Journal

Fever Dream

The wet heat loosens our skin. Unstitches us from ourselves.
‌             What could we do but let it.

We drag our carcasses alongside us like drunks, like fresh kills,
‌             down the deserted dirt roads,
‌             kicking up billowing blossoms of dust
‌             we no longer bother to choke on.

‌                            Our blood is loud against the hushed anti-

hum of the air. Our blood is loud against the sound
of what was and lives no longer. Our blood hits the air
and turns an unspeakable shade of blue.

At night we pin our skins down against the ground—
‌             dagger into ankle, penknife to shoulder
‌             —to deny them entry into our dreams. Safer
‌             to dream of nothing. To make of our heads
‌             dark vacuums, cradles for static. Our hot skins cry
‌             and whine and writhe, but still we keep them out.

‌                              In the morning they are limp like gone things,

‌             but we know they, unlike us, are just playing
‌             at death, and we coax them awake. A twig
‌             dragged on the cracked sole of the foot, ears
‌             twisted between sharp fingernails. They jump back
‌             onto us with the frenzied quickness of wild horses.

‌                              What could we do but let them.

 

Shannon Hozinec lives in Pittsburgh, PA.  Her work has appeared in Thrush, SWWIM, The Hunger, and elsewhere.

Stan Getz Plays Detour Ahead

The fireplace is hushed
When The Sound plays
Beside Oscar’s chords

Through the bay window
The sun slips a finger between burnt umber clouds;
Illuminates the Riesling left in the bottle;
The dishes with their oil and vinegar sheen, a remnant of lettuce,
Reclining pattern of dark chocolate and raspberry sauce;
And softly touches the lock of brunette hair
That lies across the nude shoulder.

Marc Janssen lives in Keizer, Oregon with a wife who likes him and a cat who loathes him. Regardless of that turmoil, his poetry can be found scattered around the world in places like Penumbra, Slant, Cirque Journal, Off the Coast and The Ottawa Arts Journal. Janssen also coordinates the Salem Poetry Project, a weekly reading, the annual Salem Poetry Festival, and was a 2020 nominee for Oregon Poet Laureate.

Birches in November

None have been swung here along route two
in the Berkshires. Maybe the boys all sit inside
not up to but on their own devices, and the girls
have never flipped and sunned their wet tresses
after shampoo but make do with blow dryers.

And yet we do see birches, are struck with seeing them,
standing so erect in stands, so bright white and slim,
so many skinny fingers reaching up at higher treetops.
Such a cold light they reflect, as does the Golden Eagle
on the hairpin turn, a U-ie so sharp, it’s a “V.”

I like to think then of when we rode the train
through Altoona and the conductor woke us
to see ourselves coming and going at the same time,
which is what we all are doing every minute,
what we do today, heading for a funeral in Fitchburg,

then turning around tonight, toward Youngstown for Thanksgiving.

 

After 40 years away, Diane Kendig has moved into the home her father built with his own hands in Canton, Ohio in 1947. She has published five poetry collections, most recently Prison Terms. Co-editor of In the Company of Russell Atkins, Kendig founded the prison writing program at Lima Correctional Institution and now curates a blog of 4,000 subscribers, “Read + Write: 30 Days of Poetry” for National Poetry Month. Her website is dianekendig.com

Delivery

Birds and shadows of birds cross the yard,
and the yard is everything now.
The wasps have moved in to build a nest
in the old picnic bench.
I like their busy work.

The buzz and sound of distant planes has become
the whirring of the earth.
I am aging myself with my face to the sun.
Warm cells decay and I will look more like my mother
every day. I did things today I’d meant for so long.

You are here, finally, coming up the walk to see
my unfinished ways, my animal appearance.
I will come halfway to meet you.

And you will drop your burden
just a few moments sooner than had I stayed
young inside the house.

 

Maude Lustig lives in Seattle and is a recent graduate of Whitman College. She was the humor editor for her college’s paper, The Wire, and published a personal essay on loneliness for their annual magazine, Circuit. This is the first time her poetry has been published. 

Grandmom

Do you remember that day in the garden
under the red elderberry tree?
We were digging worms for fishing, their bed fertile
with coffee grounds, and I wouldn’t quit throwing
more and more fistfuls of rich dirt into the rusted Maxwell can,
even when you said it was too much, until finally
you told Grandad I needed a whipping,
and he grunted his agreement.

You never laid a hand on me, but I couldn’t forgive you.
I thought I was your favorite, after all. You taught me
how to iron a man’s shirt, how to kill and pick a chicken.
You told me, “Ladies don’t show their teeth when they smile,”
and “Don’t play with Maria next door–she’s Mexican.”
You said someday I’d be a scientist, Susan just a clown.

When you came home for the last time and lay
in your hospital bed in the middle of the dining room,
your eyes big with black and yellow bruises,
I couldn’t go to you when you rang your bell.
I slipped silent out the back porch,
held the screen door so it wouldn’t slam,
pretended not to hear.

Mama didn’t make me go to your funeral.
Later all the people came over to stand in the dining room
and eat the food spread across the table, all your lady friends
in print dresses, stockings with straight, black seams, heavy shoes.
I ate some raspberry crumble, and it was dry in my mouth.

And I thought it so odd the next day, washing our clothes
at the Laundromat. Grandad came along, and there
between the washers and dryers, he started to play hopscotch,
a sad kind of smile on his face, jumping stiff and heavy
in boxes painted on the concrete floor.

 

Eleni Mays has lived in Western Oregon for four decades.  Her poetry has appeared in a number of journals including Willawaw Journal, Earth’s Daughters, and Plum Tree Tavern.