Poetry Winter 2013 fiction all issues
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Alysse Kathleen McCanna
Pentimento
& other poems
Peter Nash
Shooting Star
& other poems
Katherine Smith
House of Cards
& other poems
David Sloan
On the Rocks
& other poems
Alexandra Smyth
Exoskeleton Blues
& other poems
John Glowney
The Bus Stop Outside Ajax Bail Bonds
& other poems
Andrea Jurjević O’Rourke
It Was a Large Wardrobe...
& other poems
Lisa DeSiro
Babel Tree
& other poems
Michael Fleming
Reptiles
& other poems
Michael Berkowitz
As regards the tattoo on your wrist
& other poems
Michael Brokos
Landscape without Rest
& other poems
Michael H. Lythgoe
Orpheus In Asheville
& other poems
John Wentworth
morning people
& other poems
Christopher Jelley
Double Exposure
& other poems
Catherine Dierker
dinner party
& other poems
William Doreski
Hate the Sinner, Not the Sin
& other poems
Robert Barasch
Loons
& other poems
Rande Mack
bear
& other poems
Susan Marie Powers
Red Bird
& other poems
Anne Graue
Sky
& other poems
Mariah Blankenship
Tub Restoration
& other poems
Paul R. Davis
Landscape
& other poems
Philip Jackey
Garage drinking after 1989
& other poems
Karen Hoy
A Naturalist in New York
& other poems
Gary Sokolow
Underworld Goddess
& other poems
Michal Mechlovitz
The Early
& other poems
Henry Graziano
Last Apple
& other poems
Stephanie L. Harper
Unvoiced
& other poems
Roger Desy
anhinga
& other poems
R. G. Evans
Hangoverman
& other poems
Frederick L. Shiels
Driving Past the Oliver House
& other poems
Richard Sime
Berry Eater
& other poems
Jennifer Popoli
Generations in a wine dark sea
& other poems
Red Bird
Snow swells over fence posts,
drapes pine branches and softens
the edge of an ax
propped against a stump.
Once a plane crash survivor,
arms folded, quietly told me
how the engine died, the soft screams grew,
and cups flew amid staccato cries of “no.”
Then the memory falls away
and a cardinal, red as blood,
beats wings against the snow,
lands on the stump.
I close my eyes but the rays
come through my closed lids.
Red wings sparkle in the sun.
I remember my old dog dying in my arms,
unable to walk, folded legs limp in my lap.
The needle glistened as the vet’s eyes watered,
I held my dog, stroked the warm ear.
Snow softens all it touches.
Numbing, hiding, icing over
the way I loved a man long ago.
Now days go by without thoughts of him,
yet shadows chase me when I see another man
with his hands: clean and strong.
I have felt life tingle inside me,
and then it bled away.
I cried, unable to stop the loss
of someone who never was.
The cardinal launches into the air,
his red heat burns brightly.
The survivor found herself
holding hands with strangers.
Everybody aboard touched:
lovers, strangers, children.
Eyes closed, fingers entwined,
ending life as they had begun it:
absorbing the warmth of another.
The red bird darts looking
for what it wants.
I stand in the snow while somewhere
smoking fragments burn my feet,
feathers touch me, wings graze me.
I wait for the blade
to cut me;
I wait to fall
into space.
Moored
Every moored boat tugs at its tether,
small waves disappear into larger ones.
The dock reaches out, but can’t cross the sea.
I stand on the shore and squint at impossible distance.
When I was a girl of fifteen,
I tied our small sailboat to the dock.
The boat’s bright yellow reflected in the water,
The rope was too short to secure
both ends, so I left it:
tethered at one end, loose at the other
The next morning, I arose to sun on my ceiling,
a pattern of light, bouncing off the water
beneath my bedroom window—squiggles and whorls
played off the painted surface
like soundless music.
Easy, the golden day ahead,
I walked outside where I found
the boat battered into splintered boards.
A nighttime storm had set it into motion
so it cracked itself in two.
Now I watch boats calm and controlled,
and wonder about a rhythm so violent
my very structure would come undone,
shaking apart everything put so carefully into place,
the wildness more powerful than the bond,
the waves overwhelming the vessel.
Can I go back in time to my fifteen-year-old self?
Secure the boat to resist the storm?
Defy waves struggling to undo knots?
Or do knots come undone
as time nimbly unties us from what we love?
Now, with decades behind me,
I send a benediction to that sleeping girl,
who cannot foresee what the night will bring.
Happy Buddha
A stone Buddha in Provincetown
squats among singing lilies and gladioli.
Their summer voices blare orange pastels
in loud speaker fashion.
Buddha, how do you resist the urge
to swing your plump hips to this sunny blast of colors?
Surely, you must rise from that lotus position
and belly dance among the cone flowers:
your lovely round tummy smoothly
undulating in the afternoon sun.
The roses twining the fence
beg you for a kiss.
Maybe a tango would do as you pull their
vines hither and yon.
And before you foxtrot back to your spot,
take me in your arms for a sexy waltz.
Look deeply into my eyes,
and I will sigh as you
pirouette into place,
already missing your strong arms.
Susan Marie Powers
I live in the Connecticut woods with my husband, son, cat, dog, and ten chickens. I have a doctorate in psychology and teach psychology at Woodstock Academy in northeastern Connecticut where my students make me smile every day. As for writing, I have loved writing since I was a small child. I have a chapbook titled Break the Spell, and I have also published some nonfiction articles in psychology journals.