Poetry Winter 2016 fiction all issues
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Cover Joel Filipe
Alexander McCoy
Questions to Ask a Mountain
& other poems
Alexandra Kamerling
Prairie
& other poems
Debbie Hall
She Walks Into Starbucks Carrying a 2 x 4
& other poems
Michael Fleming
Patience
& other poems
Jim Pascual Agustin
Sheet and Exposed Feet
& other poems
Melissa Cantrell
Collision
& other poems
Martin Conte
Skin
& other poems
AJ Powell
The Road to Homer
& other poems
Paul W. Child
World Diverted
& other poems
Michael Eaton
Remembrances
& other poems
Lawrence Hayes
Walking the Earth
& other poems
Daniel Sinderson
Like a Bit of Harp and a Far Off Twinkle
& other poems
Sam Hersh
Las Trampas
& other poems
Margo Jodyne Dills
Babies and Young Lovers
& other poems
Nicole Anania
To the Dying Man's Daughter
& other poems
Lisa Zou
Under the Parlor
& other poems
Hazel Kight Witham
Hoofbeat Heartbeat
& other poems
Margaret Dawson
Daylily
& other poems
James Wolf
An Act of Kindness
& other poems
Jane A. Horvat
Psychedelic
& other poems
Bill Newby
Touring
& other poems
Jennifer Sclafani
Hindsight Twenty Twenty
& other poems
Jennifer Sclafani
This Is How Dreams Start
Without a proper beginning.
no curtain, no applause:
At a kitchen table, a father and son are arguing.
“How much does it cost?” the father asks.
Papa, we will not barter.
We will pay the rate like normal people.
“Normal people get the best value,” the father replies.
“Only a fool accepts the first price.”
In a bedroom, a wife nudges her husband.
“Turn on your side,” she groans.
“I can’t sleep while you snore.”
Sleep on the couch, then.
I can’t dream while I’m awake.
In a field, a bird catches the worm.
“Bring it home,” I tell her.
“Your babies are hungry.”
The bird doesn’t respond—
she takes flight
and I soar
by her side
into the sky
anxious to see
those tiny swallows—
Until my wingless body
catches up with my
weightless dream
and brings an end
to that which never began.
Speak Volumes
The words come to us
shouted by birds:
buzzards
not finches—
amplitudes
in feet
not
inches.
Mating calls hunt
primal fears
and
swallow
them
up
whole
then spit them out
into thin air,
vapor to smog,
dream
to
dust
like a silence that deafens the senses,
like the flutter of the monarch butterfly.
Hindsight Twenty Twenty
Was I a better teacher
when I couldn’t tell the truth?
Was I a better lover
when I couldn’t fall in love?
What did I do to earn the love
that made us one of two?
What must I undo to become
a mother for all of you?
The children sleep. I can tell:
their eyes, mouths, breath, heat.
They dream of dragons and octopus
and race cars chase their spindly legs
around their school yard world.
They wake me
after midnight
before my alarm:
I want to cuddle.
Without my glasses
I cannot see
where
the bed ends and where
the nightstand
begins or where my
glasses rest—
for only they rest tonight—
or whether they
are weeping
or giggling.
Never mind.
Come to bed.
How dare I waste these
wee hours?
What will I do
when I awake
from this day
dream
of you?
Mot Juste
To write in my native language,
If only I could remember what that was:
Vowels that floated fluidly, before I learned
Enunciation.
Sonorants that straddled song, before I learned
Distinction.
Words that were all mine, until I was given the
Right Words.
Simple truths I told, before I masked them in
Metaphor.
My voice, before the audience arrived:
Was it sweet or somber
full of wonder or worry
of the raven or the wren?
Courage in finding a voice,
or courage to look for sense
in the cacophony of the voices?
The fire from above and the fire from below
And the poem lies somewhere in between.
Jennifer Sclafani
is a sociolinguist who teaches at Georgetown University and conducts research on language, culture, politics, and gender. Her nonfiction has appeared in Scientific American, Journal of Sociolinguistics, and Language in Society. She is currently writing a book on the language of recent US presidential campaigns (Routledge, 2017). She lives in Virginia with her husband and twin daughters. This is her first poetry publication.