Poetry Winter 2019 fiction all issues
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Cover Florian Klauer
Meli Broderick Eaton
Three Mississippi
& other poems
Andrea Reisenauer
What quiet ache do you wear?
& other poems
Alex Wasalinko
Two Dreams of Vegas
& other poems
AJ Powell
The Grammar Between Us
& other poems
Emma Flattery
Our Shared Jungle, Mr. Conrad
& other poems
Nathaniel Cairney
The Desert Cometh
& other poems
Sarah W. Bartlett
Unexpected
& other poems
Abigail F. Taylor
Jaybird by the Fence
& other poems
Brandon Hansen
Bradley
& other poems
Andy Kerstetter
The Inferno Lessons
& other poems
Michael Fleming
Space Walk
& other poems
Richard Cole
Perfect Corporations
& other poems
Susan Bouchard
Circus Performers
& other poems
Edward Garvey
Nine Songs of Love
& other poems
Mehrnaz Sokhansanj
Sea of Detachment
& other poems
Jeffrey Haskey-Valerius
Aftershock
& other poems
Claudia Skutar
Homage II
& other poems
Donna French McArdle
Knitting Sample
& other poems
Megan Skelly
Puzzle Box Ghazal
& other poems
Tess Cooper
Charged
& other poems
Greg Tuleja
Auschwitz
& other poems
Catherine R. Cryan
Raven
& other poems
Emma Flattery
To Return
In the South,
no, I mean the deep South,
where the air is so thick with sugar water
you can taste it on your skin.
Where all the women comment
on how the humid kiss of spring frizzes up their hair
but secretly love the soft freedom
of wild tresses under backyard skies and palm leaves.
Yes, in the deepest South,
I used to live for the ribbons of ruddy clay
which caked the sidewalks after early morning showers’ mist
and the sunbaked cracks that crisscrossed and stitched through barefoot cement.
The scream of cicadas and
the scream of little voices
when the glisten-eyed beetles splayed their shiny wings
and alighted on shoulders unawares.
Yes, in palm trees and hot grass still green,
where the water godlike is
infinite and basking gold, hinting silver, breathing blue
under the glory of sky’s halo.
No surf, just smooth swell after swell after swell,
like an outstretched hand
that warmly whispers, “Come and see.”
I have waited so long to return
to sweat-slick foreheads,
lounging with something to fan with in one hand,
sleepy, half-lidded eyes in the other,
toes buried in cooling layers of powdered sand,
quick-legged sandpipers darting their way through banks of foam,
and the sun dousing its last fire in the curve of the horizon.
Like this, I am suspended:
my conscience beaded with sugar water
drops leave candied trails across my mind,
my skin all mossed-over with green fur in patches,
the prickles of velveteen fly tongues softly sipping in my nectar.
The water glows with inner flame
as I float over leagues and leagues of that Deep and Southern.
So long I have been away from you,
no more.
Our Shared Jungle, Mr. Conrad
Mr. Conrad
your words have long since
been beaten drums to coax
the palm fronds, vine furls, dark and green
from the murky jungle of my mind.
Believe me when I say
your Horrors whisper wonder
from your pages thick entwined
with roots in soils dark as skin,
these roots embed in me;
but you stand in separation, sir,
in costume suits as white
as all the devils that herein
dance your beat semantic.
Drumming, as you are,
on the door of time gone by
with that lovely mistress, Fiction,
who is kind to lay her lips,
and in this moment, you are righteous,
and on this woman, at your side
you imagine naked breasts;
feathers flayed and splayed
with a heart as wild as your sea,
but Mr. Conrad,
you are a head floating above white lapels
steam-pressed pants, a belt of leather,
and shoes of cannibal skin.
The natives said it better
to your disciple Marlow,
but now it begs repeating:
No borders, leaves, or darkness
breed the savage side of man,
Mr. Conrad,
the jungle lies within.
The Witness
This ratchety ceiling fan,
when on, is jerking in its motion
as once-sleek blades now with corners rusted
spin in dulled-silver’s blurred whirl winds.
A tarnished ball chain with dangled tassel
sharply tugged, now careening to this and that
like tethered hound in open field.
And though its screws threaten
to loose their load on wary passers-by,
it churns the air with the full passion
of its year of manufacture.
Long ago, it was clutched to the plaster
above a well-used motel bed.
Under its feverous flurry happened many an affair
between humans bare and humans dressed
who all slithered sleepy ’neath the sheets
for some odd business immaterial.
Then some many years thereafter,
a diner held its rattling screws
over patrons hungering to be cooled,
to rest-up easy and to quench
their avid itches for fryer fat
and milkshakes labeled “chocolate.”
Then in midst of summer
its clanking rhythm doused the embers
of some back-end alley pawn shop
with barred windows and blue-crossed flags
and guns and powder and from far-off sirens
came broken glass and a long night flashing red to blue.
Now somewhere, the sharply tugged ball chain
swings in new surroundings,
wings of roughened rust and scrap-metal
fly above well-smoothed concrete,
and what display of appetite
will this humble witness
have the privilege
of providing its services to
next?
The Valley
The sun was determined to make this summer afternoon
Sweat
like a glass of iced tea
Droop
like a runny ice cream cone
Just sweet enough to savor
Just cold enough to relish
But the sun was no threat to Ms. Washington
No siree
No ma’am
The sun was no match for Ms. Washington and her hand fan
With one stroke of that fan
Lord
She could freeze the humidity right out of the air and make it snow in Alabama
With one sway of her porch rocking chair
Lord
She could spin the Earth and make Sunday come early
She had done powerful things in her time
Yes siree
Yes ma’am
Why, she had won Best Pecan Pie in Macon County at only fifteen
Not only that
She had handcrafted and given life
to the three most well-behaved boys in Macon County too
She had worked a job in Montgomery
a nickel to his dime
and provided what she could
She never missed a shift
Bought her boys one of them spiffy polaroids
Not only that
She sat at the front of the bus
Went through the front door
Watched movies in the front row
She didn’t have a car
Or any good walking shoes
So she walked from Selma to Montgomery
Three times in the only shoes she had
Her Sunday shoes
And on March seventh, nineteen-sixty-five
She stood her ground in Sunday shoes
Cried hard for forgotten lives in Sunday shoes
But still those shoes
Were all shine and polish
No siree
No ma’am
The determined sun did not put a damper on Ms. Washington’s summer afternoon
But he did
He sat beside her
All squared angles and sharp features
He was the shadow in her summer valley
She could not
With all her power
Think him away
He sat at the back of the bus
Slithered through the back door
Watched her from the back row
He walked with her from Selma to Montgomery three times
Hidden behind clasped hands
She could not shake him
He pierced her with every downturned glance
Bled from every pair of smiling lips
Watched her little boys
Grasped at her hands with his bony fingers
Laughed at her undone hair
He had blue eyes like two suns
Sweltering
But he was here now
Beside her
Close
He asked her,
“Are you ready?”
She stopped her waving
Let the hand fan sit like an old cat on her lap
She swayed in that porch rocking chair
Swayed back and forth squinting up at that determined sun
Hanging low
“Always.”
Emma Flattery
is a freshman majoring in marine biology at the University of California, San Diego, who dedicates her free time to poetry, fiction, bodybuilding, and learning languages. As a child of active-duty members of the US Air Force, she has lived across the country and traveled throughout the world. She fell in love with the ocean when she was three (after actually falling into it) and has used its beauty for inspiration ever since.