Poetry Summer 2022 fiction all issues
whitespacefiller
Joanne Monte
Departure
& other poems
Holly York
Still When I Reach for the Leash
& other poems
Anne Marie Wells
Catholicism Still Lingers in a Concrete Poem
& other poems
D.T. Christensen
Coded Language
& other poems
Laura Faith
Ungodly
& other poems
Abigail F. Taylor
Winter in Choctaw
& other poems
Natalie LaFrance-Slack
Peace
& other poems
Nicole Sellino
iii. moving, an interruption
& other poems
Gilaine Fiezmont
In Memoriam / Day of the Dead
& other poems
Sheri Flowers Anderson
On Being A Widow
& other poems
RJ Gryder
Felling
& other poems
William S. Barnes
to hatch
& other poems
Suzannah Van Gelder
Idolatry
& other poems
Sam Bible-Sullivan
The Dying Worker’s Soliloquy
& other poems
Hills Snyder
Eclipse (July 4, 2020)
& other poems
Lauren Fulton
Birth Marks
& other poems
David Sloan
Prostrate
& other poems
Nancy Kangas
Dry Dock Cranes of Brooklyn Navy Yard
& other poems
Noreen Graf
In Attendance
& other poems
Jim Bohen
Nothing Tea
& other poems
Thomas Baranski
Let us name him dread and look forward
& other poems
Natalie LaFrance-Slack
peace
peace demands a turn to speak
from the back row of
the largest classroom
raises a hand in defiance
glances at confrontation
steadies for a fight
my mother
well intentioned told me that peace was
to sit in silence and wait
on God’s timing
but did not teach me that I am a
goddess on my own time
that peace is seldom quiet and
operates in urgency
peace is the sound of feet running
pavement away from cycles of abuse
the sound of mothers lighting candles
in remembrance of dead sons and
daughters blowing smoke as they
ready to free the captives
wings spread
have you ever watched a spider
spin silk around a moth
held your breath through a field of
butterflies in your stomach
wondered aloud and tear filled at
the moment of triumph or long
pause before the
last supper
peace is the chewing of the meal
before you swallow and peace
is the nourishment from the
meal as you finish and peace is
the neurons that fire because you
ate and peace is the energy you
leave behind
when you pray for a soul you imagine
its entrance to heaven all song and sunrise
or the fiery flames licking it over all
defeat but peace is the freedom
to imagine one thousand other
outcomes
creation exists in the inbetweens of
life and longing and you cannot tell me
or my mother now that there is no
peace in a womb or that blood and
disaster and stars and universes do not
also inhabit it
watch
in a hurry before time wipes
across the slate and cleans to begin again
peace is the scream of the chalk
the first word of a toddler the last
word of a goddess
one thousand other echoes of freedom hard fought
and finally won
whole
It took me until I was thirty five to
love my body enough to listen
and Believe her when
she told me “no” with her smallest voice
in her biggest time
to let her unfold and fold
wrinkled and rolled
sober
into fits of laughter
to hold her gently when she
cried
to imagine uninhibition
Ravishing
in the beauty of enough
large and containing
multitudes I stopped biting my
fingernails to the quick
catching blood drops on my tongue
while smiling
I let the skin stretched home of my
infants breathe all the way in
until she is full
I met her in the corner at a cocktail party
and loved her as she filled her plate
as her eyes danced across hors d’oeuvres
and decorations and drank
opulence and dove into
Abundance
She is
I told her for the first time that she
is Beloved
worthy of stories with twists
and turns and lovers and victory
of climax and windows down hair blowing
tangled and unkempt
but draped in sunlight and
celebration
salt kissed and well traveled I
told her I loved the dirt on the bottom of
her feet the
scars inked into her knees the
way she extends others second chances
like an offering that
when I dream I can feel pieces of her heart beating on other continents
and yet
when I reach across my own body
caress my navel with my big hands
smile at laugh lines mirror eyes and
take up space
I finally love her loud enough
and quiet enough
and for long enough to know that
she has given and given and she is still
whole
dying
I think about dying every day
so when Eric the yoga instructor encourages us to inhale
and then exhale and
then close the back of our throat and
let ourselves feel empty and let ourselves feel need
I think
*this* is how I want to go
mid-breath
needing
laying on my back or stretching to the sky
still
becoming
in silence and contemplation
The act of re-regeneration
or laughing loudly as a lover tells a story
laying side by side
or walking a sunlit path
rays dancing off a chemo bald head
still victorious
I want to die in the act of creation
paintbrush arcing between delighted fingers
half covered canvas
dreams still unseen
I want to die mid poem
words aching at the back of my throat
my obituary will just say
Hello World
isn’t it wonderful?
and my held breath will tell the world all the ways she was
the prize
I sold a bunkbed on Craigslist today and
when the grandmother came to pick it up
she told me about how the system had
taken her grandchildren
from their parents’
poverty
and paid
another family
for their care
how she’d fought to regain
them
to retain them
to house them
and to create safety
for them in what
turns out to be a very unsafe world
especially for bodies that
are brown or black or dark or big or small or
so I gave away a bunkbed today
and with it
a box of Legos a few old shirts
some Crayola markers
some kind words and
not enough
someone asked me if I believed in
attractiveness privilege
like
when things come easy because
you have been called traditionally beautiful
girl next door
all your life
and I think that I have always been
on the cusp of “Grab her by the pussy”able
and I wonder if that has done me better
or worse
if that is a prize or
I keep thinking of all of the times I was asked to be quiet
in a boardroom
and the times when my ideas were repeated
as if they were a man’s own
and then I think
at least I got a seat at the table
in that boardroom
as a woman
and then I think
that’s a horribly fucked up way
to think
about my right
and my worth
is that the prize?
as a teenage mother in the foodstamps
line I never once worried
that my children would be taken
away
hear this
as a teenage mother in the
poverty line
I never worried once
that my children would be taken
away
there is enough money in my bank account now to
feed my children
and line my eyes
to gift a bunkbed to someone in need
there is not enough money in my bank account to
speak up in anger
when my own words
are repeated back to me
is that the prize?
Natalie LaFrance-Slack
has her father’s smile. She carries her mother’s laugh and loss around her eyes. She is a sister to many; a long time lover. With her three teenage sons, Natalie can often be lost in the woods, driving narrow highways, or finding live music in little towns with one stoplight. A child of repressive religiosity, she finds beauty in writing her way out of the walls she was told would contain her.