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
Holly York
Chef
What I never told you is that
I really don’t like fried chicken.
I was lucky, everyone said so,
to have you to feed me on recipes
you researched to find the ideal
scientific preparation for each
new dish: Beef Wellington, rosemary-scented
sweet corn, Peking Duck, quenelles de brochet.
You would pronounce them all tasteless while I
couldn’t conceal my delight. But your true
intent was to discover your Southern
mother’s secret chicken, brined, battered,
crisped in a tsunami of molten Crisco.
Your sky-hued eyes smiled as you announced it
as the evening menu. Jaw clenched, I would fork
a wing and push the small bones around my plate,
hoping you wouldn’t notice.
The Garden
Vines choke every corner:
wisteria, English ivy, thorny
greenbrier, Virginia creeper.
Some can’t be pulled up.
Draping stems drag down,
strangle all they grasp to stasis
in their ropy race to block the light.
We both knew why you didn’t take the meds
per script—not for lack of pain—instead to hoard
a stash for when it all became too much.
It all became too much. Another fall—
you said I’m done. I talked you out of it
that day but didn’t hide those pills.
Menu
The fruiting body erupts, grown
from rot within the earth.
Mea culpas spring from rot
within the soul, digest
the dead and mushroom forth.
You always said only half in jest
that you wanted to be laid to rest
in the woods, a banquet for creatures,
exposure as celebration.
You, who found so little pleasure
otherwise, those later years, loved
cooking for us as we sat around
a single table, “like a big
Italian family,” you said,
though we weren’t.
No exposure in the woods but your ashes
planted in the church garden
will nourish mushrooms after all.
Still, when I reach for the leash
seventy pounds of raw exuberance
pound down in a sharp-clawed play
to land on the top of my bare right foot,
fine bones and tender skin. I
hop around on the other foot—I curse
and howl, but you are no longer here
to laugh. Walk completed, the dog
bounds on to whatever’s next,
looks for you,
leaves me alone
and scraped.
Finally, I Sold His Car
Radio tuned to NPR
parking pass still on the dash
tennis ball to massage his aching back
water bottle in the cupholder
in the trunk, biking shoes no longer used
navy blue sport coat, folded, in its pocket
a “note to self” about some chocolates
he planned to buy for me.
Holly York
is Senior Lecturer Emerita of French at Emory University. Her poems appear in Crosswinds and in online journals in the U.S. and U.K. Her chapbooks are: “Backwards Through the Rekroy Wen,” “Picture This” and “Postcard Poems.” Her current project is a collection titled Flight Recorder, based on her life as a Pan Am stewardess in the 1970s. A blackbelt in karate and grandmother of five, she lives in Atlanta with her two Dobermans.