sprovence
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J. Goodfellow, New Family Order
Jessica Goodfellow New Family Order As I reach down to shake awake my sleeping father,his 4 o’clock pills rattling like dice in my left hand, I don’t know which father he’ll be. He may startle awake, and know me, and be my Dad—though not the scolding dad I dodged all my life till dementia gentled…
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L. Grace Weldon, Exact
Laura Grace Weldon Exact Intersections Rhiannon Giddens opens her set at Oberlin’s Finney Chapelwith O Death and I fall all the way into her music, letmy head and shoulders sway in the nearly imperceptible way I was raised to respond though my feet can’t help but tap. Drum, then cello enter at exact intersectionssummoning my…
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R. Emerson, The Panther
Renee Emerson The Panther A panther stalked the scrub woodsof Hickory Withe, Tennessee;a shadow, specter, half-truth or complete lie, like most of what my father ever told me. I never saw it up high in tree limbs, on porches, prowling ditches, down on Donelson Drive at dusk (he swears—right over his car).What danger in it…
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N. Prater, Digging Thistles
Nina Prater Digging Thistles Once when he and his brother were kids Granny sent them into the pasture to dig thistles and pour saltinto the holes to kill the roots for a whole hot Arkansas summer day. When they finished she paid them each a quarter. My husband isn’t that old, a quarter wasn’t any…
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M. Kirby, Cheers
Merie Kirby Cheers to my grandma, cheap chardonnay at her side,white over ice, and her formula for equilibrium:if there’s only ice in the glass, add more wine, if there’s only wine, add more ice, fighting Old Solitaire, lining up her aces after dinner,to Phil, horrified I’d never had a Manhattan,apologizing for not having better bourbon…
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N. Prater, Balance
Nina Prater Balance I like to dull the knivesand youlike to sharpenthem. Nina Prater is the author of Under the Canopy of Unpruned Leaves, a poetry chapbook published by Belle Point Press. Her poems have also been published by One Sentence Poems, Buddhist Poetry Review, Literary Mama, and A Revolutionary Press. Nina and her family…
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M. Mitchell, Time and the Onions
Mark J. Mitchell Time and the Onions For herself You build the soup slowly. She’s gone awayfor mercy. She’s coming home tomorrowand soup’s better that next day. The onionswant to soften, grow gold. You’ve just begun.Let them melt into broth and get to knoweach herb, meet the barley. A second daywill do it. They’ll grow…
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J. Browne, Lumbricus
Jennifer Browne Lumbricus terrestris | Common Earthworm Eyeless, earthworms tunnelroot-paths, routes for water. Nothing appears without something readying its way. Last night, I drove a moon-bright road, thought of the other ones you’ve loved. Could there ever be a word to name what they made inyou, what they broke open? I taste a bit of…
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L. Faber
Louis Faber Occasionally I can still remember that day in San Francisco, on Columbusjust down from City Lights Books,a young man sitting on a milk crateanother in front of him on whichhe perched an old typewriter.“A dollar buys you a poem”he said with a mix of hopeand resignation, his fingers poised over the worn keys,…
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D. LeBlanc, Papyrophilia
Diane LeBlanc Papyrophilia In my next life, let me be cotton rag paper.All fiber and fade-resistant. Tear me. Wet me. Ink me.Choose me to announce your everything.Find in me my grandmother’s house dressesmissing belts and buckles, pockets and butterscotch.Then trust me with stories debossed in ten-point pica deep enough to read in the dark.I’ll carry…