Poetry Summer 2013 fiction all issues
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Sharron Singleton
Five Poems
Sarah Giragosian
Five Poems
Jenna Kilic
Five Poems
Kristina McDonald
Five Poems
Toni Hanner
Five Poems
Annie Mascorro
Five Poems
Brittney Corrigan
Three Poems
S. E. Hudgens
Four Poems
Ali Doerscher
Four Poems
David Sloan
Three Poems
Olivia Cole
Five Poems
Lucy M. Logsdon
Four Poems
Marc Pietrzykowski
Four Poems
Donna Levine Gershon
Five Poems
Eva Heisler
The Olden Days
Stephanie Rose Adams
Five Poems
Jill Kelly
Five Encounters
Ben Bever
Five Poems
Michael Hugh Lythgoe
Five Poems
Arlene Zide
Three Poems
Harry Bauld
Five Poems
Lisa Zerkle
Four Poems
Peter Mishler
Five Poems
Tim Hawkins
Five Poems
Marqus Bobesich
Four Poems
Abigail Templeton-Greene
Five Poems
Eric Duenez
Five Poems
Anne Graue
Five Poems
Susan Laughter Meyers
Five Poems
Peter Kahn
Two Poems
D. Ellis Phelps
Five Poems
Linda Sonia Miller
The Kingdom
Nicklaus Wenzel
Skagit River
Holly Cian
Five Poems
Susan Morse
Five Poems
Daniel Lassell
Five Poems
Svetlana Lavochkina
Temperate Zones
Daniel Sinderson
Three Poems
Catherine Garland
Five Poems
Michael Fleming
Five Poems
Hard to Breathe
Some fires won‘t catch,
no matter how carefully
the kindling’s laid. Wood’s
too wet, or punky,
or thoughtlessly stacked,
like throwing blankets
over a sleeping child’s face.
We forget about air,
the importance of pruning,
pauses that cool the lava
of afternoon blowups.
Some matches fizzle, too
little friction on the striking
surface—or too much.
The decision to flare or not
depends upon the atmosphere,
seems so random, like shooting
stars or children.
How to Lie
I lied a little at the funeral,
called you a creature of the air,
so they might think oh, like an angel
or a silver-tipped sea hawk.
But I was really picturing
you as a sky snake, envenomed
bringer of bad weather,
flinging down hood-denting hail,
whipping up a dust storm
that swallows towns whole.
I didn’t mention all the other
swallows, beginning
on the front lawn the day
you sat broken-winged, drinking
in news of your brother’s
ticked-out heart, that stillness
after the snare drum sticks
break, or the one time we forgot
the don’t-touch-there rule,
the tangle, like fish thrashing
through seaweed, and after—
the can’t-look-at-each-other look,
as if we were still kids caught jamming
lit firecrackers into frogs’ mouths,
or, years later, the bottle flung
at your daughter who walked out mid-
argument and only returned
toward the end, when that tiny spore,
yawning, stretching, greedy,
settled in your lungs like a python
with nothing else to do but coil
camouflaged in the underbrush,
and slowly squeeze all the air out.
Too Close
He’s clearing a path through the choked
woods behind his house. It’s slow going.
The juniper has taken over, crowding out
blueberries, laurel seedlings, wintergreen
shoots. Pale-needled whips wait at eye level,
deadfall lies strewn like finger bones
sprinkled from the sky, his mother’s flimsy
nightgowns still flap from branches.
She tiptoed in, smelling of licorice,
tucked in her boy, both pretending.
Sometimes she only kissed him
on the forehead. Other nights she
climbed over, curled up behind him,
hugged him hard enough to leave
an imprint of her inlaid carnelian
necklace between his shoulder blades.
Except for mosquitoes, there are no signs
of creatures in these woods: no birdsong,
no burrows, no feather tails, no ember eyes
in the darkness. Either he has driven them off
with lopper, snub-nosed shovel and bow saw,
or they fled before footfall, when they felt
the first twitch of fear, saw the future slash,
couldn’t bear the closeness coming.
David Sloan
, a graduate of the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast MFA Poetry Program, teaches in Maine’s only Waldorf high school. He is the author of two books on teaching. His debut poetry collection—The Irresistible In-Between—was published by Deerbrook Editions this spring. His poetry has appeared in The Broome Review, The Café Review, Innisfree, The Naugatuck River Review and Passager, among others. He is a recipient of the 2012 Betsy Sholl and Maine Literary awards, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He is currently enjoying life’s newest delight—grandfatherhood!