POETRY

Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history. ~Plato

Virginia

Lisa Plummer

I dig my toes down

beneath the hot surface of the sand.
My salt water curls dance

in the breeze coming off the water.

The pink and purple sky casts it all in a rosy glow.

There’s a man on the boardwalk,

he begins strumming an acoustic guitar.

The tinny sound vibrates through the air.

It brings thoughts of vinyl records spinning

to the stories of your youth,

to our midnight doughnut runs.

The hot, sweet smell permeates

the red cadillac’s interior

as Motown sounds escape

through the cracked windows.

I see you, Virginia,

in the granules coating my brightly polished toes,

in the way the sun’s brilliance blinds me

with its reflection off the water.

You are there when I close my eyes,

in that moment after a bite of pulled tart taffy,

and as warm sugared doughnuts melt in my mouth.

I see you, Virginia,

when I take in deep gulps of the salt infused air.

In stirring melodies springing from struck strings,

in vibrant beats that echo your energy.

I watch you, in the ocean’s blustering, destructive ways.

You’re there, even in its powerful stillness.

In the way the waves break and crash,

their sound surrounding me,

like boisterous laughter, wild and free.

no milk, no sugar

Katherine Harris

i was never one of the pretty girls

—wrists the perfect size for a talon’s grip,

teeth stained from cigarettes and whitening strips

stolen from their mother’s bathroom cabinet

along with benzos for all the friends

who wouldn’t last until spring.

i tell myself i don’t miss drowning

in jeans six sizes too big, held up

by a shoe-string noose tied long

before i tried my first diet,

or nights spent on my knees

clogging the shower drain

with half-chewed chinese food and hair

i didn’t have the chance to pull out,

or my mother’s grieving smile

every time she hugged me

just to find another hollow

where her daughter once was,

but disease has made its home in me

and i can’t stay above ground without it.

i’m not one for confessionals

but God, please, tell me i can fix myself

if i bleed enough on the page, that if i empty all

the ink from my veins, i will be beautiful

in my mother’s face i once thought was a shame i inherited.

four years fully recovered

and i still take my coffee black.

A Lost Voice

Gabby Remington

As a girl, I sat on a stiff wooden pew

and gazed through stained glass;

my father’s voice was God.

The youngest of three children,

I had to be the charm-

all soft demeanor and graceful steps.

My ears, coin slots.

Eagerly accepting words of praise as currency.

Every last detail from the warmth of my smile

to the honeyed taste of my words,

were precisely performed.

But no amount of practice could erase the

tired from my eyes.

Now a woman, I walk the desolate streets

plagued by the static sound of an abandoned world.

Flash of traffic lights and empty store windows.

The silence makes my skin itch and brain buzz.

The voice I once knew, gone.

All that remains is this quiet.

Dear Henry

Stella Robertson

At the grocery store,

just the two of us,

the romantic music seems to be laughing at me.

I think you must hear it too,

but when I gaze through the cereal boxes on the shelf

you’re in the other aisle,

gently squeezing every single avocado.

You look nice in the fluorescent lights

and I wonder why you don’t use our shared bathroom anymore,

or tell me that I take up a large space

in your brain,

the way you did that one night when it rained so loud

you thought it was the sound

of someone

rolling in their trash cans for a really long time.

We talked about how cool it was

when the lightning hit,

even though you wouldn’t get all your eight hours of sleep.

As I’m looking for eggs

I wonder if the other customers think

we’re together.

We check out separately,

and you tell me I owe you

$2.43 for paper towels.

On the way back I ask you to help me

cook brussel sprouts for dinner

and you say no because you’ve already

planned out

each minute

of your evening,

but at home you stand over me as I add salt and oil to the pan.

This house is plastic and the walls are thin so I find

myself worrying late at night

that you can hear me remembering

when you’d hold me so tightly

I thought I could spend

the rest of our year-long lease in your arms.

I wish I had pulled out a piece of paper right then and written out

word for word

how it felt,

so on nights like these

when we don’t speak of anything,

besides paper towels and brussel sprouts,

I’d still have it in my dresser drawer.

I Would Rather Be A Champion Than A Martyr

David Dionne

Facing lions without the bright stigmata of fiction

is a different thing by far

than a storybook hero

hurling steel and fire

into the jaws

of death.

Our death

need not bite

to reduce our flesh

to the shreds and tatters on

the colosseum's sandy bleeding floor,

spreading our blood on the bright ichor of poor truth.

Our lions are toothless and light like celluloid,

great beasts without substance

that kill us invisibly,

and those far away,

unexamined,

convenient.

We victims

of the colosseum,

we poor and we small,

must all guard each other,

for the monster comes from behind,

snarling in sirens and swinging claws like a nightstick.

These are the beasts that pace beside every martyr:

hyenas laughing at difference,

jackals stealing success,

unfeeling snakes,

helpless mice,

a virus.

A hero

is a martyr

who has slain

his lion: a champion

the crowd liked already

because he shone with the gleam of falsehood.

I want a lion like the bright stigmata of fiction:

something of flesh and blood,

that I can rail against

and kill with steel,

a frail thing

like me.

Tulips

Jessica Graber

The rain sticks to me

as I walk down

the sidewalk.

I carry with me a

bouquet of tulips,

a long way from

Constantinople.

This seems too far

to be real,

as I drift along.

I should have known

tulips weren’t the

correct flower

for this occasion.

Every holiday and party

has an array

of roses,

baby’s breath,

carnations

and even marigolds,

but tulips...

Always the odd one.

Always looked

down upon

when their petals

are still entombed

around each other,

never able to

bare themselves

as their best.

Now,

as I scrutinize these

purple,

parroting,

peony

wannabes,

small droplets

of water

drip into the

plastic crevices

of this paltry wrapping.

Could these be

my watered sorrow,

or just the rain adorned

on my brow?

The Fledgling

Katherine Harris

With wings

outstretched

I plummeted

—I thrashed

and flailed

and with a cheep

I plunged—

but for a moment

before I fell,

when I met

the crescendo

of my callow arc,

the currents surged,

lifted up

my hollow bones,

and I flew—

for a moment

I flew!