by Hillary Kobernick
When we got to Lake Michigan
I intended to jump in, ice included.
Or at least strip boots and wool socks
and dip my toes in.
This is how I imagined the new year
beginning, crawling like all evolutions
from the bottoms of water. Continue reading
Ice Included
Filed under Poetry
Blessed Event(ually)
by JC Reilly
Like that cow-mother we saw once on our Grandpa’s Pennsylvania farm, straining with her calf that warm November day, you too lay impatient and writhing for your boy to come. Late, it would be the first of many times he’d defy you. “No drugs,” you’d said.
Tied to machines and IV, the nurse-call button strangled in your right hand like a dead mouse, you were trussed as the turkey your in-laws would roast ten days later on Thanksgiving. Something tar-like and unholy lurked in your all-pupil eyes. Curses no devil dare speak steamed from your mouth like poisoned milk. Continue reading
Filed under Nonfiction
Why Write
by Ed Bok Lee
The castle where I happened upon the roundness of suns
was an island prison on the ocean
No one visited my distractions here
or my more joyful sins
A sanctuary of sound and sense
The waves brought shells and seaweed I learned
to fill with palm honey Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
Ice and Regret
by Ann Howells
November,
moon of falling cold,
ice blighted, snow infested,
overcast sky tightened down—
fierce and oppressive—
as earth pulls cold around her. Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
Tiger Swallowtail
by Lisa Roullard
You arrived: leaf-like, designed—
black sparked across yellow.
A study in thin.
One black tail broken off.
Abdomen crumpled
like tea-stained paper. Continue reading
