Poetry Summer 2014 fiction all issues
whitespacefiller
Anne Rankin-Kotchek
Letter to the World
from a Dying Woman
& other poems
Sara Graybeal
Ghetto City
& other poems
Tee Iseminger
Construction
& other poems
Lisa Beth Fulgham
After They Sold the Cows...
& other poems
Mary Mills
The Practical Knowledge
of Women
& other poems
Monika Cassel
Waldschatten, Muttersprache
& other poems
Michael Fleming
To a Fighter
& other poems
Daniel Stewart
January
& other poems
John Glowney
Cigarettes
& other poems
Hannah Callahan
The Ptarmigan Suite
& other poems
Lee Kisling
How the Music Came
to My Father
& other poems
Jose A. Alcantara
Finding the God Particle
& other poems
David A. Bart
Veteran’s Park
& other poems
Greg Grummer
War Reportage
& other poems
Rande Mack
rat
& other poems
J. K. Kitchen
Anger Kills Himself
& other poems
Jim Pascual Agustin
The Man Who Wished
He Was Lego
& other poems
Jessica M. Lockhart
Scylla of the Alabama
& other poems
James P. Leveque
Three Films of Jean Painlevé
& other poems
Kelsey Charles
Autobiography
& other poems
Therese L. Broderick
Polly
& other poems
Lane Falcon
Touch
& other poems
Ricky Ray
The Bird
& other poems
Phoebe Reeves
Every Petal
& other poems
David Livingstone Fore
Eternity is a very long time...
& other poems
Tim Hawkins
Northern Idyll
& other poems
Abigail F. Taylor
On the Pillow Where You Lie
& other poems
Joey DeSantis
Baby Names
& other poems
Cameron Price
Every Morning
& other poems
David Walker
Sestina for Housesitting
& other poems
Helen R. Peterson
Ablaut
& other poems
After They Sold the Cows, But Before They Cut Away the Pines
Wine-fed and lying in truck beds thrown open,
we had gathered in a field to watch meteor showers
but first noticed the moon, halved
and upward-facing like a bowl to hold
every flinch, every shiver, every amen come Sunday.
Firelight would have drowned out the celestial,
so we grasped at each other for warmth.
We played geography, we played guess-the-headlights,
we played sing-the-tree-line-to-sleep.
We awoke with the warblers at dawn, dew seeped
into the openings of our sleeping bags.
Together, we excavated the remnants of the night.
Blushing and lacking pavement to guide us,
we drove along the barbed-wire fence,
hoping to cross it as we had the night before,
without piercing our skin.
The Choctaws under the Bed
The picture was boxed in forest green and dust,
waiting to be discovered in the space beneath
my grandmother’s brick-hard mattress.
Man and woman, field-worn and dark-skinned,
they glared at me. These two stood upright,
holding their half-filled baskets in front of them.
Behind them grew rows of cotton.
And I wondered, if they could see me,
would they string beads in my straw-like hair?
If they could see me, would they touch
this skin that the sun bites into, chews,
and spits out? Would they scold
me for slouching and step forward
to straighten my spine?
Would they teach me dying
words that would hang in my throat
like phlegm in Southern spring?
Would they say Oh my, how you’ve grown,
we remember . . . or just return to their work,
pulling at the bolls more forcefully?
Justification
It’s ok because I only count
when I’m bored, she says, noticing
every percussive pen click against
legal pad from across the gap
between her and Dr. Drivel.
Behind her back she lifts
and curls her fingers in multiples
of three with each beat.
The inspirational posters and books
with well-worn spines don’t distract
enough from the floor tiles, arm freckles
and kaleidoscopes that need to be inventoried.
Just like the asphalt and white
lines of highways are not enough
to keep her from turning her attention
to the passing cars as she paces home.
There is not enough time to number them all,
to make sure that she’s seen the correct
amount before she can go inside.
So she takes the longer way, dodging
through alleyways and neighborhoods.
She turns the knob back and forth
three times before heading indoors,
announcing her arrival.
It’s ok because at night I can rest,
she says, turning the light off with
the normal click, click, click.
She turns over three times
like an alligator in a death roll
with a dog,
and gives thanks for the dark,
and gives thanks for the dark,
and gives thanks.
A Strange Offspring
Junior high experimenter,
wisp-banged boy who swabbed
the corners of my locker
while I stood, kicking at a patch
of dried gum on the short, grey carpet,
if then I could have seen the bacteria
swelling in shades of white, green,
and yellow, I wouldn’t have volunteered,
raising my hand and wiggling my fingers
under the fluorescent lighting.
Later, we gazed at the Petri dish,
a fertile culture blooming
below us, condensation
lapping the lid.
A girl chortled
two rows over, called me
moldy Mona. You slid
your nails underneath
the tape, opened the container,
and released our spores.
Found after the Sudden Storm with Straight Line Winds
This light switch, useless.
That half-green, half-rust
lawn chair lost.
Torn bits of yesterday’s news:
the school’s successful play,
the congressman’s unsuccessful affair.
Power lines snaked
across the asphalt.
This pup thrown
against the shed’s aluminum side.
This house halved by a pecan tree.
Parking lot puddles reflecting
our cheeks, the sun.
This corn crop’s thirst quenched.
These ponds teeming,
this conversation overflowing.
Lisa Beth Fulgham 
is a recent graduate of Mississippi State University’s M.A. program in creative writing and is the Managing/Founding Editor of Blinders Literary Journal. Currently, she is a wanderer and is working on submitting her chapbook, A Voice Raised From the Dirt. She is the former Associate Editor of The Jabberwock Review.