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Poetry Summer 2018    fiction    all issues

Poetry Cover Summer 2018

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Cover Michael Lønfeldt

Carol Lischau
Son
& other poems

Noreen Ellis
Jesus Measured
& other poems

Amanda Moore
Learning to Surf
& other poems

Adin Zeviel Leavitt
Harvest
& other poems

Jim Pascual Agustin
Stay a Minute, the Light is Beautiful
& other poems

Timothy Walsh
The Wellfleet Oyster
& other poems

Anna Hernandez-French
Watermelon Love
& other poems

J. L. Grothe
Six Pregnancies
& other poems

Sue Fagalde Lick
Beauty Confesses
& other poems

Abby Johnson
Finding Yourself on Google Maps
& other poems

Marisa Silva-Dunbar
Frisson
& other poems

Merre Larkin
Sensing June
& other poems

Savannah Grant
Saint
& other poems

Andrew Kuhn
Plains Weather
& other poems

Catherine Wald
Against Aubade
& other poems

Joe Couillard
Like New Houses Settling
& other poems

Faleeha Hassan
In Nights of War
& other poems

Olivia Dorsey Peacock
Thelma: ii
& other poems

Sarah Louise
Tremors
& other poems

Kimberly Russo
Inherent Injustice
& other poems

Frannie Deckas
Child for Sale
& other poems

Jacqueline Schaalje
Mouthings
& other poems

Nancy Rakoczy
Her Face
& other poems

Ashton Vaughn
Contrition
& other poems


Savannah Grant

The Day After Your Birthday

Lying on the floor like a cat, you, unhuman, so they will come and sniff you and I want to ask how you have been lost. I drive under the darkness of our mother’s inherited poverty, an unexpected wooden cross on Jewell Hill, a dirt road in light so November, I forgot to get gas; there are no answers. The day after your birthday it happens every year, our mother remembers me. I give you a blueberry popsicle and you cry when she calls you. Some devil blows through her junipers, chocolate wine taken down from pantry shelves but I won’t kill myself today because I don’t think like you do, baby sister, you just don’t seem to care. Sing tura-lura-lural, tura-lura-lai: there’s a picture of her in a ballet dress and my arms fall the same way her arms did at my age but even so I will not fall the same onto hardwood floor’s grit. It’s just scrambled eggs up there, knots in the yarn, baby sister, it’s why you won’t learn how to drive. A rooster crows from the basement; sing: tura-lura-lural, tura-lura-lai; now she’s just chicken shit, all the lights on at 3am.


My Head Is A Kitchen

1

my head is a kitchen

filled with smoke


breathe in burned butter

I don’t remember


what I do when I leave

but it settles on all the windows


2

a March night isn’t necessarily evil but

it wants to remind you of something


with the windows finally open

the air smells like insects in a way

that reassures the end


of winter but habits cling

like fog throwing back high beams


and some chill

in spring’s heatwave


3

all this grief


all this lying

on the floor all day


like tar it sticks

drips from the corners of my mouth


he bought ivory sheets

when I wanted plaid


4

and how easy it is

to be picked up off the floor by my elbows again

just to cut carrots for dinner at 10pm



Bearclaw In December

1

I still have the hunting knife

you gave me

although the other two were lost

at baseball games


you loved to give me things

anything I looked at

New Mexico pottery and plastic trucks

even at nineteen


back against the electric fireplace

not sure where to look when your missing toe

told stories of the Citadel and General Lee


glory grew a white beard and couldn’t leave

the brown leather chair


2

You and the sheets

were made of blood spots


thin Christmas carols mixed with radio commercials

only linoleum gleamed


I left as old people gagged in the dining room


onion rings and fried chicken

sweet potato fries

coleslaw


all wasted in front of hanging head

and eyes I wouldn’t see open again


I couldn’t wash the salt from the back of my throat


we wait

in a way it’s already done


we all end up with our faces covered

in who knows what


3

It wasn’t you there

wearing the clothes we picked out


they got your smile wrong anyway


we rested our arms over our heads like you used to

in between shaking everyone’s hands

in our new black shoes


someone said I was your raging river


the drive home

I told my sister the Carolina fog came down for you


the sun the next day almost like spring

a bugle humming taps


I cried only when

you were above that irrevocable hole


yet our great-aunt can still make us cheese toast


and we can laugh in your kitchen

comparing dresses

and how we’re all drawn to bagpipes


I can carry your coffin

and eat a roast beef sandwich

in the same damn day



Saint

If I cry over a cat

it means they will die


and my wet hair brushed your head


I wanted to draw how your paws were locked, folded

wrapped in your favorite sheet


covering your face, grinning

and open with pain


I watched my dad dig two feet down

in a sweaty shirt


the way August shows you

how death


smells like cold new dirt and an old white sheet

and sounds like many birds



Indian Summer

across the third rail

someone babbles about faggots

and a last October wasp

clicks against the subway light


these are the days

I guess


of waiting

to fix ways I thought shouldn’t be like this

Savannah Grant lives in Northampton, MA with three rescue cats. She attended Smith College to study English, studio art, and poetry. A few of her poems are published here and there, including a former issue of Sixfold. In her spare time she enjoys biking, exploring around town, drawing, and photography.

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