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
Natalie LaFrance-Slack
Carry the Weight
he comes home from
school with his heavy
tie-dye backpack
draped across skinny shoulders
walking with that slow
sixth grade swagger
carrying that slow stocky
sixth grade baby weight
with the weight of a world
on his shoulders as if
the world was a dumpster
behind a dirty McDonalds with
a thousand leftover Big Macs
and
a thousand extra large fries with
a thousand barrels
of fry grease poured
on top and lit on
fire
like the world was the last herd of
elephants
being poached by a herd of
narcissists
like the world was an Amazon forest set
ablaze
he holds that weight like he’s
seen
babies shot in kindergartens by
military grade weaponry bodies
torn to shreds
by bullets made for buildings
made for death
like he’s used his sixth grade body to hold
closed a classroom door
to pile on top of a killer
to hope he’s heavy enough to
hold him down
the way it holds him down
he holds it
like he carries
the state of Florida
Pulse. pulse. pulsing.
Sandy Hook
all of Colorado
fields of Columbine
Texas and
a couple hundred years of
brown people being told they aren’t
welcome
on their own lands
in the land of the free
like that rainbow tie-dye backpack is
Stonewall
and marriage equality
and the Supreme Court
and stilettos and
forbidden fake eyelash strips
peeled off a boy’s eyes before
he climbed back in the window
climbed into his bed in Brooklyn
in seventy-two
in Nashville
in two thousand two
in Rapid City
in twenty-twenty
like it weighs as much as
a woman’s right to choose
like he’s carrying Christine Blasey Ford’s
heavy holy testimony
like he’s carrying Brett Kavanaugh’s
heaping pile of shit
like that shit is on fire
like we ate too many animals
and now the whole planet
has the meat sweats
like we used to have dinner
prepared for us nightly by a
five star Michelin chef
and now we get a mayonnaise sandwich
like the adults have left the room
and blamed the millennials
barricaded the doors
run out of the school
loaded up on gasoline
sped in their cars
home to their weapons stockpile
where from the safety of their laptop
screens they’ll protest red flag laws
while waving white flags
and surrendering his future
he climbs into my
gas guzzling
soccer mom
full-sized van
and all four res pop under
the Weight
and we are forced to walk
silently home
sloping shoulders
backpack swinging
and a quivering upper lip
me perched on his shoulders
overweight and
old as fuck
and him
knees crumbling
and palms bleeding
from the shrapnel
and his resolve
and the weight of
one thousand unmet promises
in a one thousand year war
where he’ll carry the bodies
where he’ll carry the Weight
Grace
my original son was born
Original sin stained and
wailing
at a hospital called
Grace
and middle-named
Determination
finger and heel
pricked with needles
smacked along the back
and told to cry
for the next ten years
he’d be told
over and over
to stifle the tears
harness the rage
take control of emotions
until
with grace
I relearned my own
emotion
was offered names for
feelings
was rebirthed into
a way of becoming
Loud
and proud
a weeping grace
ten years of
telling my brother
his love was unequal
to the contemptuous
possessive
codependent love
I clung to
while he sought safety
in the arms of boys who promised
a grace in the midnight
weeping for family
hoping for change
man up
we thought
but we were wrong
strength is in the breaking
tears rolling
hands shaking
lips open enough to
draw a breath from
another’s lungs
this love smacked me
along the back
and taught me to cry
I Do Not Owe You My Beauty
I do not owe you my beauty or
the youthful glow I collected
some summer on the shores of
Lake Superior
throwing fish hooks into open mouths
of well fed fish
throwing glances at boys on docks
and shorelines
shorts and sandals
grit in my mouth as I chewed my tongue to
a pulp asking for my
towel back
spit not swallow
swimsuit top
giggling boys snapping beach towels on
sandy asses
give me my name back
I do not owe you my beauty or
the coal dark sultry stare of well lined eyes
the club in Minneapolis
dance floor in Dakota
crotch rubbed against my shoulder
for eleven miles as he stood above me
on a Mexican street bus
the violent undressing of my
clothed body by his naked stare
hands wrapped around my neck
masturbating minds like exploring
mineshafts
I do not owe you my beauty
come sit on your knee and tell you about
me come sit on your lap and give you a kiss
come sit on your cock and tell you I want
you
call you daddy or master or a
long-drawn-out apology
imsosorryimsosorryimsosorryimsosorry
my worth the width of the handprint
you left on my ass
pulling panties lined with pearls from my
palms as penance
remind me the rent is due
rename generosity
I do not owe you my beauty
the summons of Greek mythology the
rewriting of Wonder Woman the
sexualization of My Little Pony the all male
Ninja Turtles the scented washable markers
we used to line our lips as toddlers the
tragedy of Sylvia Plath the scent of a
woman the mother’s bargain the oldest
profession the dirtiest hotel room the
knowledge of escape routes the salad in
your teeth
I do not owe you my beauty
not my long silky hair
not my shaved legs or armpits
or lip
not the curve of my shoulder
my hip
the rise of my navel
forever forcing fuckably flatter the way
desire is spelled out
dimple
ear
so I
render
everything undone and alone and not
worth it
I do not owe you my beauty
so when you ask for my tears
I let them fall bleating bleeding lemon from
puffy eyes
I ring the redness around them with black
as you like it
use a fifth grade highlighter to circle
every blemish
I resolve to lose my hair alongside my
father but do not wait for his to go pull
fistfulls from a bloody scalp
decorate with table salt in every wound
put an infants’ hairbow on every scab and
stare you down
every woman I know has
claw marks on the insides of her eyelids
let me tell you about beauty
when every eye closing is a slasher film
every eye opening is a slasher film
every cartoon is a slasher film
every pornography is a slasher film
harder faster better longer
every sleep is watching youth pass
every scream turned up loud enough
becomes indistinguishable from silence
it is possible I think that the trees are
screaming
top of their lungs
as they display beauty every autumn
every fall is a slasher film
every scream is caught so far back in the
throat you wrapped your hands around and
called sexy that we’ve put our hands up
unable to breathe
put on the jumpsuit
taken no bail
accepted the paradoxical prison
put on the shame
the escapism of ugly
before I will owe you my beauty
because
I do not owe you the least of me
the best of me
the bloody knees or baited breath
the heightened rent of being a woman
the terms of repayment
the mess of your stain
swallow don’t spit
the endless apologies
Imsosorryimsosorryimsosorryimsosorry
but
I do not owe you a goddamn thing
My Brother’s Engagement
my brother’s engagement is my first tattoo
18 years old
driving home from college
early morning hours
crashing on my parents’ sloping
living room couch
awaiting mom’s chemo results
dad sees the tramp stamp
symbol in the space between my
shirt and the waistband of my
flannel pajama pants
I hope that’s temporary
he says
and intakes his morning potassium
glass of orange juice
conservative news
my brother’s engagement is my sister’s
sexual assault
16 years old
walking to her car in an alley
early morning hours
disappearing into my parents’ blind eye
her quiet bedroom floor
awaiting a holy period
because what were you wearing
why were you walking downtown
shirt untucked and coat undone
icy winter down unzipped pants
no one needs to know
they think
while she dissolves into
a glass of addiction
conservative stares
my brother’s engagement is a son’s criminal
charges
27 years old
driving record
read in court
all hours of the day
always taking cover in
my parents’ quiet kitchen
awaiting a custody battle
youngest brother buys my
parents a convertible in pleading bribery
to cover the bruises blossoming beneath
his girlfriends’ skintight dress
now he’ll get help
they say
how can they they bear witness to
glass breaking midnights
conservative apologies
my brother’s engagement is a hard pill to
swallow
64 years old
six years of relationship stability
fortyninethousandfourhundred hours
building handmade blocks of safety
a permanent home
awaiting their approval
when they visit and vacation in his comfort
call him for affirmation and expect gifts
weekly phone calls and letters
a comfortable sweater
we’re just blindsided
they say
it’s so hard to forgive this act of rebellion
stained glass commitment
conservative shame
my brother’s engagement is a sky-splitting
sunrise
at 30 years old
the first healthy model of love I’ve seen
in countless hours of investigation
his is the story we’ve ached
to tell on the long drive home
awaiting the joyous way words
flow like waterfalls down the canyon
cut tributaries through what we’ve known
sprout flowers in rocky patches
light like a smile
we’ll forgive you
they say
sit stoically at the ceremony
drink monogrammed wine glasses
conservative celebration
Vows
we wrote our own vows
but I do not remember them
childish words from
children’s lips
while children grew
children
inside
childish bellies
we pledged life or love or
forever
like we knew what forever was
the morning of the wedding
I sliced the bottom of my
fourth toe on
a piece of broken mirror
some sort of
soul or sole
symbolic
just south of the finger
on which I’d wear his ring
take his name
bear his children
betray him
leave him
return
do you think there should be
starter marriages
I ask him
recently
three year mini commitments
so you know you know
before you vow you know
and he agrees
laughing
lined brow wrinkling
over blue brown eyes
that have betrayed me
left me
and returned
we wrote our own vows
but I do not remember them
I write this life
half spent in his arms
half spent running
half spent returning
instead
Natalie LaFrance-Slack
I am a mother. I am a storyteller. I have my father’s smile. I carry my mother’s laugh and loss around my eyes. I am sister to many; a long-time lover. I am lucky to have and to hold (open palmed, always willing to see where the wind blows and what is meant to go) the tender hope of a redemption story.