Poetry Summer 2018 fiction all issues
whitespacefiller
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
Amanda Moore
Tattoo Artist
When the young girl wants my input
On the design of her tattoo
The bells of my brain don’t know
Which alarm to sound first
I am her teacher her father
Is my friend she babysits my daughter
Her mother is days away from dying I think
Perhaps I should dissuade her though
Part of me thinks to cheer I want
To know the right advice to give but what
Does it matter she’s already marked
And the dull buzz of the tattoo gun
Will be in her ears always the needle
Piercing her flesh will be nothing
Like the pain that traces itself each day
Through her heart
What is ankle bone shoulder blade
Hip skin over the kidney why not
Wear pain permanently
An heirloom brooch handed down
I would turn up her sleeve myself
If I could I would dip into each colored well
And puncture her skin again again
With what very little I know of loss
The Dead Thing
Everywhere the smell of death—not a figurative
sense of doom pervading every thought,
but real—in every room
putrid rot: something has died in our duct work
and there is no place the stench doesn’t find us.
O effluvium of rat corpse, odor of mouse
droppings, funk from deceased bid. O miasma
of ancient raccoon jammed between joist
and cold aluminum, fetor of possum or mole
or maybe the neighbor’s lost cat. Niff of decomposing
squirrel; whiff of skunk. The stink corrals us
in a single room we seal with plastic sheeting,
infuse with incense, windows open to morning mist
and autumn chill. For the first time
since our girl was a baby, the three of us bed down
and nest together, the creaks and midnight stirrings of one
nudging us all in and out of uncomfortable
sleep, perfume of night sweat mingling,
bouquet of hot breath fogging the vanity mirror.
Like a new litter we weave together until we wake,
cranky and confined and knit tight against the invading scent.
Oh, nothing lasts—good or bad. So, come time:
come you house flies and scavengers, you insects, mites,
beetles, larva, maggots, worms: do your work.
Learning to Surf
OK, ocean:
I have forsaken
the glittering blue eye of lake
to play at the lip of your vast, frothy mouth.
I have memorized your comings
and goings, the tide charts, and the swell; I have
taken you into me by the gallon, let you
pin me beneath your strong arms,
and I have been grateful
for the seals beside me, infinity
in the distance, promise
of pleasure. I have tried
to walk lightly over sand crabs and muck.
I have learned not to turn away.
Let me stand on your shoulders,
drop into you and carve
my own hard line. I have been patient.
Show me what to do
with my failure.
after Maureen McLane
Amanda Moore
’s poetry has appeared in journals and anthologies including ZZYZVA, Cream City Review, Tahoma Literary Review, Best New Poets, and Mamas and Papas: On the Sublime and Heartbreaking Art of Parenting, and she is the recipient of writing awards from The Writing Salon, Brush Creek Arts Foundation, and The Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts. She received her MFA in poetry from Cornell University, where she served as Managing Editor for EPOCH magazine. Amanda lives with her husband and daughter near the beach in San Francisco, where she is a high school teacher.