Poetry Winter 2017 fiction all issues
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Cover Thought-Forms
Laura Apol
On My Fiftieth Birthday I Return
& other poems
Jihyun Yun
Aubade
& other poems
Jamie Ross
Red Jetta
& other poems
Sarah Blanchard
Carolina Clay
& other poems
lauren a. boisvert
Save a Seat for Me in the Void
& other poems
Faith Shearin
A Pirate at Midlife
& other poems
Helen Yeoman-Shaw
Calling Long Distance
& other poems
Sarah B. Sullivan
Iris
& other poems
Timothy Walsh
Metro Messenger
& other poems
Gabriel Spera
Scratch
& other poems
Zoë Harrison
Pattee Creek
& other poems
AJ Powell
Blanket
& other poems
Alexa Poteet
The Man Who Got off the Train Between Madrid and Valencia
& other poems
Marcie McGuire
Still Birth
& other poems
Kim Drew Wright
Elephants Standing
& other poems
Michael Jenkins
The Garden Next Door
& other poems
Nicky Nicholson-Klingerman
Costume
& other poems
Doni Faber
Man Moth
& other poems
M. Underwood
In Other Words
& other poems
Carson Pynes
Diet Coke
& other poems
Bucky Ignatius
Something Old, . . .
& other poems
Violet Mitchell
Deleting Emails the Week After Kevin Died
& other poems
Sam Collier
Nocturne in an Empty Sea
& other poems
Meryl Natchez
Equivocal Activist
& other poems
William Godbey
A Corn Field in Los Angeles
& other poems
Nicky Nicholson-Klingerman
Black Summers
RIP, Kathlean Hamilton, Jan. 26, 1924 – Jan. 16, 2018
Faces pressed
against thick thighs,
hands held high
and mouths agape
to wait
for thick slabs of jowl bacon,
salty rice
and fried eggs.
Lines of chili peppers
hang on the wall;
peaches pop
into hot waiting mouths.
Strings of beans
running around Grandma’s garden;
we dig for red and white sweet potatoes
like we’re diggin’ for gold.
Summer is
my memory of you
standing at a stove
held closed by a stick
and an old leather belt,
lit by matches
and burnt fingers.
Nicholson Hill
Deep, deep
in the forest of Mississippi
where the real Mississippi lives
is a cemetery,
its lines erased by trees
and blackness,
filled with decaying bones
and teeth
and sinew.
A girl walks by,
seventeen and almost married,
dirt poor and no shoes.
She comes to the plantation
where her ancestors
lived and died and never left.
She digs through the earth with her hands
and plucks out eyes—
Brown, sharp eyes—
a curved nose with wide nostrils,
straight, white teeth,
black, black hair with a hint of injun,
a backbone threaded with steel, strengthened by the lash
and calloused feet that would never go bare.
She eats the red, graveyard dirt
drenched in our blood.
She chews and swallows
then licks her teeth.
With her hands, she forms this child in her womb
so she can take her family with her.
She is the first to leave this plantation,
the only home they’ve known since—
She stands up and carries
a child with a chance to survive.
Chalk Lines
Let us draw ourselves
outside the lines that limit us,
outside the chalk lines
that display us
laid out on the pavement
shot down by the truth
that our lives don’t matter.
Old Gods
We rolled over our gods,
first with wagons
and scythes to the grain.
Then we dug into the earth
for black gold
and coughed up black smoke.
We threw garbage into river mouths
choked their air
and clogged their veins of clay.
Costume
My culture is not a coat
or a hat
that you can try on.
It is not a tan that fades over time.
It is not a fun new eyeshadow.
It is not a phase
or a tool for rebellion.
It is blood
and bone,
chains on my wrists
and a rope around my neck.
It is ritualistic dances
and worship of our mothers.
It is everything
and nothing to you.