Poetry Winter 2022 fiction all issues
whitespacefiller
Cover
Li Zhang
Ana Reisens
Pam asked about Europe
& other poems
Krystle May Statler
To the Slow Burn
& other poems
Kristina Cecka
On Remodeling
& other poems
Belinda Roddie
Bless The Bones Of California
& other poems
Summer Rand
Alexander tells me how he'd like to be buried
& other poems
Alexander Perez
Toward the Rainbow
& other poems
Karo Ska
self-portrait of compassion…
& other poems
David Southward
The Pelican
& other poems
George Longenecker
Stamp Collection
& other poems
Mary Keating
Salty
& other poems
Talya Jankovits
Imagine A World Without Raging Hormones
& other poems
Laurie Holding
Sonnet to Mr. Frost
& other poems
David Ruekberg
A Short Essay on Love
& other poems
Elaine Greenwood
There’s a thick, quiet Angel
& other poems
Richard Baldo
Carry On Caretaker
& other poems
Jefferson Singer
Dave Righetti’s No-Hitter…
& other poems
Diane Ayer
A Fan
& other poems
Kaecey McCormick
Meditation Before Desert Monsoon
& other poems
Meg Whelan
Resubstantiation
& other poems
Katherine B. Arthaud
Possible
& other poems
Aaron Glover
On Transformation
& other poems
Anne Marie Wells
[I'm crying in a sandwich shop reading Diane Seuss' sonnets]
& other poems
Holly Cian
Untitled
& other poems
Kimberly Russo
Selective Memories are the Only Gift of Dementia
& other poems
Steven Monte
Larkin
& other poems
Mervyn Seivwright
Fear Mountain
& other poems
Mary Keating
Salty
I’m a teenager
when an oak cracks
my independence.
Shoulda never gotten
into that Mustang
driven by a boy trying
too hard to be cool
not knowing how
hard his crush would crush.
My beautiful long legs
that wrapped around
my boyfriend never meant
to carry me into that hot rod
to wrap around a tree.
After the accident I’m not smokin’
hot anymore, but strangers still
gawk at me—a wheelchair
my latest accessory
I can’t live without.
Meanwhile, I’m still
hot for sex, frustrated
my wheelchair
cools every cock.
Alone, at a high school party
I just wanna rock. A wannabe
man smokin’ a fat cheroot
plops down next to me.
He doesn’t ask if
I wanna roll—wraps
his lips around Johnnie
Walker, calls me fish legs.
I roll into a mermaid
inhaling oceans that take
a lifetime to exhale.
I am
a princess
alone
in a tower
surrounded
by a moat
on an island
guarded
by a monster
***
Yet I am
no princess
and
there is
no tower
My island
is a wheelchair
the moat and the monster
are the same
***
The loneliness
—the absolute loneliness pervades—
A Brief History of Forever
I
We meet in fourth grade at Osborn. You almost catch me
in boys chase girls then girls chase boys.
II
I sit behind you in homeroom at Rye
High, because I’m a K and you’re an H.
In ninth grade you move out of town, miss me
being in an infamous car accident the next year.
III
At Manhattanville, I discover you’re in my freshman class
working behind the snack bar. You don’t seem to mind me
in a wheelchair. You whisk me away
to an evening party in MA while you’re manic.
You could be my prince charming until
I never want to see your movie star face again.
IV
Nine years later, fresh out of law school, I tell God
I’m ready to get a husband. I bump into you
browsing records at Caldors. You take me
to the City—melt me by the Kiss at the Met.
V
You keep punctuating we’re not boyfriend girlfriend.
Our bodies punctuate differently
until you disappear with my fairytale dreams.
VI
I get it. You think you can’t handle a forever disability.
If I weren’t permanently paralyzed, I’d walk away from it too.
Let’s not mention your diagnoses.
VII
In Albuquerque, Tom Petty sings to you it’s wake up time.
My phone rings in White Plains, NY. You move across
the US, overfilling my apartment, intertwining our lives.
VIII
Five years engaged, we elope and marry at Sweetheart Rock.
While I’m getting beautified, you commit your vows to memory,
surprise me—as you do for a lifetime—of just how much
you love me.
Soulmates in the Time of Covid
I met my husband
when we were amoebas
floating in the primordial pond.
We didn’t have much consciousness then,
but I felt him like a summer storm coming.
The next time we were together, we were prehistoric flora.
Fortune grew us side by side, interlocking our leaves until a dinosaur ate us.
We merged in her stomach as acid stripped the memory of lost love. Thousands
of years passed before our paths crossed again. We began as seedlings in the pre-Californian
forest and matured into magnificent redwoods. Our boughs laced. We held each other tight
as the earth shook and the winds howled. Hundreds of years we grew, interwoven from roots to canopy.
One day the earth opened below us and pulled our giant bodies down so deep the molten lava scorched
and burned us to ash. Our next lives passed quickly as we climbed the tree of life, up the food chain,
from bugs to rodents to bunnies to wolves until finally we were snow leopards hiding our glorious furs
in virgin snow from the ruthless hunters. We mated often and birthed several cubs. Each year I felt
the odds slipping toward the deadly predators until one day my love stopped dead in his tracks
as a bullet ripped through his belly into his heart. That bullet killed two snow cats that day. The sorrow
of sudden death followed us as we reincarnated into human beings. I don’t remember all the lives
we lived occupying the top form of evolution. I know they spanned millennia. We existed as hunters and
gatherers, nomads, serfs, slaves, kings and queens, teachers and students, brothers and sisters, monks,
nuns and priests, and finally as husband and wife. Each human lifetime differed. Sometimes we found
each other as infants living in the same household. Other times we came from different lands
or cultures. But eventually we would find each other no matter the distance or deep the disguise. Neither
extreme youth nor old age could hide our true relationship—our eternal bond. Sometimes one of us would
subsist in a dreamlike state—as if having drunk the waters of Lethe too soon—wed other souls. But
always—the other would jar spiritual memory. Once awakened, we’d entwine our bodies
as close as physics allowed—past connections tumbling forward into the present—the knowledge
of our history stretched across the topmost layer of our subconscious—peeking through
the surface like a premonition. Now, we find ourselves in a time of great
joy and great sorrow. Trapped together in 2020 AD by a creature
as small as we were when our love began,
the eternal bond between us pulls
beyond its limits.
Time forms an ocean
Spans across eternity
Held by gravity
Mary Keating
’s poetry appears in numerous journals
and anthologies including Scribes*MICRO*Fiction,
New Mobility magazine, Wordgathering, Santa Fe Writer’s Project, Poetry for Ukraine, Family Vol II, and on Medium.com. Two of her poems were nominated for a Pushcart prize. A wheelchair user and advocate for disability rights, Mary practices law as a real estate and probate attorney in Fairfield County, Connecticut where she lives with her husband Dan.