Poetry Winter 2015 fiction all issues
whitespacefiller
Cover Peter Rawlings
J. H Yun
Yesenia
& other poems
Colby Hansen
Killing Jar #37
& other poems
Melissa Bond
Freud's Asparagus
& other poems
Jane Schulman
When Krupa Played Those Drums
& other poems
Susan F. Glassmeyer
First Moon of a Blue Moon Month
& other poems
Melissa Tyndall
Haptics
& other poems
Micah Chatterton
Medicine
& other poems
Emily Graf
Toolbox
& other poems
Kate Magill
LV Winter, 2015
& other poems
Michael Fleming
Meeting Mrs. Ping
& other poems
Richard Parisio
Brown Creeper
& other poems
Jennifer Leigh Stevenson
Circe in Business
& other poems
Laurel Eshelman
Tuckpointing
& other poems
Barry W. North
Molotov Cocktail of the Deep South
& other poems
Charles C. Childers
Privilege
& other poems
Ricky Ray
A Way to Work
& other poems
Cassandra Sanborn
Revelation
& other poems
Linda Sonia Miller
Full Circle
& other poems
J. Lee Strickland
Anna's Plague
& other poems
Erin Dorso
In the Kitchen
& other poems
Holly Lyn Walrath
Behind the Glass
& other poems
Jeff Lewis
Charles Ives, A Connecticut Yankee
& other poems
Karen Kraco
Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill
& other poems
Rafael Miguel Montes
Casket
& other poems
Laurel Eshelman
Tuckpointing
The Virgin Mary up at St. Mary’s is wrapped in a drop cloth
the color of stone. It is pulled over her face,
drawn down around shoulders to her feet, the corners seized
and tied in a bunched knot across her waist.
She is mute, visionless in the blankness of sacking, muffled
from sparrow calls in the cedars.
No eye may look upon her.
In a week her son sets his sights
on the city, dashes in with the crowd
and no caution. In two he is
besieged and bared.
March snow weighs Mary’s wrappings down
upon her. The shroud sags—
her right hand, pale stone appears,
three fingers raised against shadows.
Her staying power pierces like a sword, the fibers darken
over her breast. Snow splays
across her naked toes—
a white dove
shelters there.
Home Game
A winter rain pounds the roof
like the clamor at a home game
when the basketball is stolen,
dribbled downcourt and launched
on a long smooth arc.
As night gives in and ice lies down
the crowd hushes and awaits the ball’s descent—
by midday the siren at the volunteer fire station wails.
The township maintenance guy slides the alley,
mechanics from the garage sprint the highway,
boys we shouted for in the old gym as they set up the play,
lofted the risky three-pointer.
They rev fire trucks to the curve beyond the ridge
while they gear up, readying to ply deliverance.
The memory of feet stomping wooden bleachers
in the stifling gymnasium embraces those shivering
on the shoulder.
—it rushes the hoop
and swishes,
the crowd rises,
their voices hoarse
with praise.
Outpatient
She lies on the table.
They slather her with gel,
slide the ultrasound wand
over every contour line of her breast,
then prod.
She remembers her morning walk,
the dark calves being driven off,
the hot scent of hair and hide
rising off the confined cattle.
It rises from her memory now and permeates
the room.
A needle pierces her breast,
her gown slips off,
the cows bellow and her sweaty fingers
grip the table.
On the drive home,
the hills embroidered gold
with mown and baled hay
prick her eyes.
She hears the calves—
they are bawling now.
You Call Me to Jump
You call me to jump into a pool.
The water is dark. It looks deep.
I do not recognize the place.
Kids swim and flail,
ducklings without instinct,
some drop below the surface.
My day grows short. I hear your voice
and I hear a six-year-old yelling at me—
Auntie, help, I need help.
I push the kindergartener
up the hill on his bike
and listen to his non-stop shouts—
Look, I can ride a bike.
Can I push up my sleeves,
lift my skirt
and jump in?
Here I am,
hitting the cold surface.
Keep calling.
I need to hear your voice.
Laurel Eshelman
writes from Elizabeth, Illinois, population 700, and works a few blocks from home at the family business, Eshelman Pottery. Her chapbook, The Red Mercy, was a semi-finalist in the 2014 Palettes and Quills Chapbook Contest. Laurel’s poems and essays have appeared in her chapbook, The Scale of Things, in Love from Galena, The Phoenix Soul, Sweet & Saucy and The Prairie Wind.