Poetry Summer 2020 fiction all issues
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Cover Vecteezy
Rodrigo Dela Peña
If a Wound is an Entrance for Light
& other poems
Shellie Harwood
Early Evening, Late September
& other poems
William A. Greenfield
The Deacon’s Lament
& other poems
J. H. Hall
Immersion
& other poems
Kimberly Sailor
Two Aphids
& other poems
Sugar le Fae
Bagging
& other poems
Lauren Sartor
Shopping Cart Woman
& other poems
Nathaniel Cairney
Mushroom Hunting, Jackson County, Kansas
& other poems
Elisa Carlsen
Cormorant
& other poems
Daniel Gorman
The Boy Achilles
& other poems
Samara Hill
I Look for Her Mostly Everywhere
& other poems
Nicole Justine Reid
Returning to Sensual
& other poems
David Ginsberg
Butterfly Wings
& other poems
Katherine B. Arthaud
Café Sant Ambroeus
& other poems
George R. Kramer
Young Odysseus
& other poems
Amy Swain
In Praise of Trees
& other poems
Frederick Shiels
Bad October: 2016
& other poems
Matthew A. Hamilton
Summer of '89
& other poems
Chris Kleinfelter
Getting from There to Here
& other poems
Martin Conte
Ghazal for the Shipwrecked
& other poems
Natalie LaFrance-Slack
I Do Not Owe You My Beauty
& other poems
Susan Marie Powers
Dark Water
& other poems
J. H. Hall
The Hatch
Evening, done fishing, I lay rod and self
beside the river, observe the subtle
surface eruptions, the slow unfolding
of wings, lifting into tenuous flight,
or the sip, the sucking under, of a creature
so delicate, it’s called Ephemerella.
The current wipes the slate clean,
carries the dimples, death’s memory,
downstream.
Before me, more flies emerge,
as if to say, Death moves on.
Life stays in place.
Then the hatch ends.
The stream’s glassy surface,
impervious as black marble,
moves like solid slab towards the valley floor,
mirrors the darkening sky,
which soon closes like a cellar door.
Hal
Though electroshock eased your pain,
it erased our evening’s fishing.
I wish I’d worked harder
to restore that night
to your whitewashed brain,
starting with the plump, pumpkin moon
that pulled the tide nearly into your yard
where striped bass grazed
a pasture of aquatic grass for crabs,
our skiff rising and falling
with the Chesapeake’s breath.
The honor of your excitement
magnified our catch, its size, the moon
and tide to monuments in my eyes.
You, cousin, mentor and friend,
serious commercial fisherman,
who that very morning waded ankle deep
in bunkers, bluefish, spot and speckled trout,
now as excited as I by individual fish.
Surely even the fish were honored.
Months later, when I tried to reminisce,
and that night went missing, I was angry,
first, in my youthful foolishness, at you,
then at those who, meaning well, broke
into your mind and burglarized us both.
Your blank eyes deflated the moon,
lowered the tide, left me flailing
the exhausted water alone,
your illness lurking in the darkness,
mine as yet unknown.
How were we to know
the evening’s real blessing,
was neither moon, nor tide, nor fish,
but our very own obliviousness?
Immersion
A trout stream’s beauty sometimes
makes falling in seem appealing—
floating silently, weightlessly among
cathedral columns of blue-tinted light.
But when I fell in, there was nothing
spiritual about it. I only wanted out.
I realized, Oneness with Nature
was a figure of speech or a death wish.
Now the stream seemed more human-trap
than holy place: gnarled, boot-grabbing roots,
dark swirling eddies. I scrambled to shore
like a clumsy beaver, lay in the sun, gasping for air.
I wondered, did the trout connect my rude,
roof-crashing entry with the fanged,
phony insects, that tore lips
and yanked fish towards the fatal light?
This whole angling business—
life or death for trout, now mostly pageantry
for me, a re-enactment of a past,
when fish were necessary food.
My need to pursue outlived its usefulness,
more done to me than my own doing.
I never asked for these desires. They were passed
to me by generations of commercial fishermen.
The needs endured, like orphans, seeking friends,
finding trout. An apology seemed in order,
but how do you apologize to flowing water,
when that which you are sorry for is already far away?
From Her Bedroom Window
She heard waves lick the beach
like a cat lapping a bowl of milk,
soon to feast on Mud and Oyster Creeks,
then trees and fields. Unafraid,
she didn’t resist, but submitted.
She loved that body of water
as another might love a man
or woman or cherished pet.
In storms, the Bay slung the beach around
as if playing with a yarn strand.
Wherever the sand came to rest, she walked
in solitude and wonder, but never sorrow.
For she found arrowheads, pottery shards
from hundreds and thousands of years ago,
and in one deep ditch, fossilized shark teeth,
millions of years old.
The fantasy of permanence
was not permitted on her land.
No barriers to the waves advance,
no rip-rap, seawalls or revetments.
And when the Chesapeake
finally wandered up to her old home place,
she’d ruffle its fur, scratch its belly
and offer nourishment.
St. George’s Lake, Copenhagen
Two seagulls settle as delicately as teacups
onto the lake’s green tablecloth.
A light breeze fingers the willow leaves.
A rectangular lake, cut to fit a cityscape,
fringed by gravel and asphalt path,
metal benches, a granite patio of people.
An inner layer of ducks, gulls and wading birds,
but no fish in sight. Unlikely, though,
that herons place faith in a barren lake.
That’s a human trait:
St. George gave his life for Jesus.
In retrospect, was that really necessary?
John said, In the beginning was the Word.
If only he had stopped there,
left well enough alone,
But he couldn’t keep his mouth shut.
Some call it Good News.
That’s a matter of opinion.
While gulls and breeze seed language,
the lake’s silence speaks volumes.
But, like the herons, I have all day,
I’ll wait.
J. H. Hall 
My background is in religion, literature, medicine and fishing. My poems, essays and short stories have appeared in TriQuarterly, The North American Review, Gray’s Sporting Journal, FlyRod & Reel, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Fugue, Slipstream, and other places, as well as in six anthologies and several collections of my own, most recently Chesapeake Reflections (The History Press) Raised in Virginia, I’ve lived in Maine for years.