Poetry Winter 2022 fiction all issues
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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
Kaecey McCormick
Meditation Before Monsoon
Ancient saguaro lift their arms
praying to the full moon rising
behind the jagged peaks.
Wild-cotton clouds spread lacey
skirts over an ink-stained sky
as a lone howl rings in nightfall.
A chorus of coyotes responds
as crepuscular waves of heat
carry the clacking of unseen beetles
and the earthy scent of creosote
—a harbinger of coming rain.
A south wind rushes over dry surf
untethering crispy leaves to scuttle
with stripe-tailed scorpions over pebbles
and sun-bleached bones in moonlight
shining earthbound stars on the desert floor.
The great-horned owl rouses from its perch
in the wispy Palo Verde, lifting his feathery sails
to fish in this red sea that is anything but dead.
The movement stirs dusty air overhead
as I stand on this dry shore where the ocean
of hard-packed clay meets the edge
of man’s cemented trail.
SJC → PHX
six and a half miles above the earth
give or take
I see stretches of untouched earth
still wild, still moving in the wind
or with the shifting plates
still drying up in summer
still flooding under the monsoon
I see spots of civilization
tumors snaking out tentacles
of asphalt and wood-and-metal ties
linking one to the next
multiplying like kudzu covering trees
expanding in uneven clusters of cement
spreading like a stain across the land
accelerating the disease
shaking in a tin can
seatbelt strapped tight
we begin our descent
and I watch this tumor swell
what if we kept rising instead?
six miles becomes twelve
becomes twenty-four
becomes forty-eight
then we’re crossing the Karman line
soaring into a cancer-free zone
while those around me grip the arm rests
celebrate the safety in the crust of the planet
I lift my feet and hands to the sky
On learning it’s back
after Mary Oliver
I ran away
from the truth of your cancer
like a beaten dog
into the woods
whispering your name
to the wind
I watched the leaves fall
waiting for the world to end
but the wind kept moving toward night
and the waning gibbous moon
witnessed it all in silence
I carried myself over cracked earth
to the top of a rocky hill
to see the caps of the bay
cast in the evening’s silver light
but the fog was too thick
a juvenile eagle waited there
perched on a snag
watching me and the moon each
with an unblinking eye
as unmoved by my tears
as by the moon’s detached hovering
in the distance
the creek trickled into the reservoir
over pebbles and grass
crooning a low lullaby
to put the day to sleep
I sat next to a rotting log beneath the eagle
listened to the bugs burrow below the fallen leaves
and in the decaying wood
I told them about you
and they whispered their understanding—
they know about the inevitability of the end
they too long to stretch out each moment
to find eternity in the spaces between
where everything
even the multiplying of cells
stops
but time presses on
and like me they had to get back—
to you
to life
to the tasks that need doing
so they promised to carry you with them
back into the divine vibration of creation
and set you free to rise like starlight
soft
expansive
ever moving
with a final prayer
your name on my tongue
I rose
carrying grief as heavy as the bottom of the reservoir
back home
Mind swing
The downswing, the low ground,
the zenith at the bottom took all of me—
I could not think of them, if I could think at all.
I could not hold their hearts in my mind,
warm them by the evening fire, and return them
whole and loved.
Instead, I pressed my back into the cold wall
and prayed to the dead gods for this thing in my mind
to swallow me—skin, bones, innards, and all.
That’s how it is at the bottom.
Empty. Dark.
But never empty enough.
Never the deep dark of death.
Just the low, dim light of madness,
the kind that makes it impossible to see
where I am and who I’m becoming—
if I’m becoming at all.
And then,
like all things,
it changes.
The bottom tips and I begin to rise.
The upswing starts and pulls me in the other direction.
As my legs extend in front of me,
toes pointed to the heavens, hands wrapped tight
around ropes suspended from an invisible frame,
I throw back my head in childlike ecstasy,
swinging toward paradise.
I see them from the corner of my eye,
arms outstretched toward my back,
waiting.
Kaecey McCormick
is a writer and artist living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her poetry has found a home in different literary journals, including Red Earth Review, Linden Avenue Literary Journal, and The Raw Art Review and her chapbooks Pixelated Press (Prolific Press, 2018) and Sleeping with Demons (Finishing Line Press, 2023). When not writing, you can find her climbing a mountain or curled up with a book and a mug of hot tea.