Poetry Summer 2019
fiction all issues
whitespacefiller
Cover Antoine Petitteville
Laura Apol
Easter Morning
& other poems
Taylor Dibble
A Masterpiece in Progress
& other poems
Julia Roth
Lessons From My Menstrual Cup
& other poems
Jamie Ross
Ceaseless Wind. The Drying Sheaves
& other poems
Nicole Yackley
Mea Culpa
& other poems
George Longenecker
I’m sentimental for the Paleolithic
& other poems
Taylor Gardner
Short Observations by Angels
& other poems
Greg Tuleja
No Thomas Hardy
& other poems
Joanne Monte
War Casualties
& other poems
Nathaniel Cairney
Potato Harvest
& other poems
Steven Dale Davison
Wordsmouth Harbor Founder
& other poems
Heather 'Byrd' Roberts
How I Named Her
& other poems
Greenheart
sunny ex
& other poems
Ashton Vaughn
Through the Valley of Mount Chimaera
& other poems
Linda Speckhals
Borderlands
& other poems
Lucy Griffith
Breathing Room
& other poems
Steven Valentine
Written
& other poems
Emily Varvel
B is for Boys and G is for Guys
& other poems
Jhazalyn Prince
Priceless Body
& other poems
Marte Stuart
Generation Snowflake
& other poems
S.J. Enloe
Kale Soup
& other poems
Meghan Dunsmuir
Our Path
& other poems
S. J. Enloe
Surgeon General’s Warning
Commercials corrupting
kiddies, cancelling
kinder-care. Cancer,
killing. Cultivate caution.
Carcinogen candy
cremates conscious corpses.
Sopas de Caldinho (Kale Soup)
The only way I can make kale soup is with words,
toss letters in a pot with some meat and stir,
hoping something decent comes out. I try
to remember the recipe, the words, but sometimes I lose them.
I remember Vovó tossing live crabs in the boil.
Into the pot they’d go, mixed together in a stew of lost days.
After scattering and writhing, like memories trying to remember,
we’d break their legs to toast another moment soon to be a forgotten thought.
Vovó wasn’t like the other Avós—her Portuguese was on the plate,
in her offering a bolacha when I was fresh and a bolacha when I was good.
It was in her dark hair and tan skin, inherited from Azorean ancestors,
tending to island farms, gathering cabbage and onions, butchering the pigs for chouriço,
mixing them into kale soup—a recipe made from memories,
never written down, just told like old stories,
their travels overseen by half shell Marys,
carried here by planes and boats, shipping
family and feasts, religion and tradition, memories
fresh and forgotten. I cannot remember
sometimes, so I keep stirring the soup,
mixing words—hoping something decent comes out.
The Resilience of Earthworms
The dog never liked earthworms.
He wasn’t a vicious dog.
He never bit, barked too loud,
or ran out of sight.
But in the spring,
after the rain had pushed
the worms through the dirt, he’d pull
them up, bearing his teeth and whip
them against the concrete
wall that surrounded the yard.
After the violent thwack, the worm
would delicately, silently break
in two. I’d watch as the two halves
lay still, then—come alive. They writhed
and wriggled away and back into the ground
and the dog
would lift his leg to the wall.
Displays of Nature II
We sit on the handmade wooden playset.
I don’t remember why we chose that place.
The nameless woman reads us a story
about water bugs and dragonflies.
What do you think the story is about?
Julia can’t form full sentences yet. I answer,
Water bugs turning into dragonflies?
A dragonfly flutters by our heads.
Yes, but what do they represent?
I shrug. Death, the woman says,
as if I should know this. She explains
the allegory of the story, but
I block her out, like everything else
and warm myself in the noonday sun.
Canaries in the Basement
Sometimes I’d sneak
downstairs and peer
through the crack
of the closet
to watch the birds
try to fly. To hear
them sing. My sister
got one for her
birthday. And another.
I never did.
S.J. Enloe
is a New England-based writer who received her B.A. in English from Westfield State University in 2016. She enjoys nature and the outdoors, hiking whenever weather and time permit, but is equally content with watching it through a window while daydreaming and conjuring up new writing ideas. When not enjoying nature, she can be found spending time with loved ones or cuddled up on the couch with her dogs.