Issue 2
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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…