Poetry Summer 2018 fiction all issues
whitespacefiller
Cover Michael Lønfeldt
Carol Lischau
Son
& other poems
Noreen Ellis
Jesus Measured
& other poems
Amanda Moore
Learning to Surf
& other poems
Adin Zeviel Leavitt
Harvest
& other poems
Jim Pascual Agustin
Stay a Minute, the Light is Beautiful
& other poems
Timothy Walsh
The Wellfleet Oyster
& other poems
Anna Hernandez-French
Watermelon Love
& other poems
J. L. Grothe
Six Pregnancies
& other poems
Sue Fagalde Lick
Beauty Confesses
& other poems
Abby Johnson
Finding Yourself on Google Maps
& other poems
Marisa Silva-Dunbar
Frisson
& other poems
Merre Larkin
Sensing June
& other poems
Savannah Grant
Saint
& other poems
Andrew Kuhn
Plains Weather
& other poems
Catherine Wald
Against Aubade
& other poems
Joe Couillard
Like New Houses Settling
& other poems
Faleeha Hassan
In Nights of War
& other poems
Olivia Dorsey Peacock
Thelma: ii
& other poems
Sarah Louise
Tremors
& other poems
Kimberly Russo
Inherent Injustice
& other poems
Frannie Deckas
Child for Sale
& other poems
Jacqueline Schaalje
Mouthings
& other poems
Nancy Rakoczy
Her Face
& other poems
Ashton Vaughn
Contrition
& other poems
Jim Pascual Agustin
The Wind is Not Strong Enough to Slam the Windows Shut
He roams a wilderness
in his head, the way an astrophysicist
might navigate numbers
to reach a point in space,
wary of drowning in darkness.
The veins on the backs of his hands,
roots that quiver when his heart
quickens. It’s a struggle to sleep,
a struggle to stay awake.
Somewhere not too far
a neighbour’s donkey
cranks out a mechanical cry.
He is reminded of empty chairs,
and of sheets on another bed
bearing shadows and creases.
Stay a Minute, the Light is Beautiful
What I remember matters
to no one else: sunlight framed
by a window with broken glass
just before night says
“Now, it is I who will touch
your hands without permission.”
Nothing can make me forget
the warmth, my own breath,
an approaching train, the beating
of an iron heart. No one will believe me,
for what is broken does not even show
the thinnest crack.
The Enemy of Destruction
As a child just beginning
to explore the world, you had to carve
into memory all that might help you
find your way back home.
A streetlamp with a piece of blue wire
sticking out one side, a corner bakery
that lays out a new tray of bread dusted
with fine sugar an hour before the school bell rings,
an elderly neighbour who sweeps
the pavement beyond her property
without ever lifting her head. Everything
is a clue, a point of reference.
Nothing but nightmares can prepare you
for what might befall your city
when war takes over starved minds,
when orders are blurted out and turned
to mortars and chemicals.
Yet among the grey remnants, the countless
shattered squares of concrete, something persists,
defiant in its stand against destruction.
Something green, red and brown
hangs off a crumbling ledge,
perhaps a curtain blasted off
a window that overlooked
a busy street you used to roam.
A person you knew
once waved from that window
hoping you would wave back.
The Trick is in the Laying of Blame, Not Just the Twisting of the Knife
He may yet forget the ragged
pattern in the skies
before the first bomb exploded,
the eyes of those
who could no longer take
another step, move another limb.
There are reasons evolution
hid the human heart under bones
that allow for room,
why the skull is so much
softer in youth, as in this boy
who crossed a desert alone.
Nothing in hand but a bag
of his mother’s clothes wrapped
with lingering scent of bokharat.
The Last Thing that
Touched Your Lips
There was no resistance
when you loosened your skin,
unbuttoned flesh from bones,
slipped them off until you turned
transparent as water, shapeless
and silent as light through fog.
You got up and left without a sound.
No one saw you walk through
the unseen door which opens
to somewhere else. Ann,
I hope you can read this in that place
where you can now laugh
without doubling over. I’m glad
the last thing that touched your lips
was a thin slice of pink guava.
Jim Pascual Agustin
grew up in Manila and has lived in South Africa since 1994. He opposes the anti-human rights policies of the current Duterte regime in the Philippines. Jim’s poetry has appeared inRhino, New Coin, World Literature Today and Modern Poetry in Translation, among others. Wings of Smoke, (The Onslaught Press, 2017), his eighth poetry book, is available on most online retailers. Jim shares random thoughts and drafts on www.matangmanok.wordpress.com.