Poetry Winter 2020 fiction all issues
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Paula Reed Nancarrow
Morning Coffee
& other poems
Jill Burkey
Mala
& other poems
Oak Morse
Boys Born out of Blues
& other poems
Beatrix Bondor
Engine Ode
& other poems
Monique Jonath
a mi sheberach
& other poems
Lisa Rachel Apple
Bounty
& other poems
Gillian Freebody
The Human Condition
& other poems
Kirsten Hippe-Rychlik
and we are echoes
& other poems
Devon Bohm
Forgiveness
& other poems
Jeddie Sophronius
I Rest My Mother Tongue
& other poems
John Delaney
Poem as Map
& other poems
Elizabeth Bayou-Grace
Fire in Paradise
& other poems
Monaye
In Utero
& other poems
Michelle Lerner
Ode to Exhaustion
& other poems
William French
I Have Never Been
& other poems
Josiah Patterson Wheatley
Coeur de Fleurs
& other poems
Karo Ska
womb song
& other poems
Robyn Joy
Sisyphus
& other poems
Han Raschka
Love Language
& other poems
Rebbekah Vega-Romero
The Memory in My Pinky
& other poems
Gilaine Fiezmont
Europe, too, Came from Somewhere Else
& other poems
Scott Ruescher
At the Childhood Home of Ozzy Osbourne
& other poems
Emily R. Daniel
Visitation Dreams
& other poems
Lindsay Gioffre
Toxicodendron Radicans [Sonnet 1]
& other poems
Jeddie Sophronius
Before Departure
A night I spend packing
& repacking
until the dog falls asleep on her tail.
Daylight behind the purple curtains
licks my eyes. The rooster crows
in response to the dawn call to prayer.
Mother returns
from the flea market. Brings tulips
& sets them on a ceramic bowl of water.
I kiss her on the cheeks.
Half-boiled eggs over rice for breakfast,
a yellow pond in the snow.
Before the red suitcase drifts
from the front door to the driveway,
one last look at the dusty framed photos:
Hindu temples on the slopes
of a sleeping mountain; two men practicing
T’ai chi on a hill—
knees half-bent,
toes inward,
hands calm as breeze;
me, a two-year old,
hair still long, sitting on a boulder,
nibbling an unpeeled orange.
Take me away
long enough & I will forget all this.
I Rest My Mother Tongue
I rest my mother tongue, let her sleep
in my mouth. Four months have passed without
a childhood word leaving me. Slowly,
I forget street names, my family’s
last meal together, & those who made
me smile. Words depart—my lexicon,
an incomplete jigsaw puzzle, full
of dust. Do I exist only for
one language? Can’t my body contain
a memory without forgetting
another? In my aloneness, I
adjust to silence, not unlike eyes
in the darkness. I’m thinking of you,
mother, & what language it was you
first spoke to me. It doesn’t matter.
I’m here & you are so far away.
I hope I haven’t lost too much of
my childhood when we meet again. Which
is better: to forget or to be forgotten?
On Returning, or
Portrait of the Diabetic Mother
In the morning, I find you
standing in front of the bedroom
mirror, staring at the canvas
of your body, like a child
terrified of the mess they made.
The scratch marks that were once on
your neck have reached your arms & legs.
Your skin covered with blood clot
on top of blood clot—a painting
of hills & a warm river. You
wipe your tears with both arms. I tell
you, your painting is just trying
to grow red feathers. You smile
& I can’t help you. It’s alright,
just let the paint dry for now.
Gently
You turtle from the bedroom
to the dining table each
morning, & it takes all your
strength to do so. Your feet are
swollen twice their size, your arms
red with all the insulin
shots. You spend most days sitting
in the living room, staring
at the door you’re too tired
to exit, feeling the sun
from the window, against your
arms. Crows hide under your eyes.
Remember when you used to
read me stories until I
fell asleep? Just close your eyes,
you said. Let the good night take
you gently.
Jeddie Sophronius
was born in Jakarta, Indonesia. He is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Virginia and the poetry editor at Meridian. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Cincinnati Review, Prairie Schooner, The Iowa Review, and elsewhere.