Poetry Winter 2014 fiction all issues
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Debbra Palmer
Bake Sale
& other poems
Ann V. DeVilbiss
Far Away, Like a Mirror
& other poems
Michael Fleming
On the Bus
& other poems
Harold Schumacher
Dying To Say It
& other poems
Heather Erin Herbert
Georgia’s Advent
& other poems
Sharron Singleton
Sonnet for Small Rip-Rap
& other poems
Bryce Emley
College Beer
& other poems
Harry Bauld
On a Napkin
& other poems
George Mathon
Do You See Me Waving?
& other poems
Mariana Weisler
Soft Soap and Wishful Thinking
& other poems
Michael Kramer
Nighthawks, Kaua’i
& other poems
Jill Murphy
Migration
& other poems
Cassandra Sanborn
Remnants
& other poems
Kendall Grant
Winter Love Note
& other poems
Donna French McArdle
White Blossoms at Night
& other poems
Tom Freeman
On Foot, Joliet, Illinois
& other poems
George Longenecker
Nest
& other poems
Kimberly Sailor
The Bitter Daughter
& other poems
Rebecca Irene
Woodpecker
& other poems
Savannah Grant
And Not As Shame
& other poems
Michael Hugh Lythgoe
Titian Left No Paper Trail
& other poems
Martin Conte
We’re Not There
& other poems
A. Sgroi
Sore Soles
& other poems
Miguel Coronado
Body-Poem
& other poems
Franklin Zawacki
Experience Before Memory
& other poems
Tracy Pitts
Stroke
& other poems
Rachel A. Girty
Collapse
& other poems
Ryan Flores
Language Without Lies
& other poems
Margie Curcio
Gravity
& other poems
Stephanie L. Harper
Painted Chickens
& other poems
Nicholas Petrone
Running Out of Space
& other poems
Danielle C. Robinson
A Taste of Family Business
& other poems
Meghan Kemp-Gee
A Rhyme Scheme
& other poems
Tania Brown
On Weeknights
& other poems
James Ph. Kotsybar
Unmeasured
& other poems
Matthew Scampoli
Paddle Ball
& other poems
Jamie Ross
Not Exactly
& other poems
Tania Brown
On Weeknights
On weeknights, she
painstakingly applies lipstick, a
paint-the-numbers exercise where she
does her best to
stay in the lines and
not stain her teeth with
tell-tale red; she
steadies her hand as
the mascara wand,
a fairy godmother in a tube,
plumps and
makes appear
what wasn’t there before.
She squeezes her feet into heels and
wobbles like a bell
chiming the appropriate hour in
her knee length skirt.
“Let’s go for a walk,”
she tells the dog, who
plays his part well by
always being ready at the door.
She strolls down the street,
summoning her best impersonation of
someone put together,
not falling apart
at the seams.
On weekends, she
stays home in his old clothes, her
knees peeking through
holes worn by time, and
watches movies,
lips whispering lines that
remind her of him, as
the dog waits for
another weeknight.
Slice of Life
Frozen:
a slice of life extracted,
permafrost edging in,
tainting the feigned perfection
of a memory
carefully preserved in microscopic detail
to show what he wanted
and not what was.
Burn Me Clean
I poke at the bloody hole,
ragged edges stinging,
feel around the space where you were—
the way you filled me up and
still left me wanting,
the way you ripped me open so
I could never be whole again.
It’s funny now—
in that soul-crushing way which is
never actually funny but
we say “funny” because
who really wants to think about
the pain we’re obscuring—
funny how
you were a security blanket, a
safe haven for my worried heart,
for my mind that never stopped
firing on all cylinders,
until it did, and
now it just fires on one:
you.
Funny how you were,
then in one decisive moment,
you decided you weren’t, and
who was I to say that
you’d gotten it wrong?
That you’d always be,
even when you were no longer.
You were
your favorite shirt,
the one I’ll never return,
because dammit,
it looks good on me, and
every time I wear it
I catch that sweet scent and
my head is filled with you,
buttoned up in the softest flannel as
you lift another box
higher than I can reach,
always willing to do those little things that
made my life easier,
until you weren’t.
I’m not sure how so much of you
fit in that hole,
how I packed away
even the tiniest pieces—
your smirk, the crinkle of your eye,
your general nonchalance,
your affinity towards devil’s advocacy—but
unpacking it has been even harder.
I light the match,
my flicker of hope,
press it to the flesh,
cauterize and sear,
burn myself clean so
I can move forward without you.
Melody
The way we danced—
leaves on a breeze,
a whirlwind of autumn,
taken by the song
only we could hear—
failed to wake the dead,
and they remained
beneath our feet,
tucked safely
in their graves.
I Am
I am my mother when,
exhausted at the end of the night,
I scrub with all my might to
scrape the dredges of the evening meal from
the bottom of the flame-licked pot,
unable to sleep while
it sits in the sink.
I am my father when,
wishing to be alone with a
book and a candle at a dinner party,
I manage to spin tales of
past exploits
that paint a different picture than
the one in my mind.
I am myself when,
eyes closed,
sitting on the couch, I
contemplate the things I
like and dislike about
the person I’ve become and
weigh them against the
notion of the person I’d
like to be and
the person I once was,
wondering why the tally
never seems to come out quite right.
Tania Brown
is a poet who enjoys focusing on the depth and shallowness of the human landscape. She’s worked as a social worker, retail manager, and freelance editor, all while soaking in the rich, urban experiences of Philadelphia. Tania aspires to be a renaissance woman and hopes that ingesting enough books will get her there. In her free time, she enjoys snapping slices of life and nature in pictures, knitting, and watching Doctor Who.