Poetry Summer 2019 fiction all issues
whitespacefiller
Cover Antoine Petitteville
Laura Apol
Easter Morning
& other poems
Taylor Dibble
A Masterpiece in Progress
& other poems
Julia Roth
Lessons From My Menstrual Cup
& other poems
Jamie Ross
Ceaseless Wind. The Drying Sheaves
& other poems
Nicole Yackley
Mea Culpa
& other poems
George Longenecker
I’m sentimental for the Paleolithic
& other poems
Taylor Gardner
Short Observations by Angels
& other poems
Greg Tuleja
No Thomas Hardy
& other poems
Joanne Monte
War Casualties
& other poems
Nathaniel Cairney
Potato Harvest
& other poems
Steven Dale Davison
Wordsmouth Harbor Founder
& other poems
Heather 'Byrd' Roberts
How I Named Her
& other poems
Greenheart
sunny ex
& other poems
Ashton Vaughn
Through the Valley of Mount Chimaera
& other poems
Linda Speckhals
Borderlands
& other poems
Lucy Griffith
Breathing Room
& other poems
Steven Valentine
Written
& other poems
Emily Varvel
B is for Boys and G is for Guys
& other poems
Jhazalyn Prince
Priceless Body
& other poems
Marte Stuart
Generation Snowflake
& other poems
S.J. Enloe
Kale Soup
& other poems
Meghan Dunsmuir
Our Path
& other poems
Laura Apol
Elephant Ears
She loved them—
the two glass-blown elephants from my childhood
turned into a collection I bought for her, brought to
her: brass, carved teak, gold-gilt; one made of cloth,
one of jade—each tiny, intact—trunk raised or curled,
solid circles of feet, and ears flapping, like those green
heart-shaped elephant ears in the garden, leaves—wide
as my outstretched arms—that still flap, alive, in wind.
Can she hear me now? She packed her
collection, wrapped in newsprint, with such care.
Fragile—Elephants on the box in her script. Our writing
is so much alike, Mom, she used to say. I’ve hung her
elephant print on my bedroom wall, where I’ll see it:
Mama and—protected by the Mama’s solid front legs,
stroked by her trunk—child. Over the years: she’d
hold up her hand to mine, palm to palm, to see how
her fingers were almost the same as—were longer
than—mine, her elephant ring
too large for me now, elephant earrings, necklace,
there is nothing she will write again and those lovely
fingers loaded that gun, pressed the trigger, the silence
ear-splitting and what, after all, did she know about
fragile—about handle with care?
Easter Morning
When the wave rises, it is the water;
and when it falls, it is the same water again . . .
—Rabindranath Tagore
The cherry trees are in full
bloom, the grass around
strewn with petals that have fallen
in the night. Is this the mystery
of life? Of death? I try to believe
in heaven—some days
yes, some no. This morning,
I do. When does water
turn to wave, and wave to sea?
My conversation with her is forever
unfinished. Don’t tell me someday
it will be complete—by then
I will have forgotten what I meant
to say,
and what, after all,
will it matter?
And On
For three hundred sixty-five days I have tried to make her
make sense—ripped out every seam, pulled nails,
dug up roots, sanded wood to raw. I have opened turned
drained clawed, gone to sleep praying she would come to me,
waked in disappointment or tears.
I have looked for her in every eagle, heron, hummingbird;
every cardinal, oriole, fox. Each startling blossom. Each bit of color
I did not expect.
My tongue trips over tenses: have/had, is/was, present-or-past
the flip of a coin. Both and neither, my empty hand still my hand, scars
and blue veins, long lifeline and her silver ring.
I have spread the name I gave her—like seed, willed it forward,
supple as wheat fields in wind, a knife that sharpens with use. Our stories,
just mine now—each a shaky bridge, foot traffic only, how many crossings
before it gives way?
I know where I have stored the locks of her hair, what remains
of her muscle and bone. They pull to me from the chest, pull at me
in my chest, a wound she inflicted that afternoon
one year ago
—right now—
a day filled with trillium, trout lilies, blood root. Last year’s leaves
rattle in the trees, the creek rushing over itself
to the river,
to the sea.
Laura Apol
’s poetry appears in numerous anthologies and literary journals, and she is recognized through a number of poetry prizes. She is the author of four full-length collections, most recently, Nothing but the Blood (Michigan State University Press, 2018; winner of the Oklahoma Book Award for poetry). She is currently completing a manuscript, Lullaby, about her daughter, Hanna, who was lost to suicide in 2017.