Poetry Summer 2017 fiction all issues
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Cover Marija Zaric
Kathryn Merwin
For Aaron, Disenchanted
& other poems
William Stevens
Celestial Bodies
& other poems
Kendra Poole
Take-Off, or The Philosophy of Leaving
& other poems
AJ Powell
Mama Atlas
& other poems
Matt Farrell
Waves in the dark
& other poems
Timothy Walsh
Eating a Horsemeat Sandwich at Astana Airport
& other poems
Nancy Rakoczy
Adam
& other poems
Joshua Levy
Venezuela Evening
& other poems
Ryan Lawrence
Vegan Teen Daughter vs. Worthless Dad
& other poems
George Longenecker
Yard Sale
& other poems
Susanna Kittredge
My Heart
& other poems
Morgan Gilson
Dostoevsky
& other poems
Jim Pascual Agustin
The Annihilation of Bees
& other poems
Taylor Bell
Browsing Tinder in an Aldi
& other poems
David Anderson
Continental Rift
& other poems
Charles McGregor
The Boys That Don’t Know
& other poems
Cameron Scott
Ashes to Smashes, Dust to Rust
& other poems
Kenneth Homer
Inferno Redux
& other poems
Alice Ashe
lilith
& other poems
Kimberly Sailor
Marriage's Weekly Schedule
& other poems
Kim Alfred
Soul Eclipse
& other poems
Kathryn Merwin
Jersey
I.
A girl storms out of her body to sing you the highway: your
skin is calligraphy and ink. Back turned, soap and seawater
leather her palms.
II.
The tide batters your knees: blood-puckers of coast, blue
bruises dusted over telescope skin. Nothing was ever more
worth it.
III.
Your words are gloved in oyster silk, the low bass tones of
twilight. You probably wouldn’t know me now. I bite my
tongue, my teeth taste like cough-syrup.
IV.
I was thinking of silver needles, tire-tracks in a sliver of
moonlight. Route 13, the wooden house by the hospital,
white bridge and fuck you, carved in the rail.
V.
The sharp bones of oak trees keep you safe somewhere
in Jersey. The aria lifts: your eyes, blackened sea pearls,
whisper, don’t you lie to me.
VI.
Up north, a blue wind lifts the hair from your shoulders. You
will wade through your bogs, fill your terrariums, slowly
become fluent in the flutter of seabird wings.
The Yellow Marrow
I could have loved the wolf. Alone he was a fist of night sky,
body of starlings, hydrogen, helium. I held a flashlight
to his chest, traced the glowing web of his arteries to prove that something moved
within him. He buried small things in in the storm gulch: elk’s teeth, brass keys, warped
violin strings. Sharp teeth dug craters into my throat. Now I’ve made you the moon. I could have
loved the wolf, but I wanted to be hunter. Wanted teeth, blood, bone. I wanted the yellow
marrow.
Inglewood
I wish to cry. Yet, I laugh,
and my lipstick leaves a red stain like a bloody crescent
moon on the top of the beer can.
—Sylvia Plath
My skin is a sheet of Braille: moon-hungry,
shiver by the widening current, curling
into pale shins, bewitching me further
into its darkening plane. The moon, hanging
like a ball over the western seaboard,
annihilating, with every glance. I am
the girl who does not dance: your
eyes catch the light, your teeth catch
my hair. Night
is temporary insanity: barefoot girls
with tambourines, purple lights
in Santa Monica.
For Aaron, Disenchanted
Something once soft hums in you
while you sleep. I watch it lift
through you as you thrash,
flail. The bright tangerine
of your heart comes apart
in slices. I find them hidden
in your pillowcase. Mama’s eyes
are the color of your absence
now. A little more grey
than gunpowder. You
never pressed your ear to my lung. Never
tangled my synapses into sailing knots. Never
folded my body like an origami swan, passed
your secrets up through my throat. You are not mine
but you always were. The forgetting-boy
lives in a hollow of atlases. The birds
knew his name before I did. Knew the geometry
of our loneliness, our rabbit-hole
in the evergreens. Our blue jazz at midnight.
Something ached between us, but there was nothing
to hold but our compasses, the unlocked gun-cabinet
in the cellar, the yellowed globe
in the bedroom, spinning darkly.
Kathryn Merwin
is a native of Washington, D.C. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, Natural Bridge, Blackbird, and Sugar House Review, among others. She has been awarded the Nancy D. Hargrove Editors’ Prize for Poetry, the Blue Earth Review Annual Poetry Prize, and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is currently pursuing her MFA at Western Washington University.