Poetry Winter 2014 fiction all issues
whitespacefiller
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
Jill Murphy
Migration
Cockroaches would crawl
from the space
between her teeth
while no one was looking.
Their glistening shells
would slip through her full-bloom
lips, one after another,
till her sallow skin was on the verge
of disappearing beneath
their insectuous migration.
In the next room, my father
stood on a balance beam. He
was a temple there, a house of cards.
He was a window covered
in moths vying for the glow
of my mother porch light. We couldn’t
touch her, just follow
her through the house, sweeping
up those thorned legs and dried
wings as bees colonized her
lungs and cicadas groaned
in her stomach.
Reaping
How do they communicate?
In circles.
How do they make love?
Separately. How does she touch
him? Sometimes she holds him
like the wheat scrapes
against the sky. Somewhere in Middle
America a field moves all at once,
though the blades are lonely. The sky asks
the grain to not make a big deal
out of it. The sky tells the grain it’s not just about
showing up.
He did his panic-research on her
body, listened for the crickets in her gut
but rolled his eyes every time she complained
of pain. Says he is familiar
with the cicadas in her skull
like he knows the sound of blood
being drawn. Can he remember how brave
she was that afternoon, lying
on the cutting board?
The sky feels right
to the grain, but does it matter?
The blight will come anyway.
The wheat holds up the sky.
Kitchens
I
Do we recycle
these feelings that stick
like oblong stains
on the countertop,
like little pieces
of butter smeared
on the cutting board, like
she clings to every kitchen
she’s ever lived in? The drain
collects bits of egg shell
3 days rotten, while she dreams
of sticking her hand down
the garbage disposal, while
the cat paces nervously, trailing
tufts of loose fur
along the windowsill wanting
for the cat in the alley, just as the girl
wants for the kitchen
of her childhood.
II
Our shoes peel off
the floorboards in dried
juice and beer.
We hear the fruit flies’ lovemaking
as they dive in and out
of the bottles on the counter
in the honey light.
III
The spaces I occupy get smaller
as I get older. I have
become less than bones.
He left in the night and took the olive
oil, the butter, left some ice packs in the freezer
and some blackened bok choy on the bottom
shelf. He left a silence
as insatiable as rust.
The negative space of hunger
filled the time we could have spent
loving each other.
For the next two weeks the only
thing that could be found in the ice
box was a fast-waning handle of honey
whiskey. I gained weight
and wisdom in the wrong
places.
Jill Murphy
is a writer living in Portland, Oregon.