Poetry Winter 2022 fiction all issues
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Cover
Li Zhang
Ana Reisens
Pam asked about Europe
& other poems
Krystle May Statler
To the Slow Burn
& other poems
Kristina Cecka
On Remodeling
& other poems
Belinda Roddie
Bless The Bones Of California
& other poems
Summer Rand
Alexander tells me how he'd like to be buried
& other poems
Alexander Perez
Toward the Rainbow
& other poems
Karo Ska
self-portrait of compassion…
& other poems
David Southward
The Pelican
& other poems
George Longenecker
Stamp Collection
& other poems
Mary Keating
Salty
& other poems
Talya Jankovits
Imagine A World Without Raging Hormones
& other poems
Laurie Holding
Sonnet to Mr. Frost
& other poems
David Ruekberg
A Short Essay on Love
& other poems
Elaine Greenwood
There’s a thick, quiet Angel
& other poems
Richard Baldo
Carry On Caretaker
& other poems
Jefferson Singer
Dave Righetti’s No-Hitter…
& other poems
Diane Ayer
A Fan
& other poems
Kaecey McCormick
Meditation Before Desert Monsoon
& other poems
Meg Whelan
Resubstantiation
& other poems
Katherine B. Arthaud
Possible
& other poems
Aaron Glover
On Transformation
& other poems
Anne Marie Wells
[I'm crying in a sandwich shop reading Diane Seuss' sonnets]
& other poems
Holly Cian
Untitled
& other poems
Kimberly Russo
Selective Memories are the Only Gift of Dementia
& other poems
Steven Monte
Larkin
& other poems
Mervyn Seivwright
Fear Mountain
& other poems
Elaine Greenwood
There’s a thick, quiet Angel
assigned to the back of my head, my scalp
I can feel him with the fingers of my left hand
working hard, through the night when it’s safe
for him to weave and sew, beneath my hair
every morning, still, he’s built another tapestry
I imagine him on his stomach, his feathers
stretching out in all directions, a starfish
belly to my bleeding wound, holding me in
keeping my pillow true, even attending to
single hairs, survivors swaying in the pooled red
I have often been afraid of angels, but not this
one, I have no reverence for his art, no holy fear
or perhaps I love his work so dearly, I
sabotage it every morning with the hope
that he’ll never stop returning to save me.
I know that it’s profound,
the livingness of things
I —
The sea cutting through the sandbar, her
tidal arms embracing the bloomy marsh
the clover fields, microscopic, so many
electric-green bosoms pressed to the sky
the blue heron, the ballerina, the sneeze
of a hundred swallows in perfect swarm
yet, the more I walk in the world the more
I am squinting through a hole, a small
sliver of unrelenting light, blurry and bidding
me close the very eyes I cannot see, blue
I am straining and mis-pronunciating
a stranger to these perfect days.
II —
Had I known, yet even as I am knowing
the earth-sized shapes of human souls
unfurled behind two blinking pinholes,
landscapes of seven billion bodies—
now seeing you, woman in your phone, examining
your cheekbones in the photo with your daughter
is knowing something of my own eternal everything
hip-to-hip beside you on an airplane in the sky
as a circle of lights on the icy
earth comes slowly into focus.
Water
If I can’t hide you inside of my body
I don’t want anything to do with you.
If I can’t thread you through a needle
and pull you through the lengths of me—
I’ll hide my face from you.
If I can’t press my face into you
and you keep touching me with
all your fingers, refusing to be seen—
I’ll deny the existence of you.
At least in your iciest form, you muffle
the hisses and hums of creation—
at least I can hear my feet against you
and pack you into a small white ball
and hold you against my skin—
until the heat of me makes you
disappear.
Remember me on my stomach,
waiting at the moss edge?
Listening expectantly as you roared.
Call to Worship (I woke up to the cat pissing on my leg)
Like a reminder of Sunday school,
Sunday, September the 5th, 6:17am.
Passing of the Peace
Like a reminder that I am from
the dirt, and to the dirt I will return.
Prayer of Confession
(Time of reticent silence)
That I should not have touched myself last night,
that even my righteous acts are like filthy rags.
Promise of Forgiveness
You all, like sheep—
like my favorite pink blanket with a silk hem
stinking woolen, sopping on the bathroom floor
You all, like sheep have—
been pissed on by your mothers and fathers.
This concentrated, stockyard-yellow reality seeps
hot into my skin while the sheets tremble and click
in the washing machine, that mechanical waterfall.
She’s dying of liver failure, she’s jaundice, she cannot
eat or drink. Suddenly, I’m afraid she’s a portal to
another world sending messages with her eyes.
Suddenly, I’m paranoid, like sheep— cont.
have gone astray, each to your own way.
Return to your rest, oh my soul.
Please Stand
Play the harp! Strike the tambourine!
The cat pissed on you this morning!
I make coffee, I sit in the morning sun, my stomach
churns like the machine. A dog barks at me, suspicious
sharp eyes beneath the yard fence.
Pour out your hearts to Him in worship
And how is it that all I want is you, oh Lord of the Sabbath?
You who made me, who formed me in all the filthiness of
my mother’s womb, You who made the mountains with their
lions, the desert boulders with their teeth.
Join the anthem of all God’s people this morning in the words of the Psalmist, David
How long, Oh Lord?
How long, Oh Lord, your daughters, our babies—
How long, Oh Lord, will we fear the fowler’s snare?
my schizophrenic neighbor with all his knives
and bibles. You have crushed me with commands
I cannot meet. I cannot bear to fulfill your great commission.
Prayer of Petition
Please, take me up in your arms.
Press me to your neck, Oh God of my humanity?
We’re down here squirming in it, hacking up our depravity.
And even if my cry reached presidents, publishers
or television hosts, who could comfort me but You?
Abba, Papa.
Yahweh, breath of my body.
Lord of the living, and Lord of the dead.
Lapis Lazuli
I am the same child, the same woman, infant bleeding again, weeping
again, seeing messages beneath the kitchen counter, above the trampoline, in
the beads hanging from my bedroom closet. I’m resting again on my side next to the
cat’s hot sleeping body; recovering from fear, from insanity, from drunkenness, from
trying to fit too much earth into my stomach, from lying and bad dreams.
Wolves in the basement, rising water, endless waves. Every circle offers new
remembering and forgiving; breathing in Lapis everywhere, Lazuli in everything.
My respite is the color blue just below the silver pinions of the sun setting. That tangible
thickness, Lapis spirit— the same that walked with me in London and slept
beside me when I bled into the sheets I scrubbed to hang on the line, apologizing to
my hostess. Tiptoeing into the wide bathroom, tiled and windowless.
To be with the blue I walked the same slow and methodical steps as I did in
Montana. First year, crying for my mother, begging to go back to that
secret place; the cabinet of her womb, the sweetness of not yet being born
but still being alive. I drew a circle in the snow covered windshield and found
blue again this evening, holding the rocks and blackened cacti. Lazuli
encircles me, lying here, as faithfully as my own womb breaks and bleeds
to obey the sky. They are the same yesterday and today,
circling always.
Elaine Greenwood
is a Montana-born interdisciplinary artist working primarily in ceramics. Since graduating with her BFA in Fine Arts, she has worked as an art teacher, violin teacher and studio potter. Writing has been a constant and necessary part of Elaine’s life since her childhood. Elaine writes to “make some sense of the chaos and complexity of our humanity in relationship to the Divine.” Elaine’s portfolio and contact information is published at elainegreenwood.com.