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
Winner of $50 for 3rd-place-voted Poems
Michael FlemingOn the Bus
Life into legend, legend into life—
I once was you, Alex Supertramp—fresh
out of school, half nuts, no money, no wife,
no work, no matter. The sins of the flesh
were behind me, beneath me, beyond me.
Another self-inventing dharma bum
on the road to anywhere, off to see
the elephants, bound for glory. And from
such dry, dreary soil I’d sprung—I was you,
Alex—naked in my cast-off clothes, so
full of myself, so empty, just a few
well-tasted words were enough when the low
clouds to the west whispered, Get on the bus,
and I got on, and you got on—we wanted
more, magic, furthur, Alaska—I must
have crossed the river. But you? You were gone.
for Chris McCandless
Paging Doctor Bebop
The good doctor, he knows all that book stuff—
the flatted fifth, Italian baroque—hell,
he wrote the book, and that would be enough
if books were enough, but he won’t just sell
you on the art of listening, he’ll give
you the real medicine, body and soul—
the silver horn, the music that you live
for, music that you die for, that the whole
world needs to hear, now—the clickity klack
of time on the rails, the spike in the blood
and the colors of sound. Where have you gone,
Doctor Bebop? And when will you be back?
Life’s so syncopated—starts and stops. Good
music, though—man, it just goes on and on
for Howie Brofsky
Mr. McPhee’s Class
Jouncing. Dolos. Craton. Words you serve like
oranges, unpeeling their sounds. We’re not just
horsing around in canoes, or hitchhiking
newly made reefs, measuring the crust
after the quake—we’re holding words to our
nostrils, inhaling, truly tasting them,
getting them down. Yes, we love this class. Our
urgently unhurried task: stratagem and
structure, a sense of where we are. You
model the hair shirts we’ll wear, naturalized
citizens of this country we’ve come into,
promising too much, eager but unwise,
hardly writers yet and our hearts don’t break
even when you tell us: keep squeezing, guys—
every good word takes as long as it takes.
for John McPhee
Attending
He loses every case—it’s hospice, he knows
that. Isn’t medicine supposed to mean
saving people, healing them, saying no
to death? The right technique, the right machine,
the right dosage—isn’t that what a doctor
should know? Coax fire from the spark of life—
is that what he should do? But no one walks
out of here. Nothing is fixed with a knife
in here. They’re goners—we all are. So when
did doctor stop meaning teacher—is that
where we went wrong? Best to call him attending
physician—here to bear witness. What
else can the white coat mean, if not surrender—
tending what is broken, what is not.
for Derek Kerr
The Audacity of the Jaguar
My world is not your world. Who was here first?
And who is the master? My amber eyes,
they’re voiceless mirrors—imagine the worst
of me, call me coward, devil, beast. Why
should I burden myself with your fears? You
peer into these eyes and see nothing that
you know beyond your own reflection. Who
are you now? My wanderings are no matter
of yours—if you gaze into my coat
of a thousand eyes, I melt into smoke,
into spirit, into memory. Go
to bed now, lie beside your wife. That low
cough—just her soft snoring? Sleep. Dream your dreams
of all that you will do with fences, fire—
your farm, your finca—oh, how it all seems
to be yours. And when you awaken, I
recede and I wait and I watch until
you send your shadow man. And I’ll remain
here, hidden, choosing what I want to kill.
Closer—I can bite you through to the brain.
for Alan Rabinowitz
Michael Fleming
was born in San Francisco, raised in Wyoming, and has lived and learned and worked all around the world, from Thailand and England and Swaziland to Berkeley, New York City, and now Brattleboro, Vermont. He’s been a teacher, a grad student, a carpenter, and always a writer; for the past decade he has edited literary anthologies for W. W. Norton. (You can see some of Fleming’s own writing at: www.dutchgirl.com/foxpaws.)