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Poetry Fall 2013    fiction    all issues

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Chris Joyner
Wrestlemania III
& other poems

Carey Russell
Visiting Hours
& other poems

Marc Pietrzykowski
Cabinet of Wonders
& other poems

Jonathan Travelstead
Prayer of the K-12
& other poems

Jennifer Lowers Warren
Our Daughter's Skin
& other poems

Jeff Burt
The Mapmaker's Legend
& other poems

Patricia Percival
Giving in to What If
& other poems

Toni Hanner
1960—Lanny
& other poems

Christopher Dulaney
Uncle
& other poems

Suzanne Burns
Window Shopping
& other poems

Katherine Smith
Mountain Lion
& other poems

Peter Kent
Surliness in the Green Mountains
& other poems

William Doreski
Gathering Sea Lavender
& other poems

Huso Liszt
Fresco, The Forlorn Virgin...
& other poems

Clifford Hill
How natural you are
& other poems

R. G. Evans
Dungeoness
& other poems

David Kann
Dead Reckoning
& other poems

Ricky Ray
The Music of As Is
& other poems

Tori Jane Quante
Creatio ex Materia
& other poems

G. L. Morrison
Baba Yaga
& other poems

Joe Freeman
In a Wood
& other poems

George Longenecker
Bear Lake
& other poems

Benjamin Dombroski
South of Paris
& other poems

Ryan Kerr
Pulp
& other poems

Josh Flaccavento
Glen Canyon Dam
& other poems
& other poems

Christine Stroud
Grandmother
& other poems

Abraham Moore
Inadvertent Landscape
& other poems

Chris Haug
Cow with Parasol
& other poems

Mariah Blankenship
Fiberglass Madonna
& other poems

Emily Hyland
The Hit
& other poems

Sam Pittman
Growth Memory
& other poems

Alex Linden
The Blues of In-Between
& other poems

Bobby Lynn Taylor
Lift
& other poems

D. Ellis Phelps
Five Poems

Alia Neaton
Cosmogony I
& other poems

Elisa Albo
Each Day More
& other poems

Noah B. Salamon
Sanctuary
& other poems

Noah B. Salamon

Sanctuary

Of an empty bed

small and cool and neat

of a pillow


I used to hide there


Of the swish of skin on cotton

of the ticking of the old clock

of the corner, all wall


Of the way the floor creaked

sudden pops, like some remote glacier


Of the shivering radiator pipes

beginning with the merest shake


Of a vibration, something so small

of a metallic whisper, miles below ground


Of tiles that glow white in the darkness

like ghostly lilies, floating


Of the bathtub, looming white

of the chipped wood desk


Of the dark, full of frights

and comfort



Memorial

Something needs mending

something always does


Things wear and fray and

wear out


Things rustle and stir in

this ashy darkness, things

creak and moan and finally give


See, what I have left are

bits of conversation, glances and


moments left behind

like old letters

in a faded box



New York Story

I came to New York once, for three months

to watch you die, slowly


in hospital beds, then in our apartment,

rented month by month, three months

past our wedding day


The stores had different names

but sold the same things–


the sympathy cards, like fallen leaves

the commerce of despair–


I tried to walk on the surface

like a Jesus bug

drowning if I fell


I let the days move by in splashes

I saw the contradictions


Still, I said only

we’ll see, we’ll see



The Ark

The beasts are rollicking again:

The tigers have stolen a carcass


The alligators loll uncomfortably

on wide planks

and ache for mud.


To put it starkly:

The giraffes are cramped.


The best is just chaos

here in these floating days.


Two doves have returned–

one bearing branches–


But still they float.


“It’s stopped raining, you know!”

“We should never have come!”

“Why did you bring us?”


Meanwhile below,

In the death-gray hull,

The man with the cottony beard,

The unruly eyes, the shock of gauzy hair,

Sits solemnly in his threadbare robe


And thinks about a promise he made.



Where I Am From

Honeysuckle green leaves and

sun glinting through pine


Damp dirt and the smell of heat

rising off pavement like

the whisper of ocean through a shell


A memory of rain-slick streets

black mirrors of neon and steam


the faint electric pulse


Of wooden decks in the fading sun

black and white baseball and

the rising whine of crickets as evening comes


Of pale beer in parking lots

where crabgrass grew through cracked asphalt


One night, when I was just a boy,

we drove and drove

until silent through summer darkness

moths like stars whizzing by

back of the station wagon, roomy and warm


Nobody else around


I rolled down the window and breathed in

The distant smell of sea


Noah B. Salamon spent most of his childhood in Maryland. He majored in philosophy at Swarthmore College and is pursuing an MA in English at Loyola Marymount University. He currently teaches English in Los Angeles, where he lives with his wife and three sons.

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