Poetry Summer 2016 fiction all issues
whitespacefiller
Cover Carly Larsson
Sarah Sansolo
Bedtime Stories
& other poems
Miranda Cowley Heller
Things the Tide Has Discarded
& other poems
Alexa Poteet
Escobar's Hacienda Napoles
& other poems
Cynthia Robinson Young
Triple Dare
& other poems
Nicole Lachat
Of Infidelities
& other poems
Amy Nawrocki
Bad Girls
& other poems
Lawrence Hayes
Winter Climb
& other poems
AJ Powell
God the Baker
& other poems
Gisle Skeie
Rearranging
& other poems
Bruce Taylor
Always Expect a Train
& other poems
Ricky Ray
They Used to Be Things
& other poems
S. E. Ingraham
Storm Angels
& other poems
Laura Gamache
Outing
& other poems
Keighan Speer
It Rained Today
& other poems
Emma Atkinson
Grocery Stores Make Me Feel Mentally Ill
& other poems
Erin Lehrmann
Block
& other poems
D. H. Turtel
Margaret, Again
& other poems
Chris Haug
Bovine Paranoia
& other poems
Kimberly M. Russo
Definitive Definition
& other poems
Holly Walrath
A Tourist of Sorts
& other poems
Angel C. Dye
Beauty in Her Marrow
& other poems
S. E. Ingraham
An Unkindness of Ravens
The sound drawing them
into the rarefied space
is her undoing.
Expecting Ave Maria or
maybe Amazing Grace
to breach the gap
between her,
and the wretch laid out—
novitiate, near-perfect—
in the plainest casket available,
save for the Order’s ideogram,
carved—or is it stamped—on the lid
instead, it’s Albinoni’s Adagio
that clings to her senses,
invades her every pore;
each note a leech, a remora
eclipsing her promise to God,
to herself, to create a calmness
no matter how difficult
it proves to be.
Ah, here come the rest—
such an obsolete group,
she cannot help thinking—
habit-clad figure after
figure flutters
down the aisles looking
like crows or, faces framed
wimple-white, perhaps magpies.
No—ignore the white, she
decides—so stern looking,
ravens surely.
She tries to reel her mind
back to the matter
at hand, as the others
perch on pews.
The music ends,
the priest intones a prayer,
beseeches all to consider
the virtue of the deceased.
She feels light-headed,
wonders at the man’s
audacity then remembers:
it is her time of the month
and ponders anew
God’s cruelty.
Why continue the cycle
yet insist on celibacy?
Did it lessen the suffering
of the deceased?
She crosses herself, says
a quick sincere “Hail Mary.”
Tries to forget the choice
that led to the poor thing
landing in the box.
She cannot, however,
keep from regarding
her Savior on the cross,
finds herself begging
him silently,
“Why this Lord?”
Her child was your
child also, was it not?”
As always, the reply:
silence.
Said the Kettle of Hawks
The night you were fading, the doctor said, no,
it was your age, you would be fine by morning,
but there was something so casual in his voice—
I didn’t trust his voice, but I did still trust him.
So, I set off for a walk by the lake, solid ice right then.
As I arrived, a great number of birds—hawks—
startled from the low shore bushes, began to wheel around
in the air. I’d never seen such a thing.
Hawks don’t flock, as far as I know. They pair, but flock? No.
These were at least a dozen or more—and silent—at first.
They dove, then took the sky, then back, coming close to where
I stood—staring at me in that sideways fashion birds have.
I couldn’t move, just stood there watching them even as they began
to shriek at me, and I was sure they were addressing me.
The birds were agitated; if it had been any other time of year,
not winter, I might have thought they were protecting a nest.
Their swirling got faster and the noise louder. Then, as suddenly
as they had started, they swooped straight up and were gone.
I didn’t see where they went; they were just gone. In the aftermath,
I felt gooseflesh on my arms, and knew, I needed to go to you.
I went back home, got in my car, and drove straight to the hospital.
I realized as I drove, I was surrendering to the birds, giving over
all rational thought. I got to you in time to hold your hand,
whisper love and reassurance, be there until you stopped breathing.
Storm Angels
Out of the soup that is refinery row’s gift to the dish called sunrise,
Edmonton’s skyline wavers—a pulsing mirage.
A dressing—equal parts pollution and prairie air—bathes the Tarmac,
as flocks of silver birds grab the sky, one after the other
hoisting the citizenry and visitors alike—too many to count—
miles above the earth, ferrying them to points undisclosed.
There’s a charm to these thunderous angels,
these miracles that defy gravity and spit in God’s eye.
Like homing pigeons or peace doves, they carry messages of hope,
remind souls there’s more to life than storms.
Roadside Fallen Angel
Discovered defrocked and desperate by the side of a little-used road,
she was barely breathing and had she not been trying to spread them—
her tattered, torn wings; those appendages so battered they no longer
appeared to be what they once were, and operated not a bit—
He might not have noticed her at all, might have taken her for rags
thrown like trash to litter the road, but he saw the scrabbling,
awkward motions her scrawny wings were making, they brought him
out of his trance; made him slow down, take a closer look.
“Oh my word,” he breathed. “What have we here?” He got out,
went to stare at the not-quite-human creature, but no heavenly one,
not this poor thing. He squatted beside her, reached to touch her head.
She shrank from him, eyes full of fear, her wing-things trembling.
Mumbling reassurances, he wrapped his coat around her gently,
scooped her, ignored her mewling sounds of pain. He knew what to do.
He would take her to join the others; he had wings back at his place.
He told her everything would be fine; she would be put together again.
He kept his promise. When she awoke, she was fresh and luminous,
her new wings spread so wide she could scarcely believe it.
Her saviour had placed a mirror where she could see all her beauty.
It took her breath away; there was, however, the matter of her body.
Her wings and face were quite remarkable—lovelier than ever in fact.
But her body: she couldn’t see or feel it, and she couldn’t move at all.
Now that she thought—nor her head or her wings, no movement.
Then she noticed the others in the room—birds, butterflies.
The man whistled as he left; she couldn’t find the words to ask him
what she knew instinctively; her wings were exquisite, but clipped.
She was an angel who would fly no more.
She suspected tears were falling down her cheeks, but she felt nothing.
Descent of a Phoenix
Below our tiny basket,
the Nile serpentines, a ribbon
of gold beneath another day birthing
as Ra, round as a pregnant-woman’s
belly, slips slowly into a perfect sky,
as if into a calm sea.
Although we are many
in the basket, we are hushed.
Made dumb no doubt
by such sacred sights:
Luxor’s Valley of the Kings,
tombs as old as time.
The only sound we hear: an occasional
roar when the pilot blasts a jet of propane
to warm the air in the massive balloon
above us. A balloon with a ruby phoenix
stenciled on both sides keeps us
aloft as we take this god’s eye trip.
Too soon we near the end of our journey.
The pilot reminds us: the landing will
likely be a bumpy one but not to worry;
he and the ground-crew know the routine.
All we need to do is hold on.
One of the last things I remember
thinking as we begin our descent:
“This is so perfect, so beautiful,
and I am in awe. If I were to die right
now, I would be utterly happy, content.”
“Glory paid to our ashes comes too late.”
—Marcus Valerius Martialius
(In memory of those who perished. Luxor, Egypt—13.02.26)
S. E. Ingraham
writes from the lip of the Arctic Circle, the 53rd parallel, where she and the love of her life share space with two Pugly dogs. Among the topics Ingraham feels compelled to write about: quitting mental health consumerism, endorsing peace, and witnessing unspeakable social injustices. She gets published...some...she wins awards...some. She has to write. She does. More of her writing can be found at soundofthewordnight.blogspot.ca