Cornflowers, Iris

Virus

Like the other wounds I carry it transforms my core
carves the flowered seat into its own cottage, where

decomposing stone molders by the roadway
an old bucket tips over by the door

A dank familial smell decorates the air.
Grass rises up through fallen tines—a forest of tools

buried deep in built-up soil
that root-rich matrix unyielding as ignorance.

This morning the heavy trucks have come
and trailers bearing scrapers. Dozers to push away

the last quivers of the old world.
I have become the host

of a landscape drawn and named,
an erasure, uncontained.

Fermenting Again

Through the kitchen window I marvel at the hydrangea,
festooned with red flames, all pointing downward,
its in-your-face response to the coming cold,
while I wash my hands in lukewarm water
and let the radio’s babble, a stream of responses
to the current immigration twitter storm,
rush past me. After all, I am
a legal resident. I focus on a new head,
a firm, green cabbage, glistening on the counter, ready
the mandolin, the salt, and the wooden stomper,
rinse the crock of brown earthenware, a small but sturdy incarnation
of the tall one which once reached up to my 9-year-old waist.
Then, I used to whistle loudly every time I descended into the basement.
At the bottom, out of reach of sparse rays
able to fall through the door (always left open),
I turned to the right. In almost complete darkness
I entered the cellar, which harbored
jars of jam, canned cherries, and green beans,
barely visible in the gray light, thick dust
obscuring the small window, high up below the ceiling
as if in a prisoner’s cell. The dark shape
of the crock loomed before me, its open mouth
plugged with a rock, below it an oaken board,
the two of them holding down the fermented cabbage.
I placed the two gate-keepers on a nearby table, rolled up a linen cloth,
the last barrier between the kraut and open air,
pushed the top layer of scum to the sides,
scooped enough of the good stuff from the center
into my dish, then, in reverse order,
re-covered everything as fast as possible, to finally,
prize in hand, run up the stairs, as if I had to escape
from—I don’t know what exactly I feared
down there, where I had nothing to fear—
but now, as I start to ferment again,
this fear resurfaces, feeds on itself, grows
into a full-blown panic attack at the mere thought
of being sent back to my home country,
a safe and civil place—but not my home,
not my home anymore,
not for a long, long time.

Brigitte Goetze lives in Western Oregon. A retired biologist and goat farmer, she now divides her time between writing and fiber work. She finds inspiration for both endeavors in nature as well as in stories and patterns handed down from generation to generation. Yet, she always spins her own yarns. Links to her most recent publications can be found at: brigittegoetzewriter.com.

Frigatebird

Awake with half my brain
to your sadness, woe
a sea you cannot cross,
cannot rest in for fear
of letting the mirror
of heavy water
pull you under.
Wings that will not
land. Not this day.

Awake I carry you
with half my brain,
one part in the sun
of mid-day;

the other wonders
exactly where you are
flying, what thermal
might lift you,
waking or dreaming.

The bird that mates
for life.

Self-Portrait with Clair

She’s number seven, a good dog in a long life of years.
Each new one finding home the day the last one dies.
Friends say too soon, grieve the ones that disappear,
give each their due, not privy to how hard I cry.
It’s not tail wags or tricks or snores at night,
it’s how I need that known quotient of fur.
I know as well as I see black and white
that the new dog does not come to transfer
feelings from old to new. She comes as light
to a soul in dodgy despair, a child of loneliness
eager to nose in deep, give a hand caress
to a mute, receptive head eager to be liked.
I bring home a faithful creature I need
for me, not her, such a self-serving deed.

Tricia Knoll is a Vermont poet looking into winter’s dark months, prime time to write about the vagaries of wind and relationships. Her work appears widely in journals and anthologies. For more, visit her website. 

Physics Lesson

At 20 years old, I lived in someone’s
upstairs bedroom, a blanket pinned
over the window to block out the

morning sun.

In the summertime, I could feel
the heat through my shoes as I
walked on black pavement to

a classroom—

Physics, afternoon lab in the room
with the tables, evening lecture in the
room with movie-theatre-type seats.

I had a pad of

graph paper that I would use to draw
lines and color in squares—I wanted
to be a doctor, the kind with sharp

tools for cutting,

the kind that wash their hands over
and over with soap and warm water.
In the upstairs room, I would practice

my skill with a needle

and thread—as a child, I helped my
father and brother field dress animals
in the corn, skins and blood still hot

against our hands.

Once, I watched as a knife slid into
the pelvis of a deer, watched as the knife
was drawn upward through the hide.

I nudged the pile of organs

with my foot, found a kidney, the liver.
It was then that I learned that each tree
in the woods grows with the nutrients of the

jawbones at its feet.

Kristin LaFollette is a writer, artist, and photographer and is the author of the chapbook, Body Parts (GFT Press, 2018). She is a professor at the University of Southern Indiana (Evansville, IN) and serves as the Art Editor at Mud Season Review. You can visit her on Twitter at @k_lafollette03 or on her website at kristinlafollette.com