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
Cassandra Sanborn
Remnants
Remember July rains, me in the gold poncho
you uncovered,
pale hair stuck to the side of your face.
We ran.
Water dripped down your legs
and the man sweeping the street
dug gold leaves from the grate
covered in that fake rust.
They had dusted the street in soap,
pale imitation of snow.
The remnants rose up,
filled the streets with white foam
that lasted until we touched it—
until it remembered
it was always supposed to be temporary.
Lightning cut,
peeling back the night
as if anyone with a ladder
could step up,
hold the rough edge of a cloud,
step through the bright gap
up past the sky.
And I remembered
we never had finished
that conversation about hell,
when you asked
if burning was just an easy way to disappear
and I said I thought hell was like this:
loving something, perhaps,
the way I love you—
moss on the bottom of a planter in November,
last tomato on the vine.
The World Was Supposed to Be
The world was supposed to be
bigger than this—
my mother’s blue yarn around my neck,
light around my nose,
dark around my mouth,
too thick around the dark skin of veins.
Or maybe I should say
my world was supposed to be
more than rusty yarn around my head,
covering my ears.
The world was supposed to give me white curtains
against a pale green windowsill.
Small fingerprints
smudged on insulated glass.
And light—
light through the window
not one shaft,
straight,
alone.
Enough light
to fill a room,
enough
to make white carpet warm.
The world was supposed
to give me days like this:
lying on the hood of Shawn’s car,
his fingerprints
and the outline of my hair
in the layer of construction dust.
Tracing trees in the dirt
as if drawing a thing
could make it real,
as if the oil on my skin
could make all this last.
My mother once told me God holds the world in His hands
I asked her if it got heavy.
She leaned over,
sweat a thin,
gleaming line on her back,
plucked a dandelion
from the overgrown patch in our front yard.
She gave it to me, said
it grows and dies right here
a whole life
and you
barely feel it.
It was soft against the skin of my palm.
I pulled a white seed from its head,
watched it float down,
disappear into the grass:
I asked her
what happens if He drops it?
She laughed
then threw my flower
in the compost heap
with its younger lives:
still yellow,
seeds not ready to separate.
When she went inside I saved them,
laid them in my orange wagon,
dragged it behind me,
right wheel squeaking.
I dropped them in my neighbors’ yards,
two blooms each.
I am a good god I said,
as they fell:
stems arching toward the ground.
The petals, heavier,
always touched the earth first.
My stars against a green sky.
My hands were stained
for days.
Hands
Kate says,
write about your uncertainty.
Write about the wilderness
as if you are an Israelite in the desert,
as if you are hungry
and your food is monotonous.
I tell her I am writing about
the future of my life in the workforce.
A desk with two broken drawers,
the smear on my window where I killed a fruit fly,
my blue lamp.
But really, I will write about my hands—
the right one, especially.
How they betray me, wrists to fingernails,
when it is cold.
How my wrists ache,
how my ring fingers swell,
turn white, stiff.
How the bones in my right hand crackle
when I make a fist.
How the doctor says, well, it could
be your mother’s arthritis
or your father’s bad joints.
Or circulation, or some kind of bone disease—
but before I panic
just wait
and wear gloves.
She says, you’re young.
(My body was supposed to be certain.)
Probably nothing.
I try not to think
about blood vessels constricting,
bones rubbing together,
all that cushion dissolved.
Old Grief is the Rusty Padlock on My Parents’ Toolshed
it won’t close
but we wedge it around the handle
so everyone passing by will believe
we know something
about security.
Cassandra Sanborn
earned her BA in Creative Writing from Purdue University. Though most of the writing she does now is for her job—she is the Grants Coordinator at a nonprofit in Indianapolis, Indiana—she continues to write poetry and fiction in her spare time.