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

He Explains Why He Sleeps
on a Lawn Chair in His Front Yard

Walls are not two-by-fours but faces
speaking without a voice.
‌                    I call King TV. No reporters show.

Sitcoms and reality shows fade
in a swarm of mosquitos.
‌                    I stop separating garbage from recycle.

Tricksters circumnavigate. Someone
in the government gives them lessons.
‌                     Immigration doesn’t call me back.

Converts practice their code-making.
They don’t explain why the world spins faster.
‌                    I leave Oreos by the fireplace.

I call for the exterminators, but I am down
to dimes and nickels. The floor lamps
‌                    take reverse x-rays.

I leave pennies by the door.
The priest from St. Marks can’t come.
‌                    I practice self-absolution.

The electrician says he won’t accept cash;
he’ll bill me. Nettles root in my ears.
‌                    Over the stinging, the pharmacist

at one of those chain stores tells me
you need a doctor’s prescription.
          That’s when I know
‌          what I need to do.

 

Susan Landgraf’s writing exercise book, The Inspired Poet, was just published by Two Sylvias Press. Her poems appear in Prairie Schooner, Poet Lore, Margie, Nimrod, Calyx, and others. Other books include What We Bury Changes the Ground and Other Voices. Currently she’s Poet Laureate of Auburn, Washington, where she lives.

Dan

Disheveled, soiled, stinking
he paces 2nd street
around the closed foundry,
counts the splotches,
avoids the curb for 26 steps.
Slumping shoulders,
the world in his head turning,
his mind connected to fibers
that speak from beyond,
whirring, hear the hum?
You don’t know
and never will know
what he knows.
Loo of Loo’s Chinese and American Cuisine
puts a small white box
of likely leftovers behind the dumpster
with a plastic fork stuck in the handle
where if it’s eaten or not
can easily be tossed.
Loo watches, sometimes.
Dan will pick up the box
smell it, put it down,
walk around the block,
come back, pick it up
and sometimes he eats.
The last of the dishes
roll out of the washer.
Dan turns around 3 times
testing the fibers for true south.

 

Gary Lark’s most recent collection is “Ordinary Gravity,” Airlie Press. Other work includes, “River of Solace,” Editor’s Choice Chapbook Award from Turtle Island Quarterly, Flowstone Press; “In the House of Memory,” BatCat Press; “Without a Map,” Wellstone Press; “Getting By,” winner of the Holland Prize from Logan House Press. His poetry has appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Catamaran, Willawaw, Poet Lore, ZYZZYVA and others.

In Dreams

I wake from a forgotten dream
with the taste of salt
heavy in my saliva, and
the smell of seaweed
deep in my nose.

Did I almost drown
in my sleep, or
find a floating peace
so far unattainable
in the waking world.
Each day stretches cruelly
before me like a promise broken
before it is sworn.

 

Edward Lee is from Dublin, Ireland. His poetry, short stories, non-fiction and photography have been published in magazines in Ireland, England, and America, including The Stinging Fly, Skylight 47, Acumen, and Smiths Knoll.  His debut poetry collection, Playing Poohsticks On Ha’Penny Bridge, was published in 2010. Lee also makes musical noise under the names Ayahuasca Collective, et al. See more at his website: edwardlee.wordpress.com.

Sunday Mornings

My mother would drag the rugs out
of our red brick house, one-by-one
down the steps, in front of the neighbors.
She beats the rugs with her broom
as if they are flesh-eating aliens.
I want to scream, “No!” “Stop!”
but all I can do is cover my face
with my hands. I smell my breath—
maple syrup, challah, sour milk.
If only I had a stick of peppermint gum,
everything would be a lot better.

 

Sherri Levine is a poet and artist living in Portland, Oregon.  She is the author of In These Voices and is the recent recipient of the Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize. Her poetry and art have appeared in the Timberline Review, CALYX, Driftwood Press, Willawaw Journal, The Opiate. Visit her website for more information.