Poetry Summer 2022 fiction all issues
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Joanne Monte
Departure
& other poems
Holly York
Still When I Reach for the Leash
& other poems
Anne Marie Wells
Catholicism Still Lingers in a Concrete Poem
& other poems
D.T. Christensen
Coded Language
& other poems
Laura Faith
Ungodly
& other poems
Abigail F. Taylor
Winter in Choctaw
& other poems
Natalie LaFrance-Slack
Peace
& other poems
Nicole Sellino
iii. moving, an interruption
& other poems
Gilaine Fiezmont
In Memoriam / Day of the Dead
& other poems
Sheri Flowers Anderson
On Being A Widow
& other poems
RJ Gryder
Felling
& other poems
William S. Barnes
to hatch
& other poems
Suzannah Van Gelder
Idolatry
& other poems
Sam Bible-Sullivan
The Dying Worker’s Soliloquy
& other poems
Hills Snyder
Eclipse (July 4, 2020)
& other poems
Lauren Fulton
Birth Marks
& other poems
David Sloan
Prostrate
& other poems
Nancy Kangas
Dry Dock Cranes of Brooklyn Navy Yard
& other poems
Noreen Graf
In Attendance
& other poems
Jim Bohen
Nothing Tea
& other poems
Thomas Baranski
Let us name him dread and look forward
& other poems
Nancy Kangas
Kentucky Rest Stop
Cat was like no way we’re doing this leash thing,
woman.
Woman,
don’t tell me you didn’t see this coming.
You set your honey down
in the pets-allowed grass near our hot cars.
Here your beast shrank inside the straps
until it was an arrow and shot itself
into the world beyond. That is,
towards the river.
And you,
don’t tell me that woman should not
have brought her cat in her car. Or that that cat
is coming back. Don’t tell me cats
don’t like cars. I’m not talking about cats.
Don’t tell me you’ve never been that woman.
Never stood there holding a leash of nothing.
She’d packed the tuna treats.
Kitted out the backseat.
Cat,
you didn’t stay
with the one who loved you.
Now you’ve got the river. And the river doesn’t care.
a golden shovel, for Marge Piercy
Dezarai is freshly five. I am teachered up at the
bitty table next to her. I want her to be a pitcher
that pours for me a glass of herself. There are cries
from the blocks corner. I ask, “What are you glad for?”
Dezarai’s gaze is stone. O turn her to water,
a river full and traveling. Dezarai’s hand moves to
the crayon box. She almost chooses blue. I carry
the wait. She finds the top of the page and
writes every letter she knows. T, H, R, and capital I (a
stick with four wings). Then the little i, like a person
without arms. “What do you love?” I pull for
any of her nouns. Her letters lace the paper. Work
begins now on the back. “Look at that!”
she delights. “That is my name. That is
my first and last names for real.”
Dry Dock Cranes
of Brooklyn Navy Yard
Mesmerized
by the muscle of the dark green water
three stout-bodied cranes night-wandered
to the edge of the East River.
Yet when the sun rose and the sky opened
they understood themselves as obvious—
three high hulks on skinny-long legs
unhiding in all that air. They froze—
let the paint peel in curls
off their sides.
I don’t know how long they held it, their breaths
or what made them give up pretending
they weren’t rough beasts
among us. There they go—
slow-swinging their snouts and chains.
I ache to own the sky like that.
Nancy Kangas
is a poet and teaching artist based in Columbus, Ohio. She has poetry in books and journals including MAYDAY Magazine, Forklift, Ohio, and Rattle (Poetry Prize Finalist). She is the co-director of Preschool Poets: An Animated Film Series, which features poems composed by her students, and is at work on a short documentary film about crying.