Poetry Fall 2013 fiction all issues
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Chris Joyner
Wrestlemania III
& other poems
Carey Russell
Visiting Hours
& other poems
Marc Pietrzykowski
Cabinet of Wonders
& other poems
Jonathan Travelstead
Prayer of the K-12
& other poems
Jennifer Lowers Warren
Our Daughter's Skin
& other poems
Jeff Burt
The Mapmaker's Legend
& other poems
Patricia Percival
Giving in to What If
& other poems
Toni Hanner
1960—Lanny
& other poems
Christopher Dulaney
Uncle
& other poems
Suzanne Burns
Window Shopping
& other poems
Katherine Smith
Mountain Lion
& other poems
Peter Kent
Surliness in the Green Mountains
& other poems
William Doreski
Gathering Sea Lavender
& other poems
Huso Liszt
Fresco, The Forlorn Virgin...
& other poems
Clifford Hill
How natural you are
& other poems
R. G. Evans
Dungeoness
& other poems
David Kann
Dead Reckoning
& other poems
Ricky Ray
The Music of As Is
& other poems
Tori Jane Quante
Creatio ex Materia
& other poems
G. L. Morrison
Baba Yaga
& other poems
Joe Freeman
In a Wood
& other poems
George Longenecker
Bear Lake
& other poems
Benjamin Dombroski
South of Paris
& other poems
Ryan Kerr
Pulp
& other poems
Josh Flaccavento
Glen Canyon Dam
& other poems
& other poems
Christine Stroud
Grandmother
& other poems
Abraham Moore
Inadvertent Landscape
& other poems
Chris Haug
Cow with Parasol
& other poems
Mariah Blankenship
Fiberglass Madonna
& other poems
Emily Hyland
The Hit
& other poems
Sam Pittman
Growth Memory
& other poems
Alex Linden
The Blues of In-Between
& other poems
Bobby Lynn Taylor
Lift
& other poems
D. Ellis Phelps
Five Poems
Alia Neaton
Cosmogony I
& other poems
Elisa Albo
Each Day More
& other poems
Noah B. Salamon
Sanctuary
& other poems
Sanctuary
Of an empty bed
small and cool and neat
of a pillow
I used to hide there
Of the swish of skin on cotton
of the ticking of the old clock
of the corner, all wall
Of the way the floor creaked
sudden pops, like some remote glacier
Of the shivering radiator pipes
beginning with the merest shake
Of a vibration, something so small
of a metallic whisper, miles below ground
Of tiles that glow white in the darkness
like ghostly lilies, floating
Of the bathtub, looming white
of the chipped wood desk
Of the dark, full of frights
and comfort
Memorial
Something needs mending
something always does
Things wear and fray and
wear out
Things rustle and stir in
this ashy darkness, things
creak and moan and finally give
See, what I have left are
bits of conversation, glances and
moments left behind
like old letters
in a faded box
New York Story
I came to New York once, for three months
to watch you die, slowly
in hospital beds, then in our apartment,
rented month by month, three months
past our wedding day
The stores had different names
but sold the same things–
the sympathy cards, like fallen leaves
the commerce of despair–
I tried to walk on the surface
like a Jesus bug
drowning if I fell
I let the days move by in splashes
I saw the contradictions
Still, I said only
we’ll see, we’ll see
The Ark
The beasts are rollicking again:
The tigers have stolen a carcass
The alligators loll uncomfortably
on wide planks
and ache for mud.
To put it starkly:
The giraffes are cramped.
The best is just chaos
here in these floating days.
Two doves have returned–
one bearing branches–
But still they float.
“It’s stopped raining, you know!”
“We should never have come!”
“Why did you bring us?”
Meanwhile below,
In the death-gray hull,
The man with the cottony beard,
The unruly eyes, the shock of gauzy hair,
Sits solemnly in his threadbare robe
And thinks about a promise he made.
Where I Am From
Honeysuckle green leaves and
sun glinting through pine
Damp dirt and the smell of heat
rising off pavement like
the whisper of ocean through a shell
A memory of rain-slick streets
black mirrors of neon and steam
the faint electric pulse
Of wooden decks in the fading sun
black and white baseball and
the rising whine of crickets as evening comes
Of pale beer in parking lots
where crabgrass grew through cracked asphalt
One night, when I was just a boy,
we drove and drove
until silent through summer darkness
moths like stars whizzing by
back of the station wagon, roomy and warm
Nobody else around
I rolled down the window and breathed in
The distant smell of sea
Noah B. Salamon
spent most of his childhood in Maryland. He majored in philosophy at Swarthmore College and is pursuing an MA in English at Loyola Marymount University. He currently teaches English in Los Angeles, where he lives with his wife and three sons.