Journal

Winter Birth

Fluffed hens cluck but black and black
in the bitter night in the brooder house
they cannot see the galaxies whorl.
And in the barn where one bulb lights,
the birth bag drops unseen, the calf
plops all unheard into prickly straw.
Under the wan glow, low now over
its laboring breath and tongue its
birth dew as tottering, lurching
it finds your warm, leathery teats.
Then, feel the ferocious sucking and
give your milk and all your spent life.
Wait against the icy night for spring
while hens fret in their nests of straw.

Allen Helmstetter lives in rural Minnesota. He loves the rivers, woods, and fields there, and after hiking the trails, is often inspired to write about the relationship between nature and the human condition. He has been published in North Coast Review.

Eventuality

At some point after my father died
my mother said: Life’s no fun
anymore. I don’t know what she meant
exactly since I don’t ever remember
him making anything fun, and I think
physical intimacy hadn’t been part
of their lives for years, so that couldn’t
have been it. Maybe she just felt old,
and visiting friends didn’t much happen
anymore since one or another spouse
had died and things had slowed markedly.
And her garden held no joy for her now,
not her pet tomatoes, Early Girls, not
the sweet lettuce, not even the towering
gladiolas she had always adored more
than all the exalted glories of summer.

James Kangas is a retired librarian and musician living in Flint, Michigan. His poems have appeared in Atlanta Review, New World Writing, and West Branch, among others. His chapbook, Breath of Eden (Sibling Rivalry Press) was published in 2019.

Hello, I Love You

When I want to power up, I use my witchy voice and say,
All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter, and then
I remember what happens: a man doesn’t have big plans,

then he hears that the king of Scotland wants to spend the night
at his house, and the next thing he knows, he’s in deep shit.
Best not to get ahead of oneself. The writer has given up

stories, says Camus, and creates his universe. That’s what
you’re doing. That’s you. And look, you have every tool
in the toolbox at your disposal, though that doesn’t mean

your toolbox is full. Far from it! Why, if we had to have every tool
we needed before we started creating our universe, we’d never
get started. One thing you learn when you look at the works of these

pre-Renaissance Tuscan masters is that if you don’t know something,
you don’t know it. Cimabue, Giotto, Duccio di Buoninsegna:
if they weren’t painting the way Raphael and Botticelli would

later, that’s because they couldn’t. Yet. Don’t you think they would
have filled their masterpieces with perspective and depth of field
and more lifelike facial expressions and clothes that look like clothes

instead of somebody’s living-room curtains if they’d known how
to do it? Yet one thing leads to another: no Duccio, no Botticelli.
I know, let’s forget Macbeth. Think instead of Leonardo da Vinci,

an engineer as well as an artist, though his options went well
beyond these two choices: on the one hand, his paymasters
often asked him to make such simple devices as locks, tongs,

bootjacks, and candlesticks, and, on the other, to stage such spectacles
as a celebration of the wedding of Gian Galeazzo Sforza to Isabella
of Aragon that featured a representation of the mobile heavens

complete with luminous stars. Leonardo is famous for not finishing
things, but he had so many things to finish. And he may have
dragged his feet deliberately: like business people of every era,

the nobility of his day often tried to pay as little and as late as possible
and still get the product they desired. Oscar Wilde says, A writer
is someone who has taught his mind to misbehave. So, yeah, sure,

dump all your tools on your workbench and figure out what you need,
and then do as the Doors did and break on through to the other side.
But no seedy clubs, no heroin. Don’t hurt anybody. Don’t hurt yourself.

David Kirby teaches at Florida State University. His collection The House on Boulevard St.: New and Selected Poems was a finalist for both the National Book Award and Canada’s Griffin Poetry Prize. He is the author of Little Richard: The Birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll, which the Times Literary Supplement of called “a hymn of praise to the emancipatory power of nonsense” and which was named one of Booklist’s Top 10 Black History Non-Fiction Books of 2010. His latest books are a collection, Help Me, Information, and a textbook entitled The Knowledge: Where Poems Come From and How to Write Them.

Compassion Colors

I figured this morning’s work would be blues writing. My friend’s son died the other
night according to a short email, but none of us know how, why or where.

without observation
spring’s goldfinch turns gold
after gloom

This overcast sky displays as fish mottling, skin of a bottom dweller. Nothing is
blooming although it’s mid-April. My taxes are paid. I should be satisfied, but
I’m not. Yesterday our solar panels barely registered enough KWh to run the
vacuum. If I had felt like cleaning.

one photo
in black and white unknown
my mother’s sister

My writing never turned blue. I filled the bird feeder cups with mixes of seed that
promised to draw a crowd. First surprise, a redwing blackbird. First time at this
feeder. Early arrival. Next a yellow-bellied sapsucker muscled away two chickadees.

a red plastic bucket
overturned before snowfall
seen through fir trees
 

Reliable

I remember my mother
who died a quarter of a century ago
after a coma sucked up her words.
She lost her pubic hair.
Her fingernails turned blue.
The quiet nurse from Ethiopia
opened the window a slice
despite January’s pelting
downpour, a north wind.
I asked if my mother’s body
smelled. I breathed winter.
She said she had to let
a spirit out or it would get
trapped in the hospice room,
in the death bed.
I thought it must weigh
less than a feather –
what went to meet the rain.

Tricia Knoll is a Vermont poet whose work appears widely in journals, anthologies, and five collections. Most recent is Let’s Hear It for the Horses which received third place in the Poetry Box 2021 Chapbook Contest. She has two books coming in 2023 – One Bent Twig from Future Cycle Press and Wild Apples from Fernwood Press. Website: triciaknoll.com

Today Would Have Been Our 50th Anniversary

A mixed marriage.
Clergy shuns us. The judge shushes us.
I sentence you to life.
Guests laugh. I don’t.

My period comes after the cake.
Giving you a bite, I contemplate peeling
off my pearl studded dress, not white, but ivory,
and getting on a Greyhound.

Instead, I drive with you to Atlanta,
Underground.

Like waves,
rising, receding, repeating,
we sift stones from sand.

We have a child. A boy.
In a dream, I take him and flee in your fancy black car
with the white racing stripe.

Linda Laderman is a Detroit area writer and poet. She grew up in Toledo, Ohio and earned an undergraduate degree in journalism, and post graduate degrees in law and liberal studies. Her stories and features have appeared in media outlets and magazines. Her poetry has appeared in The Jewish Literary Journal, The Bangalore Review, One Art, Third Wednesday, and The Sad Girls Club Literary Blog, among others. Until recently, she volunteered as a docent at the Zekelman Holocaust Center, where she led adult discussion tours.