Poetry Winter 2014 fiction all issues
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Debbra Palmer
Bake Sale
& other poems
Ann V. DeVilbiss
Far Away, Like a Mirror
& other poems
Michael Fleming
On the Bus
& other poems
Harold Schumacher
Dying To Say It
& other poems
Heather Erin Herbert
Georgia’s Advent
& other poems
Sharron Singleton
Sonnet for Small Rip-Rap
& other poems
Bryce Emley
College Beer
& other poems
Harry Bauld
On a Napkin
& other poems
George Mathon
Do You See Me Waving?
& other poems
Mariana Weisler
Soft Soap and Wishful Thinking
& other poems
Michael Kramer
Nighthawks, Kaua’i
& other poems
Jill Murphy
Migration
& other poems
Cassandra Sanborn
Remnants
& other poems
Kendall Grant
Winter Love Note
& other poems
Donna French McArdle
White Blossoms at Night
& other poems
Tom Freeman
On Foot, Joliet, Illinois
& other poems
George Longenecker
Nest
& other poems
Kimberly Sailor
The Bitter Daughter
& other poems
Rebecca Irene
Woodpecker
& other poems
Savannah Grant
And Not As Shame
& other poems
Michael Hugh Lythgoe
Titian Left No Paper Trail
& other poems
Martin Conte
We’re Not There
& other poems
A. Sgroi
Sore Soles
& other poems
Miguel Coronado
Body-Poem
& other poems
Franklin Zawacki
Experience Before Memory
& other poems
Tracy Pitts
Stroke
& other poems
Rachel A. Girty
Collapse
& other poems
Ryan Flores
Language Without Lies
& other poems
Margie Curcio
Gravity
& other poems
Stephanie L. Harper
Painted Chickens
& other poems
Nicholas Petrone
Running Out of Space
& other poems
Danielle C. Robinson
A Taste of Family Business
& other poems
Meghan Kemp-Gee
A Rhyme Scheme
& other poems
Tania Brown
On Weeknights
& other poems
James Ph. Kotsybar
Unmeasured
& other poems
Matthew Scampoli
Paddle Ball
& other poems
Jamie Ross
Not Exactly
& other poems
A. Sgroi
Sore Soles
Dark are the clouds above the dancer’s head—
Wilting are the tulips in their backyard beds.
Biting is the breeze that whispers at her back—
Forgotten are the books that she pushed into a stack.
Ruined are her stockings, with a run at both the knees—
Aching is her back and the bottoms of her feet.
Narrow, long, and winding is the road she walks—
Alone is the girl inside the music box.
Exsanguination
By the time I broke his heart
Mine had already begun to crumble.
Doubt came knocking,
Erosion spread.
There was now geological proof,
A history in the dust.
His heart suffered a swift, sharp slice
That bled quickly, and with fury.
Exsanguination of the soul.
Mine had fallen prey to a quiet disease.
A sickness, slow to show the symptoms.
It crept in, infecting every kiss and conversation.
Debilitation from deep within.
I lied to myself and to him.
I lied to my skin and to my hands.
I killed the animal that we were
And its blood dripped from my fingers.
Roadkill that we politely halved
And strapped to each other’s backs,
Agreeing to share the stench.
We stretched and dried the skin,
Dumped the innards in the river to wash away.
The last task we did together.
Our heartbreak, in its collective sense
Will wash up on some other beach,
But the blood still stains my hands.
Three summers have come and gone,
And no amount of scrubbing
Can rinse my skin of the damage I’ve done.
I still smell it when I close my eyes.
By the time I broke his heart,
Mine was deeply flawed at its core.
Cracks ran through it from end to end.
There is no fixing a flaw like that.
Reprisal
my sister took her name back
from inside his mouth where he was keeping it.
it perched on his tongue far too long.
a foolish place to keep a name,
a room whose door will not remain closed.
my sister took her name back
from under his bed where he kicked it,
left to collect dust until he wanted it again.
a foolish place to keep a name,
a space without walls to speak of.
my sister took her name back
when he left it on the train
and only realized the error
when turning out his pockets for the wash.
anonymity is a sweet, fresh breath.
he will know her not a moment longer.
Autumn, buried
Brooklyn is still sleeping
Early morning in October.
Wide awake and weeping
We are solemn, shattered, sober.
What happened so few hours ago
Is etched into our skin.
Too late to tell the artist ‘no’,
Tattoo ink sinking in.
Brooklyn’s still asleep
As we avoid each other’s eyes.
Sunlight starts to creep
As we prepare to say goodbye.
Goodbye to the love and goodbye to the friend.
Goodbye to the fall and the never-again.
Depths
You lead me to a place where the mud is deep
And no one can see us.
Leaves become sieves to the sun and its waning warmth.
For miles, we creep along
And pick up rocks, and feathers.
Remnants of the land we walk.
We traipse like this as the light winds away.
The fog within the forest depths is just that: deep.
The air drips with sound atop a bed of silence.
We say things we otherwise wouldn’t,
We see things we otherwise couldn’t.
There is nothing to be done,
No one calling our names.
The scent of pine saturates our noses
And rests behind our eyes.
Mine share their color with the bottomless dirt
And the grass that flecks the surface.
Yours are like the storm clouds we don’t think will reach us—
—They do, and we are soaked.
Cotton clings, hanging on for dear life.
We reject its advances and peel off our layers,
Thinning suddenly under patches of moonlight.
I am cold and you are chilly. I am drained and you are weary.
We walk until we reach the lean-to,
A relic of our childhoods surviving well beyond its years.
A patch of dry wood awaits—
—We think it somewhat miraculous.
Just enough room for both of our bodies and both of our souls.
By morning, the damp is lifting.
It threatens to return and we do not doubt it.
I want to grab hold of these hours
And put them in a pocket.
The one within my chest,
Where everything I stow inside is doomed to rot forever.
The decay will take as long as my life.
Our clothes have almost dried,
Just as before, only now
They hold the scent of rain.
Everything is different, yet we are both the same.
A. Sgroi
is a native New Yorker, a twin sister, a trapeze artist, an avid fan of Edna St. Vincent Millay, an occasional poet, and a Sixfold newcomer.