issue 5.1
Potpourri
By Craig Kirchner
​
It had been months, a winter,
found you in the late spring garden,
crocus, daffodils, hyacinth, roses just opening,
bumblebees, fluttering, sucking, foraging,
pollinating, waiting for the tomatoes
that would be along, plump red, in August.
​
A butterfly, yellow, black, kept dipping at the hat
you wore to dig and weed, a petite Charlie, we called it,
a light tan fedora to keep the sun from your delicate skin.
On your knees caressing the soil,
up behind, put my hands over your eyes,
rolled together until we smelled of earth.
​
The hot water slammed in, filling inch by inch
the perfumed bath, licking veins,
molding to thigh curves, like slow wine
hugging the tongue, waves of cinnamon and lavender,
French raspberry-vanilla candles,
undertones of you, lean in kneading coconut shampoo.
​
Back arched, nipples and knees, knobs of fantasy
over your shoulder, glistening through steam
and champagne. The twitching, moist
cleavage of spine melting a warm mind-meld,
adding an essence of me to the fog, aroma
of the room, the moment.
A Mule Will Just Stop
By Phil Madden
​
Sometimes, the guide said,
a mule will just stop
​
We can see no reason
no point in whipping it
we have to wait
something is passing, a djinn, perhaps
​
Sometimes, on the path through the cornfield,
the whippet will rear like a meerkat
something is passing
a djinn, perhaps, if we have them here
​
Times come to pass
the quickening soon, slowly and fast
everything pregnant and poised
feathering throttles, no point in revving
waiting for the lights to change
​
It is coming, the going,
as ripples of restless run through their feathers
flocks shuffle and mutter
waiting for the lights to change
​
Then each one of all rises to gone
Walk
By Karen Walker
​
from the Old English word wealcan/ from that, an immense walking dress/ in it walking Lady Whoever of the 1860s/ walk as a verb—her verb: to strut, stroll, saunter through some stately English estate/ underneath, a duck walk so hoop skirts sway enticingly/ & entice a cock of the walk into marriage/ behind the walking dress, another walk of life/ her maid, our ancestress Matilde Walker/ walk, as a servant: tramp, tread, trudge/ the dress is silk & wool/ silk where it touches Lady W/ wool, sodden & scratchy, for Matilde/ Walker from the old drudge of walking wool to create felt, walking clothes to wash them/ over mud & manure, Matilde lifts the dress/ no redress for her/ lifts it high so not to have to wash it/ walk as a noun: a pathway/ behind the vast dress, no sunshine or view, no way out of Lady W's service/ because of the puddles & the washtub, walking pneumonia/ coughing, wheezing, fever/ walking dead/ until Matilde walks no more/ walk with, a phrasal verb: to be in sympathy with, in solidarity with/ as we, her New World Walkers, are/ we walk tall/ & tell this tall tale to our spacewalking kids: legs horribly burned by the around, around, around in a great boiling cauldron, Matilde wailed. a kind blacksmith heard. forged metal legs for her. loved her/ amazing the mechanical marvel she became/ the first of our modern Walker kind.
Winged Victory
By Laura D'Angelo
​
blue regret weeps from your heels
soaking into a blood bristled carpet.
You, shivering from the pool—
towel fleeced around your guilt-sprung shoulders
all sun-spry and curt to court
​
this scared kid. the mosaic frontline
now appearing archaic was too blocked
to be your blanket footing your bed.
in striped heat refracting from hoods and
side mirrors, they sell you fated to sacrifice
birds, bitches, and lamb
​
full in front yard splendour.
a blade lifted to beams rivets my palm when
you swing down too hard
cascading bone on freshly-mowed grass.
i smell the break of metal before i see
five fingers like five soldiers splayed on the
yellow-patched turf where you
tread like lightning,
like tradition.
The Sun-burned Knight
By Kenneth M. Kapp
​
I miss the boy with the beaten straw hat secured by a miracle and tripled bakery string. He’d be pedaling east along Beach Street, the summer sun screaming off the red paint of his bike. The weathered basket fastened by fishing line to the handlebars.
A leather strap from an old belt wrapped around the middle of a bamboo fishing pole kept it from riding more than two feet above the basket; the splintered end of the pole anchored under his right arm. Riding high off the pedals, the lance lead: up/down, up/down. A crimson crusader, burnt by the sun, determined to catch fish for supper, to be stuffed in the gunny-sack hanging from a rag-wrapped seat.
Cleaning Day
By Rebecca Hister
​
Dust collects around me like I beg it to
on my knees and pleading,
Allergens of the spirit.
Dead skin beginnings—
I’ll never forget you.
I made you, haphazardly and
unintentionally, I’ll admit.
I kissed a singer only because he said he’d
write me a song.
He never did and my body shed a little grief into the walls.
I give trust away like I’m full of it—
Mistakes are made but I’ll never learn,
let my hair grow long with lost wisdom
Two grey braids down my back,
A happy ending.
Bad Weather & Keeping House
By Erin Weeks
​
They say a big rain can swell up melons and split them at the stipe;
some storms are jealous as gods & many fruits of the vine
mindlessly devout, faith full.
The ground has offered up sacrifices for four
long days—in them I have done the dishes & I have smoothed out the bed
& I have shined up the cake display &
I have cooked berries down on the stovetop.
On the fifth day,
light slinks unexpectedly through slips
of sky, beams riding the tumbling interstices of a slighter downpour.
the doldrums have spread their legs, & here is born a sunshower,
silver coins unearthed from heaven’s open cocktail clutch &
spinning into fifth street’s slowing spate.
Strange weather softens yet remains unchallenged,
the whole green world continuing surrender;
[In waiting for it to pass I have stoked a fire on the rug &
I have rubbed my palms with lemon balm &
I have fixed the damn doorbell. In my world
there is no storm & nothing to best.]
​
white flags tap at the newly clean window,
waning rain combs lazy fingers through the magenta hair
of nearby crepe myrtles who bob their heads at its touch,
and they nod with approval,
flustered church ladies
overtaken by hymn song:
yes! hallelujah, yes!
