I am reminded of an old photograph—
my eight year old grandmother, in a time,
two centuries removed from the one we are in now,
draped across her gray-haired father’s knee,

both she and Colleen, breathing angels,
and beauty, beauty, beauty.

Dale Champlin is an Oregon poet with an MFA in painting and photography. She has authored a book, Doggerel; twelve dogs and one cat (2017), and a chapbook, Twisted Furniture (2017). She is the 2017 editor of Verseweavers (the OPA anthology) and co-director of Conversations with Writers. Her work has been published in Social Justice Poetry, VoiceCatcher, and North Coast Squid, and is soon to be published in Moments Before Midnight.  

Betty Turbo‘s Green Series, of which “Overgrown” is one example, is back home in her studio after a stint at Monster Art in Seattle. This particular piece now resides 99 miles north of Anchorage in a cabin overlooking a glacier. She gets around, Miss Turbo, and if you want to see more of her fine art paintings, cards, posters, pins, and other paraphernalia, go to Betty Turbo on Etsy or Betty Turbo.com. 

Cold Mountain to Red Pines

 –-in memoriam, Mike McCarthy

Red was your omnipresent scotch,
your ruddy face of broken blood vessels
the bluffs of California,
where you were born.
Even your claim
that you were related to Joe McCarthy
(you’ll need redder bait than that, old man)
was Red-centric.
One night when we got so drunk
at that horrible family reunion
we witnessed something or someone
descend the roseate clouds
carrying a walking stick,
his embarrassing junk wrapped in a torn cloth.
Who is it, he thundered, who doesn’t know a wasp’s waist from a crane’s knee!
Us, we laughed and threw our empties at him,
two fools, bowled over by the bigger fool.
Now, only I am left to remember that,
my head on a grey rock;
beside tangled brush, a branch sways
after the cardinal has flown.

Slab Creek

Where birch reach the road,
ghosts of the last snow,
while tourist’s clear cut to icon beach,
I’ll take you to my true state,
diesel and superlatives
the way moss silvers, how the woods
are darker than our memory of the woods.
A shocking innovation when we reach the ocean:
the waves are colored robin’s egg blue!
but still unhindered space
between where light falls
and light reflects. Turn here, turn here, I say
like I built this place;
my own fine, salt-soaked houses
along the beach where fires roar into sumac.
I want to roll down the frosted glass at the mother who smiles
as we pass, her beautiful daughter in citrus across the road
shout: my state, my state, my estate
say: no words, no words, but find them anyway.

Merridawn Duckler, a poet and playwright from Portland, Oregon, is the author of INTERSTATE from Dancing Girl Press. She’s an editor at Narrative Magazine and at the philosophy journal, Evental Aesthetics. Hear her read “The Spectrum” at Cleaver Magazine.

Domestic Moment, as Homeric Simile

Forgotten, the philodendron fades
like a girl left too long to wait
for the one who ought to love her.
Slumped in a cafe corner booth
she does see him step anxiously
past servers lined up like portico pillars
as he makes his way among the waitresses
with their hoisted trays of soup and salad.
In much the same way,
our philodendron is drooping
on the dining room table unaware
that you, her faithful caregiver,
have come at last with a full
plastic pitcher, pushing past me,
who should have been attending
to houseplants in your absence.

Judith Edelstein is a retired teacher and librarian living in Corvallis with her partner of 40 years.

After The Restraining Order Expires,
M. Begs Me To Meet Him For Lunch

Tlaltecutli By Starlight in Puerto Escondido

Los Angeles poet, Alexis Rhone Fancher, is published in Best American Poetry 2016, Verse Daily, Plume, Rattle, Nashville Review, Glass, Tinderbox, and elsewhere. She’s the author of four books of poetry. A multiple Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, Fancher is also poetry editor of Cultural Weekly. Her latest book is Enter Here.

Brady Chambers is a printmaker and artist from the Willamette Valley. Chambers grew up in the skate and punk culture and in his early teens was introduced to the medium of screen printing. After a 25 year career in commercial and industrial screen printing, he now owns his own studio, Independent Print Works, where he produces high quality, short-run, paper and textile images. He teaches screen printing at OSU in the evenings. Or he may be behind the bar at the neighborhood pub. You can also find him on Instagram at Mixed Species or at Mixed Species.com