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Poetry Winter 2017    fiction    all issues

Cover of Poetry Winter 2017 issue

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Cover Thought-Forms

Laura Apol
On My Fiftieth Birthday I Return
& other poems

Jihyun Yun
Aubade
& other poems

Jamie Ross
Red Jetta
& other poems

Sarah Blanchard
Carolina Clay
& other poems

lauren a. boisvert
Save a Seat for Me in the Void
& other poems

Faith Shearin
A Pirate at Midlife
& other poems

Helen Yeoman-Shaw
Calling Long Distance
& other poems

Sarah B. Sullivan
Iris
& other poems

Timothy Walsh
Metro Messenger
& other poems

Gabriel Spera
Scratch
& other poems

Zoë Harrison
Pattee Creek
& other poems

AJ Powell
Blanket
& other poems

Alexa Poteet
The Man Who Got off the Train Between Madrid and Valencia
& other poems

Marcie McGuire
Still Birth
& other poems

Kim Drew Wright
Elephants Standing
& other poems

Michael Jenkins
The Garden Next Door
& other poems

Nicky Nicholson-Klingerman
Costume
& other poems

Doni Faber
Man Moth
& other poems

M. Underwood
In Other Words
& other poems

Carson Pynes
Diet Coke
& other poems

Bucky Ignatius
Something Old, . . .
& other poems

Violet Mitchell
Deleting Emails the Week After Kevin Died
& other poems

Sam Collier
Nocturne in an Empty Sea
& other poems

Meryl Natchez
Equivocal Activist
& other poems

William Godbey
A Corn Field in Los Angeles
& other poems

Don Hogle
Austin Wallson Confesses
& other poems


Michael Jenkins

Namaste

If when I

make of my

hands a temple


you’re thinking gentle

palm to palm

to open heart


showing in part

how in you I

see the divine


know my bodymind

is posed sometimes

behind the symbol


my focus going

from feeling touched

to wanting to.



Among Birdsong and Bee Hum

1.

Now that I’m less

should I say desperate

to populate the planet


I’m better able to detect

that feminine animal signal

once lost in the static


back when I dialed

with the rubber end

of a blunt-tipped pencil


the late night AM

radio request line

clueless what to ask for


my numb ear cupped

to the plastic receiver’s

busy busy busy song


while south of town

on a guy-wired tower

a red beacon pulsed


in a code I felt

I alone was tuned to

urging me on and on and


2.

on the subject of her

blouse if you’ll allow

it was doing its duty


to conceal and reveal

as any magician knows

the breathless audience wants


and with a flourish of fabric

floral and lavender and sheer

as the bounty of iris around us


feathering and filtering the light

floating over the garden’s

dark saber-shaped leaves


thrust up like some threat

as if spring were all conquest

or anything less than delights


and shadows at weightless play

among birdsong and bee hum

as petals unbutton themselves



3.

which begs the question why

man ever averted his eyes

to search among the stars


when the gods were burning

here in broad daylight

in the steam off her coffee


her eyes flashing bright

as the green-backed beetle

in the beak of the crow


who nodded and let go

from atop the half fence

a laugh so fresh and raw


I swear I couldn’t tell

if I’d been freed

or I’d been caught.



The Garden Next Door

I make up for my ordinary good morning

by praising her peonies.


She makes up for her grass green eyes

by casting them down as if she’s shy.


I make up for the half fence between us

by half-leaning into it.


She makes up for no makeup

by letting her freckles shine.


I apologize for ivy on her side.

She admits she’s over-fertilized.


The mind has a mind of its own sometimes.

You can’t make up for that.


Not in the way she makes up for her blouse

by wearing no bra.


Nor how my hand has smudged

a pledge on my polyester heart.


But she makes up for my marital status

with her marital status.


Honeysuckle writes in the lattice

its own tangled story.


We make up for what we don’t say

by what we don’t say.

Michael Jenkins is a homemaker and part-time psychometrics technician whose poems have appeared in Shenandoah, Salamander, Redivider, and other literary journals.

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