Journal

Tree Rings

You talk about not needing a man in your life, maybe for the rest of your life, that
comets and chocolates make fine substitutes; that poetry is elixir & dope & courier.
I heard the sirens downtown
on my morning walk & wondered why they selected such shrieking violence to let
us know that someone just fell off the roof while sweeping leaves & wet, slick moss,
flying into concrete sidewalk, shattering bones into bisque. Did he have a woman
in his life who nervously dialed 9-1-1
while he lay on curb with blood trickling from his nostrils? Did he know when he
lifted himself from his warm bed that such a thing could – would – happen to him
this morning? There’s always a lesson to be learned, leaves with their stories of trees,
anecdotes of the boastful oak next door, the maple who never stops talking, the pines
who stand erect like soldiers, peering into windows such as yours, sworn to silence
by resin and reason. The trees always know before we do. I imagine they strapped him
into a dirty gurney & rushed him to the ER for an initial check of vitals. Where’s the
origin of the blood? Is he conscious and does he know the date & his name? Can he
tell them exactly what happened? Are his pupils dilated? Is his wife there yet & did she
call the kids or will she wait until she has a diagnosis? And does she have a Dove bar
in her belongings? What will she do if her man doesn’t make it? Will she see shooting
stars when the surgeon tells her the bad news? And will chocolate ever taste the same?

Whether John Dorroh taught any high school science is still being discussed. However, he managed to show up every morning at 6:45 for a couple of decades with at least two lesson plans and a thermos of robust Colombian. His poetry has appeared in about 75 journals, including Dime Show Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Os Pressan, Feral, Selcouth Station, and Pinyon. He also writes short fiction and the occasional rant.

Waiting

– Ghazal for drought

The geese glide in low and slow, gray wings tipped, frantic
flutter to ground as the flood plain yawns dry, waiting for rain.

Great blue heron stalks trickle stream, mud thick, small fish
and frogs long ago devoured, but still she stalks, waiting for rain.

Forest fire smoke settles across valley floor, obscures and chokes,
sunlight wavers, air crackles with electric want, waiting for rain.

Oaks dump acorns early, and papery green leaves curl brown,
no golden hues, an attempt to survive, while waiting for rain.

Salmon gather in ocean bay, fat and eager for upstream journey
to spawn, but riverbeds are impassable, rock dry, waiting for rain.

When the first drops fall, the earth sighs and softens and swells
a little, greedy. We wake in early morning tangle, listening to rain.

Ann Farley, poet and caregiver, is happiest outdoors, preferably at the beach. Her poems have appeared in Timberline Review, Third Wednesday, Willawaw Journal, Verseweavers, KOSMOS, and others. Her first chapbook, Tell Her Yes, was published by The Poetry Box in April, 2022. She lives in Beaverton, OR. Visit her website here. 

Letting Go

Welcome to my yard sale. Check out the bargains. 

Head for the garage and the 1956 winged Chevy where I tried
to lose my virginity. Shotguns and shells (and the echo
of hushed threats) (husband #1). Half-used cans of spackle
and paint, corroded tools, dated remotes (husband #2).

Deadbolt locks line the card table, locks Mom insisted would keep out
rapists and others up to no good. Bobbipins and hairspray kept
my bouffant rock solid all week. Faded Mass cards, worn rosaries
kept us tethered to hope.

Browse through the racks: Grandma’s housedresses stained
with garlic and red sauce. Wedding gowns stained with Chianti
(the first) and Cabernet (the second). Mom’s gardening ensemble:
powder blue pedal pushers, matching silk blouse stained with dirt
and nicotine. Gray polyester pantsuits, stained with tears, worn
by the aunts at every grief-swollen, guilt-triggered funeral.

The ghost of Mom (still smoking) drops by. She begs me
to leave her alone, find new material. She is followed by a mirage
of aunts (Rosalie, Angelina, Catarina, Marie) rooting for bargains.
They cross themselves, moan about the old days and wonder (aloud)
why I’m still wasting my life writing poetry.

Irene Fick of Lewes, Delaware is the author of The Wild Side of the Window (Main Street Rag) and The Stories We Tell (Broadkill Press). Both chapbooks received first place awards from the National Federation of Press Women. Irene’s poems have been published in such journals as Poet Lore, Gargoyle, Blue Mountain Review and Delmarva Review.

Falling off horses

I wouldn’t want my falling off a horse laid
right next to my first good kiss,

or my wedding day when my (then)
husband went off to smoke dope

with his chums for 20 minutes
laid next to my 1st prize in photography.

And, I wouldn’t like the memory of me
saying, “I’m dying to see you,” said

to my dad the day before he actually
did die laid next to my mother’s

asking me at fifteen if I’d
taken her birth control pills,

me looking at her like she was nuts,
which apparently, she was. It’s spaces

between things that help us retain
sanity, a modicum of space holding it all in,

a closet of sorts. Here’s the thing, I want
to put that closet somewhere closed

maybe give it a combination
lock or bury it deeper or somehow get it

to stop swinging open randomly, with
the scent of marigold, or how the ocean

sounds at 7:00am or the way at the
beginning of snow there’s a hush and

then it begins one single soft flake at a time.

C. Desirée Finley (Fin) is a fiction writer, poet and artist now living in a small hilltown in western Massachusetts. Her poetry is published in Straw Dog Writers Pandemic Poetry and Silkworm 14 and 15. Fin was accepted into Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference in 2018 for fiction but says her poetry and writing has lately been influenced by the presence of a mountain in her backyard. Find her at FinleyWrite.com.

Sometimes all you need is a shadow

as when sun through a window lands the crisp imprint of a lipstick plant (blooms,
leaves, vine) on the hardwood floor near your feet. Or from the high eyebrow
window, the ruby, emerald, sapphire bottles are cast on the glass tabletop clear
as in a mirror. Beauty you find when you gaze up from a novel you’ve been
immersed in for an hour, the curve of a lit lamp’s shade reflected along with its
soft glow onto the wall behind it—shape warped by the corner.

How on a crisp sunny day you can’t wait to walk through a park to photograph
shadows of bare trees on a soft expanse of unsullied snow. The way wind alters
water on a sun-struck lake, creates furrows that pass through geese’s mirror twins.

Sometimes all it takes to lift you from grief, worry, pain is to enter your bedroom,
see a laundry basket with light through slotted patterns projected onto quilt and
dresser drawer a yardstick away—so precise. You cover the echo with your palm,
feel its soft warmth.

Still, breathe, watch the shadows fade, sharpen as sun lessens, intensifies.

Karen George, author of the poetry collections Swim Your Way Back (2014), A Map and One Year (2018), and  Where Wind Tastes Likeears (2021), won Slippery Elm’s 2022 Poetry Contest, and her short story collection, How We Fracture, which won the Rosemary Daniell Fiction Prize, is forthcoming from Minerva Rising Press in Spring 2023. She lives in Kentucky, and her work appears in Adirondack Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Cultural Daily, Indianapolis Review, and Poet Lore. See her website here.