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
Heather Erin Herbert
Georgia’s Advent
We laughed about it two years back
when I first saw cotton, white hot in the field.
Cicadas were sizzling in August heat
as my heart jumped up at blankets of snow.
I drove my car off the backwoods road
to find my thrill melted in heatstroke air.
You thumped the table with your hand, Philly-boy,
when I told you what I thought I’d seen,
belched over your Coke can, winking and teasing:
How’d you get mixed up between snow and cotton?
Such a Northern-girl, you know you’re in Georgia?
We need to get you out for a change.
In fall, I drive us out past the fields.
We sing together, you’re tuneless but joyful.
It’s four o’clock, florid, last sky-blues, gold.
We talk about hometowns, how down south is different,
share coffee and stories,
the pink sun in my mirrors.
My nails turn wood-smoke grey on the wheel,
I pull my sleeves down at the end of our songs.
You point at cotton through shadows of pecans,
then smile at me, saying: It looks just like our snow.
Looks almost like Christmas.
It looks almost like home.
That Old Spark
That first time, lightning hit the tallest pine tree,
the one I could see from school
and say, “That one is mine.”
The charge ran from branch to roof to wire.
A long blue spark shot out at my feet,
leaving a dark scar on the hardwood.
My mother threw us in the car, and
begged us not to touch its metal sides.
We watched firemen come
to cut smoldering plaster from the walls.
The second time, we woke, the four of us,
and watched the night scud over with clouds
from the opening in our platform tent.
We rubbed our arms, asking each other,
“Are you cold? I have goose bumps.”
As fine hairs stood on our cheeks
the world exploded over us, steaming,
flying, hot shards of wood,
the least of our problems, really,
as half the tree landed across our canvas.
The third time, days later, we ran for cover
down the side of a New York mountain.
Over tree roots, over rock bridges,
through curved dirt sluiceways,
shortly to be filled with water.
The last gasp dash across the open field.
We ran, one at a time. Young, fast, lithe,
my turn came, and the jolt gave me wings,
throwing me from the charred circle that
washed from the grass as I shook myself.
The fourth time, that same field, a week later.
They say that lightning doesn’t strike
the same place twice. They’re wrong.
The fifth time, watching flashing night from the kitchen,
my two eldest children eating dinner beside me.
I counted the space between lightning and thunder,
adrenaline and safety,
until there wasn’t time between them to count.
The oven screamed that its circuits were cooked,
well done, while the house suddenly heaved
back to purring life, and light. My youngest slept on,
still sprawled across the oak floor
where Sesame Street had left her.
The sixth time I said it wasn’t that bad,
and slipped my sandals into my fist
so I could run through the rain in bare feet.
As I stood outside the store I twisted my bags
closed, pulled my bra in place, took my glasses off,
and raised one foot,
as lightning shattered the sign above my head.
And I dove inside, the dark shop loud with voices,
apologizing to the clerk next to me. “My bad,”
I said, “that was probably my fault.”
The seventh time happens on nights I sleep
without the covers, and in the nude.
I maintain it’s the goose bumps on my back
that start my old dream reel flickering.
Hairs stand up, and my body knows
that my bright friend has come to visit.
I’ve died so many times in bed.
My husband thinks I’m always cold,
blankets to my chin, even in summer,
but it’s because in my dreams, I want to live.
Bittersweet
For years
I’ve said I could give my heart
to a man who gave me a box of crayons.
There’s something precious
about ninety-six
clean blooms of color,
in bouquets of violet
and leaf green.
And for years I waited.
He gave a gold ring
that I paid for, a little,
which broke in our fifth year.
He gave cups of umber tea.
Gave me five children,
three of whom lived, beautiful,
with deep cornflower eyes
and carnation cheeks.
He gave a brick red house to hold me still,
and palettes of laundry
in a never-ending landscape
of sky blues and pinks.
But with all these things,
I wanted crayons, the waxy,
sour scent of a new fall,
a new page, a new start,
fresh and bright as the first day of school.
Burnt sienna and mahogany,
orange and scarlet,
a blaze of potential
rolling in my palm.
And this year,
my eldest daughter,
with a new woman-smile
gave me a brown paper bag
and said not to look, but
just smell it.
I inhaled,
and the colors poured back in me.
A native of Rochester, New York, Heather Erin Herbert
lives in Atlanta with her children and husband, where they spend the summer trying to avoid bursting into flame. Currently working on her MA English at Valdosta State University, Heather works in a college writing center and likes to spend her few free seconds per semester reading, knitting, and consuming improbable amounts of coffee. She has no idea where she found time to write these poems.