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Kristina Moriconi
Summer,
Lake Michigan
There
are two lies I tell:
one,
about your light blue
Mercury
at the lake,
another,
I whisper to myself—
this
is exactly
where
I want to be—
beside
a river on another coast;
because,
once, like Kingfishers,
we
defended our place
along
the shore,
I
still think the surface tension
of
water has something
to
do with love,
bodies,
dappled
and
smooth, skimming
until
they sink,
barely
substance anymore.
This
part is true:
I
left you asleep
in
the dunes, fistfuls
of
cherries bleeding for me.
Kristina
Moriconi is a poet and essayist. She received her MFA in creative writing from
Pacific Lutheran University’s Rainier Writing Workshop in Tacoma, Washington.
Her work has appeared most recently in Cobalt Review, The Schuylkill Valley
Journal, Prick of the Spindle and Blue Heron Review. She is the author of a
chapbook, No Such Place (Finishing Line Press, 2013).
Sally Houtman
oh,
father
it’s
the way you sit it’s the way you wait with your
tented
hands your care-worn hands your faithful hands
your
empty hands dark-sipping liquid benediction oh
when
I think of all the mad hours mad hours wasted
quibbling
with the dead it’s the way you believe oh I
want
to believe tell me how to believe in your derelict god
how
to feel that jolt that jotting forward some little
stagger
in the pulse when something scissors through
the
blue oh father my father your father fallow be thy name
how
you pistol-whip the scriptures drive each word to its
splitted
edge and still you do not say no and you
do
not say wait and you do not do not do not ever
no
never say love and it’s the way I remain
earthbound
with lifted wings and the
whole
world breathing just breathing me in
Sally
Houtman is an ex-pat American currently residing in Wellington, New Zealand.
She is the author of a non-fiction book and her fiction and poetry have been
widely published. Her work has earned four New Zealand writing awards and been
nominated for a 2012 Pushcart Prize.
Rachel Rosenberg
He
Sits In My Shower
He
sits in my shower under the spray
cross-legged
and bowed.
He
speaks like I smile;
sideways.
He
has no preferences
but
grins when I join him and his arms
in
his lap
and
wherever I sit I am blocking the water
but
he'll stay warm and wet nonetheless
and
I'll stay lip-happy, leg-happy,
dripping,
ensconced and enchanted.
Rachel
Rosenberg is a 25-year-old lawyer/recent graduate of Lewis & Clark Law
School and an alumnus of Kenyon College. She has been writing poetry for 17
years and performing it for the last two. Her poems have been published in a
number of online and print journals, most recently in The Leaning House Press
and The Sparrow Ghost Collective Anthology of Poetry: Vol.'s 1 and 2.
Daniel Carr
what
difference
what
difference
does
it make
if I
hold the door open
or
let you find
your
own way out?
is
there a release
from
obligation?
is
there some benediction
in
the act?
your
stride is still the same
you
disappear just as quickly
like
some cat
gone
exploring
into
the feral night
Daniel
Carr grew up in a literary atmosphere, raised by two English professors. He
began to explore poetry in high school.
Michael A. Torok
Burn
A
trash can I use for raku
blazes
with poetry, desire,
I am
inhaling the smoke of my past.
Need,
men, women,
girls
evaporate
into
the ash of morning.
I
prepare to be
in
your embrace without
a
past of failed caresses.
I
cannot afford
these
ghosts,
jeopardy
among new fallen snow.
Michael
A. Torok calls Austin, TX home. He received his English PhD from the University
of Louisiana and has published in the Clackamas Literary Review, Fox Cry
Review, Louisiana Review, Red Rock Review, Northridge Review, Southwestern
Review, New Kent Quarterly, as well as online in the Snakeskin Poetry Webzine.
Sergio Ortiz
Coming
Out
shrouded
in mist
I
wear a torn place
on
my sleeve—
turning
like a mirror
on a
string
a
key
in a
lock …
I
have
no
more tongue
than
a wound
beads
of
an abacus—
the
shed skin
of a
snake remembers
what
it once held
calculating
all
the ways I numbed myself
casting
minute
after
minute into the wind . . .
taking
off the mask
Sergio
Ortiz is a retired educator, poet, painter, and photographer. Flutter Press released
his first two chapbooks, At the Tail End of Dusk, and Bedbugs in My Mattress. Ronin
Press released his third chapbook:
topography of a desire. Avantacular Press released his first
photographic chapbook: The Sugarcane Harvest. He is a three-time nominee for
the Sundress Best of the Web Anthology and a two-time Pushcart nominee.
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