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
Ricky Ray
Proximity
The rabbit parts, taken out of the context of the rabbit,
will sit on the counter in their juices, hinting at stew,
and they will look good and hale and nutritious to him,
and they will look like awful, bloody murder to her.
And the differences will hang between them,
not as something to be fought over,
but as something there and real and true.
Something that binds if it does not break apart,
for they will not resolve their differences;
the resolution will come in the way
their differences lie up against one another in the night.
They Used to Be Things
In the book were pages
and on the pages was ink
and in the ink were words
that were once ideas
we made of things, like
wool is made of a goat
and a sweater is made
of wool, warmth
is made of wool’s
trappings and favorite
is made of our time
in the warmth.
The story goes
that the ideas
went away and formed
their own tribe. Then,
they forgot to come back
and visit; they forgot
the way home. Over time,
they even forgot
where they came from,
and the more distant
the words grew
from their origin,
the more the words
tried to become things
themselves. But words
are not even the pale
shimmerings on
the butterfly’s wings,
let alone the thin
translucence
flapping itself up.
When the wolfwind howls
and the ground
whispers crystals of ice,
if I wrap my feet
in ideas—lots and lots
of them—they still freeze.
Even newspaper tucked
into old brown boots
leaves them stiff
and shivering
through the night.
But then I chant
my confessions
to the moon,
and the rendezvous
of word and blood
lights ten little
fires in my toes.
Songs Early and Late
I
On earth there was
a voice that sang:
we are on the earth
and we are
the earth
itself
standing up,
in the world
and of it,
of
what
the world’s of,
too.
II
Oh, earth, as we in our flailing
snag each strand of species
and pull until it comes
out of your head by the root—
as we stopper and scar the follicles—
as we make of your forest
a farm fit for the mills
but not for the panthers,
is it true that you become
less beautiful?
Life After Electricity?
On the beach, another species,
half human or something like it,
periodically watches the sun go down.
They don’t gather every night.
When they do, after sunset, they empty
what they have seen into the sand.
It accepts everything that bothers them.
Leaves them turning to one another
as if wrongs were pains of growth.
They have learned to wash in saltwater
and see clearly. They have learned
to walk home by the moon.
One of their young has a flashlight
buried where he sleeps. He dreams
of power. He is afraid to use it.
Late Night Possibilities
I
You could close your eyes,
your neck dripping with sweat
in the late September heat.
II
You could begin to dream
of going somewhere,
quickly,
of horns and flashing lights
trying to guide you
safely toward your destination.
III
You could waver between
the dream state and waking state
where sparks shower your face
from the side of the car
shearing the guard rail,
the guard rail shearing the car.
IV
Your foot could become
heavy with sleep
and your hands could fall
away from the wheel
and your body could plow
into the night
with no concern
for laws or lanes
or the deer trying to herd her young
safely to the other side.
V
You could be seduced
by 75 mph winds
whistling something dangerous in your ear
and you could reach for the wheel
like the belly of a lover who’s leaving you too soon
and you could pull her back to you
only to spin around three times
and flip over twice—
earth-sky, earth-sky.
VI
You could wake your friend
in the passenger seat
to tell him what happened.
VII
You could pull your other friend
from the screaming hole
in the broken back window
with blood
and glass in flesh
and no one to blame but yourself
for listening to your mind
when it said it’s time
you’re tired
let’s go.
Ricky Ray
was born in Florida and educated at Columbia University. His recent work can be found in Fugue, Esque, Sixfold, and Chorus: A Literary Mixtape. His awards include the Ron McFarland Poetry Prize, a Whisper River Poetry Prize, and Katexic’s Cormac McCarthy prize. He lives in Manhattan with his wife, three cats and a dog. The bed is frequently overcrowded.