Joan McNerney - One Poem

July

Waters creep over my feet.
Should I stand shivering
or go swim? Lose my footprint?

Off I run, falling over myself,
a mug of salty cider. This
wave an insecure bed. Seaweed
pillow. Carried by moon to
an abyss.

The floor of my mansion is
not tidy. I shall have sponges
for lunch. Ride with seahorses
perhaps.

On the far shore, my lover
smiles, kiss of surf.

Wynne Huddleston - Three Poems

Where Eyes are Clouds that Weep

My car kidnaps me, takes
me there—to the last
graveyard where the tombstones read,
Joy and Hope,
where my eyes are clouds that weep
upon grass that will never
again be green, and the cut
flowers there will never
fall to seed.
I tiptoe back
to the car; careful not to wake
Despair who lies
in wait in the ashy forest just beyond
the cemetery gate with your choice
of pills or
shiny revolver.

Crushed

How I wish that I had drown the little bird
as soon as it had hatched…
No, I should have taken the egg before it was born,

before I spent hours keeping it

warm against my heart;
before I watched it beat its head

through the protective shell;

before I watched its wet down fluff into feathers
on capable wings that took it up, up so high,
soaring excitedly into the blue, blue sky;

before you shot it down. Yes, I should have

crushed the shell into shards,
stomped it into the ground,

while the bird was still
just an idea, just yellow slime.

Persimmon Road

I did not want to go down
this dreary dirt road, harboring
ruts and a rickety bridge
that floods. When I dream
of you I’m stuck in safe
familiarity—my hands cuffed

to you, to keep me
from drowning. You pluck
a persimmon from the dying
tree and force me to swallow it
whole— the bitter skin,
the sweetness underneath,
the little fork and knife,
hiding. In the dream
we’re in my car, and always

you drive. But soon I throw up
the knife and use it to unlock
the handcuffs. The slippery road is
overrun with water; so I carefully
step onto fallen limbs
lying in the ditch, and try

to balance. It’s difficult, but
I am still walking
when the dream ends.
I think
I make it over the bridge,
and I am pretty sure
I do it with my own two feet.

Diane Webster - Two Poems

GATHERINGS

Gatherings of people watch
sand hill cranes land
at Fruitgrowers Reservoir
each evening to rest
and wade into shallow cattails
until morning ascension
circling, circling upward
until all gather together
in a disappearing gray
wave of feathers
still heard in fading trill
of sand hill cranes,
and people whisper
like in church.

AFTER WONDERINGS

Why do earthworms
dry on the sidewalk
after a rainstorm
but never after
the sprinkling system
re-hides itself in the lawn?

Maureen Kingston - One Poem

Everyman’s Dilemma

Son of a ringmaster,
cousin to a clown,

the acrobat’s nephew:
an ideal pedigree.

Still he refuses
to join the act.

The only non-
performer

in the family.
I tell him it’s easy

being a team player.
Smile, bellow, bow

and the applause
will surely follow.

A simple equation,
really; even the fleas

understand. What’s
wrong with my son?

Julianna Buckmiller - One Poem

Mute Words

You and I speak without words:

our bodies contort into the characters

the alphabet lost long ago.

Our skin shivers in pitches too shrill

for human ears,

and we grin,

knowing that only we

can speak this way.

A lingered graze with shivered fingertips,

a biting eye contact only broken by rushed blinks--

I giggle, while you smile and nod:

“I’m so happy I’m here,

with you,

I’m so happy I’m here,

I’m so happy.”

You find comfort in my silence,

I find chaos in your safety,

but neither of us has the vocal cords to say.

My mind re-writes the same line from long ago:

‘It’s as if we’ve lost our voices

in our quests to find ourselves.’

From a bird’s eye view, our limbs are entangled in the form of

a typeface question mark;

concentric symbols running across the page

with impossible urgency:

but you and I,

we’re too lost in our questions

to lift our eyes from the ground,

for even just a second.

Will we ever know the truth in anything?

I can’t really say,

I can't really say.

Kevin Heaton - One Poem

Threshold of a Dream

Cataracts draw milk cream curtains
across his eyes concealing lucid

saline pools seasoned with hindsight
and dream residue. They spillway

into bottomless furrow trenches
retracing the errors of his life,

irrigating hoary stubble, and wrinkling
the crumpled leaves of an ancient

scroll; one page yet unscribed.
Gnarled, arthritic fingers unfurl

musings long ago folded into a pensive
hope chest, and pin them to a quickened

heartbeat. Iridescent rainbow beams
knit kestrel wings to shadow bones;

piercing a tattered veil, revealing
the limpid essence of immortality.

Richard Hartwell - One Poem

Fog

wooly white mammoths

shadows within the ground fog

dripping humpbacked sheep