Dotted Line Dotted Line

Poetry Winter 2022    fiction    all issues

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Cover
Li Zhang

Ana Reisens
Pam asked about Europe
& other poems

Krystle May Statler
To the Slow Burn
& other poems

Kristina Cecka
On Remodeling
& other poems

Belinda Roddie
Bless The Bones Of California
& other poems

Summer Rand
Alexander tells me how he'd like to be buried
& other poems

Alexander Perez
Toward the Rainbow
& other poems

Karo Ska
self-portrait of compassion…
& other poems

David Southward
The Pelican
& other poems

George Longenecker
Stamp Collection
& other poems

Mary Keating
Salty
& other poems

Talya Jankovits
Imagine A World Without Raging Hormones
& other poems

Laurie Holding
Sonnet to Mr. Frost
& other poems

David Ruekberg
A Short Essay on Love
& other poems

Elaine Greenwood
There’s a thick, quiet Angel
& other poems

Richard Baldo
Carry On Caretaker
& other poems

Jefferson Singer
Dave Righetti’s No-Hitter…
& other poems

Diane Ayer
A Fan
& other poems

Kaecey McCormick
Meditation Before Desert Monsoon
& other poems

Meg Whelan
Resubstantiation
& other poems

Katherine B. Arthaud
Possible
& other poems

Aaron Glover
On Transformation
& other poems

Anne Marie Wells
[I'm crying in a sandwich shop reading Diane Seuss' sonnets]
& other poems

Holly Cian
Untitled
& other poems

Kimberly Russo
Selective Memories are the Only Gift of Dementia
& other poems

Steven Monte
Larkin
& other poems

Mervyn Seivwright
Fear Mountain
& other poems


Summer Rand

Alexander tells me how
he’d like to be buried


which is not buried so much as laid in some field

or meadow or shadow of a mountain underneath

a blue shout where the thrasher’s cry threads cloud

to cloud and the sun is overflowing with itself,

trembling in its goodness, its kaleidoscope light

tripping down leaves to where the tall grass bears

his body, heavy in its solitude and easy, and he

will never catch chill again after he hands himself

over to the tender nature of things, after a harvest

mouse beds in his hollow socket and the pearl strand

of his spine goes wasteland to roots, his lungs splayed

like open palms and flowering with dog-tooth violets

as he lets earth overtake him bit by replaceable bit

still becoming, becoming, becoming.

Summer Rand, a graduate student of English, is a burgeoning poet who writes to reflect the world around her. Much of her work isolates the tender moments of grief and human connection she stumbles upon in order to find life and light beyond endings. She currently writes from Georgia, and she is hopeful that her poems will find their place in a chapbook following her graduation.

Dotted Line