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Poetry Winter 2013    fiction    all issues

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Alysse Kathleen McCanna
Pentimento
& other poems

Peter Nash
Shooting Star
& other poems

Katherine Smith
House of Cards
& other poems

David Sloan
On the Rocks
& other poems

Alexandra Smyth
Exoskeleton Blues
& other poems

John Glowney
The Bus Stop Outside Ajax Bail Bonds
& other poems

Andrea Jurjević O’Rourke
It Was a Large Wardrobe...
& other poems

Lisa DeSiro
Babel Tree
& other poems

Michael Fleming
Reptiles
& other poems

Michael Berkowitz
As regards the tattoo on your wrist
& other poems

Michael Brokos
Landscape without Rest
& other poems

Michael H. Lythgoe
Orpheus In Asheville
& other poems

John Wentworth
morning people
& other poems

Christopher Jelley
Double Exposure
& other poems

Catherine Dierker
dinner party
& other poems

William Doreski
Hate the Sinner, Not the Sin
& other poems

Robert Barasch
Loons
& other poems

Rande Mack
bear
& other poems

Susan Marie Powers
Red Bird
& other poems

Anne Graue
Sky
& other poems

Mariah Blankenship
Tub Restoration
& other poems

Paul R. Davis
Landscape
& other poems

Philip Jackey
Garage drinking after 1989
& other poems

Karen Hoy
A Naturalist in New York
& other poems

Gary Sokolow
Underworld Goddess
& other poems

Michal Mechlovitz
The Early
& other poems

Henry Graziano
Last Apple
& other poems

Stephanie L. Harper
Unvoiced
& other poems

Roger Desy
anhinga
& other poems

R. G. Evans
Hangoverman
& other poems

Frederick L. Shiels
Driving Past the Oliver House
& other poems

Richard Sime
Berry Eater
& other poems

Jennifer Popoli
Generations in a wine dark sea
& other poems

Christopher Jelley

Double Exposure

Dad rattles into the family room,

groans down in his big yellow chair.

Trying to focus warped vision on the album,

he puzzles over the faces.


Our first time canoeing through Bull Sluice:

   we broke a paddle, nearly wrapped the boat,

   rammed the bank, snagged roots.

   We both nursed an ice-cold Murphy’s stout.

   Dad, all smiles, pointing to his beer, me dripping dry

   in a spring sun that set almost forty years ago.


A camera flash:

I’m an old man in a new photograph.



Love and Waffle Fries

We rehearse The Tempest,

conjure fresh magic

from five hundred year old prose.

Reciting our lines into a mantra,

more than mere meter and verse,

an ancient incantation,

a transmutation of flesh—

we are Miranda and Ferdinand.

Two sparks fanned into an inferno,

hormones racing at light speed,

devouring the last of childhood,

unstoppable.


You are the girl with a half-pulled

zipper on her bedroom ceiling.

One side of the painting a gold

stripe running from the edge of the wall

to the center of the room, a detailed

rendition. From here the mural

opens to reveal a wedge of jet-black

sky filled with glow-in-the-dark planets,

whirling galaxies, shooting stars.

As with most art, and with all girls,


I’m not sure what to think.

The mural poses several questions,

although for a teenage boy,

only one question matters—

is that zipper half open?



Nick’s

I.


A last game break cracks,

squeaking chalk pivots

on custom pool sticks.


Stripe and solid scatter,

race for soft edges, batter

each other’s tangents,

bump cushion,

slow-roll

stop.


One player props against a stool,

re-lights a Marlboro.


Another coolly stalks the green slate field,

calling his next best shot.


In a corner, a couple seeks distance.

She sits erect listening, staring

at the floor. He sidles into her gaze, reaching

for her shoulder, she jerks away—two hearts

in a Gordian knot.


Co-eds help a birthday friend giggle home.

Their waitress fills a tray with empty bottles,

(one stuffed with a carefully peeled label),

wipes her once white rag across the tabletop,

pockets the ten—hard-won milk-money.


A Miller man sits at the bar sweet-talking

the dirty ash tray, picks at a half-dozen cold

hot wings. Across the thin room, a plain woman

locks his copper eyes—smiles him over


for a few quick shots. He holds open

her black leather coat—

they trickle toward the side door.


Santana wails, in stereo:

. . . tryin’ to make a devil out of me.


II.


Under a fog comforter

good mornings are exchanged

in half-tone light.


Fingers grope

a plastic coffee spoon,

double-sweeten instant.


Nothing is promised, nor expected.

I fasten an out-of-town tie,

snick the door locked.


Outside, two tentative song birds

call mates. A neon sign buzzes:

vacancy.


Christopher Jelley was born in Welwyn Garden City, England. Emigrating to Atlanta in 1968, he studied journalism at Georgia State University. Jelley has written scripts for instructional and travel videos, and commercials. His work most recently appeared in The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume V: Georgia.

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