Poetry Winter 2021 fiction all issues
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Cover
Andrej Lišakov
Laura Apol
I Take a Realtor through the House
& other poems
Rebekah Wolman
How I Want my Body Taken
& other poems
Devon Bohm
The Word
& other poems
Gillian Freebody
The Right Kind of Woman
& other poems
Anne Marie Wells
Gravestone Flowers
& other poems
Laura Turnbull
Restoration
& other poems
Andre F. Peltier
A Fistful of Ennui
& other poems
Peter Kent
Reflections on the Late Nuclear Attack on Boston
& other poems
Carol Barrett
Canal Poem #8: Hides
& other poems
Alix Lowenthal
Abortion Clinic Waiting Room
& other poems
Latrise P. Johnson
From My Women
& other poems
Brenna Robinson
repurposed
& other poems
may panaguiton
MOON KILLER
& other poems
Elizabeth Farwell
The Life That Scattered
& other poems
Bill Cushing
Two Stairways
& other poems
Richard Baldo
A Note to Prepare You
& other poems
Blake Foster
Aubade from the Coast
& other poems
Bernard Horn
Glamour
& other poems
Harald Edwin Pfeffer
Still stiff with morning cold
& other poems
Nia Feren
Neon Orange Tree Trunks
& other poems
Everett Roberts
A Mourning Performance
& other poems
Alaina Goodrich
The Way I Wander
& other poems
Olivia Dorsey Peacock
the iron maiden and other adornments
& other poems
Richard Baldo
A Note to Prepare You
Be nice to me even though you know
I will leave you on an unscheduled flight.
Make our bed warm for me when I can’t shed the chill in my bones.
I will leave you and melt through the sheets to drip into the earth by morning.
Murmur to me, just a whisper to remember those times I was a good man.
I will leave you before the falling star strikes the earth.
Stroke the side of my right cheek with your wrinkled fingers;
I will leave you alone in the soon cold sheets we still share.
Say you remember when I brought alive that wet passion within you;
I will leave you a map to your pleasure etched with the pain of gentle endings.
Say the sun still shines through the French doors of our life.
I will leave you the echo of my footsteps climbing to our bedroom.
I will leave you a legacy of faded shirts to fly as kites
And signal your remembrance of my arm across your shoulder.
As I leave my life, I leave you the rest of your life without me.
The Position
Assumed when we start the night,
my left elbow rests on her left hip,
the curve of her bottom presses into my stomach.
My left arm curves around her torso to cup her right breast.
Her right nipple rests in the relaxed space
between the thumb and forefinger of my warm left hand.
In the night we break apart,
mitosis that allows for reunification.
When we awake, we listen to the rhythm of breaths
to read our mutual state and retake our position.
She likes her left leg on top of mine
to make a stack of ankles.
I hate the king bed where our darkness
can create distance between the sheets.
Those nights we drift apart,
we can become lost to each other.
As the alarm goes off and dreams fade,
we reach to resume the position or,
practice other skin-tight moments.
Borne from Our December
Our cold breaths make words freeze
and shatter between us.
The cold window shines white frost
from the ice moon.
I want to walk into the winter wooded yard,
lie down between the trees and shrubs,
let the roots and earth enfold me
to drink love’s blood
and devour dried bone.
Maybe in spring,
something she can love
will grow.
Love’s Truths
You know she loves me.
She makes idols to my mysteries.
She worships
the quicksand I walk on.
She looks up to me
from above.
You know
I love her.
I stroll on the banks of her muddied flood zone.
I hold her light before me
to devour my darkness.
I stand under her sword
hanging from a thread of truth.
She hides her tears
in the clouds.
I hide my fears behind
an arrogance of trust.
And the differences
between the mirrors we hold up
light the fire of passion
we escape into.
Richard Baldo
has been a clinical psychologist in private practice and only recently started developing his craft in poetry. He was raised in New Jersey and attended Trenton State College, University of Idaho, and University of Nevada Reno. He has returned to study at the creative writing program at UNR. He met his wife in Minsk, and their first date included an English/Russian dictionary. He believes he has been blessed in his career and life.