Poetry Summer 2016 fiction all issues
whitespacefiller
Cover Carly Larsson
Sarah Sansolo
Bedtime Stories
& other poems
Miranda Cowley Heller
Things the Tide Has Discarded
& other poems
Alexa Poteet
Escobar's Hacienda Napoles
& other poems
Cynthia Robinson Young
Triple Dare
& other poems
Nicole Lachat
Of Infidelities
& other poems
Amy Nawrocki
Bad Girls
& other poems
Lawrence Hayes
Winter Climb
& other poems
AJ Powell
God the Baker
& other poems
Gisle Skeie
Rearranging
& other poems
Bruce Taylor
Always Expect a Train
& other poems
Ricky Ray
They Used to Be Things
& other poems
S. E. Ingraham
Storm Angels
& other poems
Laura Gamache
Outing
& other poems
Keighan Speer
It Rained Today
& other poems
Emma Atkinson
Grocery Stores Make Me Feel Mentally Ill
& other poems
Erin Lehrmann
Block
& other poems
D. H. Turtel
Margaret, Again
& other poems
Chris Haug
Bovine Paranoia
& other poems
Kimberly M. Russo
Definitive Definition
& other poems
Holly Walrath
A Tourist of Sorts
& other poems
Angel C. Dye
Beauty in Her Marrow
& other poems
D. H. Turtel
On Margaret Filled with Smoke
Don’t you know? Hero grows in broken home,
Swollen cheeks and eyes are fine, just hide and
count minutes on her wrist, give mom a kiss.
Margaret did. Light and violence birthed a kid,
name him child, name him boy, name him girl.
name him anything. Better—name it nothing.
Airplane bottles, tiny cocktails, make a mobile,
set in motion metronomes overhead,
both before and after bed, tucking in,
set the thermostat to cold. Shiver you!
shiver boy! Uncertainty is velvet,
it is sure to keep you warm. Winter’s warm,
when winter comes at all, spring and fall and
No. We are not children of the sun.
when darkness came, when darkness comes,
do greet him warmly (with uncertainty)
welcome him across the threshold that keeps
out the dirty forest. Frost covered earth.
the open doorway, you could just make out
quick flash of right eye cataract, follow
boy, he’s grown up now, has buried things,
has killed things too. Stands waiting in the room,
Margaret rocks her rocking chair, air compressed,
Her perfume dense. She waves you in. Accepts
your pendulum of nothing, of nothing,
you of nothing, of nothing, of nothing,
Of light and violence. Of shallow silence,
Shallow, yet still deep enough to drown in,
I have seen men drowned in puddles. So do
call home. Scream through the screen of swinging doors,
where your voice carries the same frequency,
swallowed by lights. Ceiling’s circular bulbs,
of lamps in the street, of sky on the lake,
of cloud covered moon. You’ll talk again soon.
You’ll talk of light and violence. Of shadows
Come to haunt you, come to kiss you, kill you,
They come disguised as infant poltergeist,
And promise already to grow old.
And you’ve grown old.
You’re still as stone and sad,
A sorrow common in things without hearts,
A patience reserved for lawless winter.
We were minerals. We knew nothing of
Breath. But we breathed nonetheless, our denim
Matchbox pockets filled, our heavy guilt, our
Gasoline. Sing something sweet, and scream the wind,
We watched your words curl up like smoke. They rose
They fell, they froze in cold November air,
Some arsonists, some anywhere. We watched
Your words curl up like smoke. They rose, they fell,
Like passing phantoms in the night. Tidal,
Fleeting, running, repeating, ‘it’s alright
It’s alright, it’s alright.’ Those seeds are sown.
And don’t you know? You breathed, you didn’t, no.
stand we there
stand we there
smoke sting eyes
whirlwind dream
alibies
rocket star
broke moon dark
distant drum
clicking heart
you—me—here?
why not now?
pulling hair
sky fall down
violent grass
red stripe skin
wind collapse
stop begin
siren call
screaming—now
trembling neck
hears no sound
pinkwhite eyes
why so still?
margaret—breathe
lungs or gills
margaret—speak
night commands!
pulse on wrist?
warm on hands?
violent grass
cover sin
spade move earth
stop begin
To a Bride Growing Thin
The clock in the kitchen, it didn’t count seconds
His idiot tongue knew no words,
The hour hand moved on the hour, we reckoned,
And screamed with a clay cuckoo bird
Minutes said summer and doors grew in frames
Agoraphobe Margaret, going insane
The clock in the kitchen it slept all through June,
The cuckoo bird missed all the sun,
The hours had promised to wake Maggie soon,
But the comatose minutes unspun,
The calendar laughed but did not eat a thing
And July was as thin as she ever had been.
A red-stitched white ball flew back through the window
The shards of glass mended themselves
The kids ran away and Jack called them pussies,
And screamed them to all go to hell,
The cuckoo’s green tears fell and pooled on the ground,
And awoke in September, red, yellow and brown.
The hour hand looked at the closed and cracked window,
And saw himself for the first time,
The clock in the kitchen, it froze in December,
The Seconds they shivered and died,
The calendar’s name, nobody remembered,
Margaret asked, but winter unanswered,
And both just a twelfth of their size.
The cuckoo bird called to come out every hour,
But the minute hand hung, fifty-five.
The clock in the kitchen, it melts in the spring,
And the wall it looks empty and white,
The hour hand’s broken, pneumonic, asleep,
In a puddle of sad, phantom time,
The Calendars wasted away to a bone,
She hasn’t died yet, but already a ghost,
Grey cardboard square with a mannequin’s soul.
And the west facing windows, they never see sun,
They dreamt of pink settings that never did come.
Margaret, again
When you asked about a soul,
I laughed, ‘You mean the brain,
And the way the veins can take the shape,
Of something shapeless in your head
And be invincibly invisible but not at all concrete.
But when mother grew her headstone,
We watched the moving clouds,
Kept our heads out of the ground,
Left my thoughts unspoken,
Hidden,
Like the tattooed wall behind the school,
Where you asked me about love,
I laughed, ‘The heart just forces blood,
To heads and hands and places
It might not really want to go,
those girls off chasing bottles,
golden Johnny Walker Red,
To be whisked by boys to bed,
The same way they once knew,
Cranes dropped children on front porches,
Like the one that held your yellow house,
An empty picture frame,
We’d disregard the inside scenes,
Your mother’s swollen wrists and eyes were fine,
As long as that old wooden chair,
Kept swinging we’d keep sitting,
And you’d keep asking about fate,
Like it was something that existed
Outside the pages of some book,
(star-crossed lovers who died at the same time,
You said that there was love in poison,
That there was love in suicide)
Then when Margaret left we asked,
Why not a single celebration,
Bright flowers and congratulations.
So we burned up all your Shakespeare,
And that fire forged a ring you let me slip around your finger,
we dressed your youth in white and put a veil over its eyes,
Fattened like a slaughter cow, at some fancy ball reception,
To cut its throat while you were sleeping.
When you woke you were a piece of art,
And asked if you were beautiful,
I laughed, ‘you’re just a storybook,
With wrinkles, scars and beauty marks’
And some curled up like smoke above
That goddamn yellow house,
And some ran off in straight fast lines,
Like the way we ran away,
Our denim matchbox pockets filled,
With heavy guilt and gasoline,
And there was happiness like Velcro,
That stuck my face to yours,
And when we died as one, a piece of art,
I knew of poison,
And the cancer of a wedding,
And the hot knives in the cake,
The cyanide in white champagne.
D. H. Turtel
lives in New York City.