Poetry Summer 2013 fiction all issues
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Sharron Singleton
Five Poems
Sarah Giragosian
Five Poems
Jenna Kilic
Five Poems
Kristina McDonald
Five Poems
Toni Hanner
Five Poems
Annie Mascorro
Five Poems
Brittney Corrigan
Three Poems
S. E. Hudgens
Four Poems
Ali Doerscher
Four Poems
David Sloan
Three Poems
Olivia Cole
Five Poems
Lucy M. Logsdon
Four Poems
Marc Pietrzykowski
Four Poems
Donna Levine Gershon
Five Poems
Eva Heisler
The Olden Days
Stephanie Rose Adams
Five Poems
Jill Kelly
Five Encounters
Ben Bever
Five Poems
Michael Hugh Lythgoe
Five Poems
Arlene Zide
Three Poems
Harry Bauld
Five Poems
Lisa Zerkle
Four Poems
Peter Mishler
Five Poems
Tim Hawkins
Five Poems
Marqus Bobesich
Four Poems
Abigail Templeton-Greene
Five Poems
Eric Duenez
Five Poems
Anne Graue
Five Poems
Susan Laughter Meyers
Five Poems
Peter Kahn
Two Poems
D. Ellis Phelps
Five Poems
Linda Sonia Miller
The Kingdom
Nicklaus Wenzel
Skagit River
Holly Cian
Five Poems
Susan Morse
Five Poems
Daniel Lassell
Five Poems
Svetlana Lavochkina
Temperate Zones
Daniel Sinderson
Three Poems
Catherine Garland
Five Poems
Michael Fleming
Five Poems
The Kingdom
I.
Power is a heavy cloak, without a realm, invisible.
Reluctantly she rises from her throne, spends hours
scrutinizing empty rooms, bicycles rusting in the shed,
listening to the silence. At night, attempts conquests
with silken robes and magic lotions.
In restless sleep she dreams her subjects
small again, consort, curly-haired and strong.
Days too long, she uses dwindling powers
reading minds and planning lives—to no effect.
Once her realm was busy, full of news. Now
her soldiers live on contentedly—tying their own shoes.
In winter, she stares out her window, studies birds
plumping feathers for warmth, nests in the sun long lost.
Isn’t this what history teaches—all kingdoms end?
II.
Isn’t this what history teaches—all kingdoms end?
In that frigid northeast realm, I slept with him
in my bed beneath the eaves, and dreamed
to the hum of my children’s breath, haunted creak
of pines, mad screams of kittens trying to get in.
Below the window—endless expanse of evergreen
draped across the border. At dawn, he raced
in bare feet across six feet of snow (as others
walked on water), then left me to my own domain.
Sometimes, I followed him into winter’s woods,
studied tracks—padded, clawed, soled—
small hints that we were not alone,
my belly tense with joy and fear.
My reasons for leaving are still unclear.
III.
My reasons for leaving are still unclear.
I’m in a daze, sit for hours in the sun,
children scurrying like elves—
wisps of gold and light—
through an unmowed meadow.
It’s a lonely throne. He’s away all day—
my only conversation howls or jabber.
Occasional cars fly past across the border.
I read novels—Anna under the wheels,
Emma vain and afraid, Tess betrayed.
So much awaits me that I won’t understand.
Time will render these years in pastel hues—
except for an umbrella or muddy boot—
something to remind me I’m simply human too.
IV.
Something to remind me I’m simply human too—
it’s not a story, I’ve been told. All these strings
entangling, strangling—making it difficult to breathe.
Sometimes overwhelming, this role of being queen.
I struggle to inhale, swallowed something,
can’t remember the taste.
Once I studied geese above a pond,
arrow pointing south, listened rapt to a story—
border guard’s wife who disappeared.
Now my plot has thickened. I experiment
with potions, enfold myself in shadow,
practice escape—blank pages, trains, pretense.
There is no release. Power is a heavy cloak,
without a realm, invisible.
Linda Sonia Miller
has lived, learned and taught in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, among the Winnebago Indians in Wisconsin, on the shores of Walden Pond, and in upstate New York and Connecticut. She’s published short essays in The New York Times, poems in a variety of journals and anthologies, and has had a chapbook published by Finishing Line Press, Something Worth Diving For, in 2012.