Poetry Winter 2017 fiction all issues
whitespacefiller
Cover Thought-Forms
Laura Apol
On My Fiftieth Birthday I Return
& other poems
Jihyun Yun
Aubade
& other poems
Jamie Ross
Red Jetta
& other poems
Sarah Blanchard
Carolina Clay
& other poems
lauren a. boisvert
Save a Seat for Me in the Void
& other poems
Faith Shearin
A Pirate at Midlife
& other poems
Helen Yeoman-Shaw
Calling Long Distance
& other poems
Sarah B. Sullivan
Iris
& other poems
Timothy Walsh
Metro Messenger
& other poems
Gabriel Spera
Scratch
& other poems
Zoë Harrison
Pattee Creek
& other poems
AJ Powell
Blanket
& other poems
Alexa Poteet
The Man Who Got off the Train Between Madrid and Valencia
& other poems
Marcie McGuire
Still Birth
& other poems
Kim Drew Wright
Elephants Standing
& other poems
Michael Jenkins
The Garden Next Door
& other poems
Nicky Nicholson-Klingerman
Costume
& other poems
Doni Faber
Man Moth
& other poems
M. Underwood
In Other Words
& other poems
Carson Pynes
Diet Coke
& other poems
Bucky Ignatius
Something Old, . . .
& other poems
Violet Mitchell
Deleting Emails the Week After Kevin Died
& other poems
Sam Collier
Nocturne in an Empty Sea
& other poems
Meryl Natchez
Equivocal Activist
& other poems
William Godbey
A Corn Field in Los Angeles
& other poems
Michael Jenkins
Namaste
If when I
make of my
hands a temple
you’re thinking gentle
palm to palm
to open heart
showing in part
how in you I
see the divine
know my bodymind
is posed sometimes
behind the symbol
my focus going
from feeling touched
to wanting to.
Among Birdsong and Bee Hum
1.
Now that I’m less
should I say desperate
to populate the planet
I’m better able to detect
that feminine animal signal
once lost in the static
back when I dialed
with the rubber end
of a blunt-tipped pencil
the late night AM
radio request line
clueless what to ask for
my numb ear cupped
to the plastic receiver’s
busy busy busy song
while south of town
on a guy-wired tower
a red beacon pulsed
in a code I felt
I alone was tuned to
urging me on and on and
2.
on the subject of her
blouse if you’ll allow
it was doing its duty
to conceal and reveal
as any magician knows
the breathless audience wants
and with a flourish of fabric
floral and lavender and sheer
as the bounty of iris around us
feathering and filtering the light
floating over the garden’s
dark saber-shaped leaves
thrust up like some threat
as if spring were all conquest
or anything less than delights
and shadows at weightless play
among birdsong and bee hum
as petals unbutton themselves
3.
which begs the question why
man ever averted his eyes
to search among the stars
when the gods were burning
here in broad daylight
in the steam off her coffee
her eyes flashing bright
as the green-backed beetle
in the beak of the crow
who nodded and let go
from atop the half fence
a laugh so fresh and raw
I swear I couldn’t tell
if I’d been freed
or I’d been caught.
The Garden Next Door
I make up for my ordinary good morning
by praising her peonies.
She makes up for her grass green eyes
by casting them down as if she’s shy.
I make up for the half fence between us
by half-leaning into it.
She makes up for no makeup
by letting her freckles shine.
I apologize for ivy on her side.
She admits she’s over-fertilized.
The mind has a mind of its own sometimes.
You can’t make up for that.
Not in the way she makes up for her blouse
by wearing no bra.
Nor how my hand has smudged
a pledge on my polyester heart.
But she makes up for my marital status
with her marital status.
Honeysuckle writes in the lattice
its own tangled story.
We make up for what we don’t say
by what we don’t say.
Michael Jenkins
is a homemaker and part-time psychometrics technician whose poems have appeared in Shenandoah, Salamander, Redivider, and other literary journals.