Poetry Winter 2015 fiction all issues
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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
Linda Sonia Miller
Eclipse
Last night, front lawn, the Dad stands
after arriving late from work at the E.R.
where he’s watched a thirteen year old girl
slip into a coma—and puts his arm
around the shoulders of his 12 year old
daughter, now as tall as he.
They stare into that starlit velvet dome
eyes on the moon slowly enveloped by earth’s
shadow, its fullness diminished, then enhanced
as it turns rusty brown then iridescent red
each shade, each change mysterious
the way earth’s perfect roundness eclipses
the moon’s until it vanishes
beneath this planet’s exact otherness
as though moon and earth were twins
or friends sharing a moment
as parent and daughter might share
some unspoken understanding perhaps
on a night like this, she still child enough
to love his company best, he still energized
after a long, tiring day by the presence
of his sylph-like daughter, who asked him
to wake her, hours past her bedtime, to witness
this transformation together.
Kaida Does The Stomp
“A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.”
—Sir Francis Bacon
Gray autumn day, sliver of sun, tennis court bestrewn:
leaves, puddles, abandoned toys. Playground bereft
of children but for the two-foot tall, fairy/elfin creature
in blue corduroy coat embroidered with flowers and owl,
feet in three-inch slippers, pink leather petals on each set of toes
—barely anchored to earth.
She pauses at a puddle, studies a floating spire, yellow trees
grizzled trunks, rhythmically stomps each small foot in turn,
ripples, unravels the scene, runs to the next puddle, pauses
stares, stomps again, a dance of sorts, puddle to puddle
across the court, oblivious of all but the mystery of a world
afloat, sound, feel of water splashing
until she reaches the net, raises that shabby curtain,
stagehand and star, crawls beneath, faces her audience
of one—and applauds herself.
Full Circle
(after the painting by Peter McCaffrey)
On new legs she stands, eyes wide
afraid—it’s the world after
that moist landscape, unremembered
mostly lost
before that other
muddled affair, kaleidoscopic
dark and bright
slowly coming into focus,
Timid, legs placed wide
for traction in this unfamiliar place
she glances back
and bleats
newly sprung from one unknown
to another, and much later
another still awaits her
but this time perhaps
she’ll be brave, replete
sweet hay, sun-drenched grassy plain
strong bovine body, calves of her own
that kept her warm.
Delivery
I stretch into the pose: inhale, exhale
bend, stretch
feel body and mind
attempt escape
morning news: six year old boy, hand broken
by his father’s torturer
two-thousand refugees trapped
in no-man’s land
my joints fight September’s chill
a phone call:
my mother tells me she cannot see
only blurs and memories
across the room, rope of sunlight
a bird appears, flutters
against the windowpane
as if trying to break in
disappears, re-appears from that blue-gold
high above the green
soars to a neighbor’s roof, a sign
above his side-door: Deliveries
descends, looks in at me again—beak and black-seed eyes
press against the pane
as if my small, constructed world
clapboard walls built long ago
promise permanence or safety, while I desire that vast blue
clouds wild, buoy of light:
ascend, descend, gold to green
and back again—Deliver Us I read
The Weight of Birds
(after the painting by Peter McCaffrey)
Even the soul
though beautiful
and weightless
is not free
except perhaps
in the warm womb
newly hatched
into otherness
but even then
tethered
by that blood-red thread
to history.
Everything tries
to hold us
though we emerge
complete
cut adrift
most ourselves
asleep or alone
in perfect stillness
as if perched on the shore
of a pond at dusk
to find one’s self
submerged
then afloat
finally
aloft.
Linda Sonia Miller
I have been a teacher of kindergarten and college students, teachers and incarcerated youth in Vermont, New York and Connecticut. My work has appeared in a variety of journals, and my chapbook Something Worth Diving For was published in 2012. I am inspired to write by the woods and mountains among which I live, the increasingly incomprehensible political landscape, and the revelations that come from a life spent among children.