Mother
the day before my mother's death
by Grace Grafton
 
My hero was never my mother.
No wistful mouth like Jennifer Jones
in "Wild Heart," violets in the field around her.
No winning pluck like Nancy Drew,
sneaking fearlessly up back stairs,
candelabra behind her in the nooks.
History didn't seem to hover
around my mother's figure,
insubstantially modern, permed hair, bright lips.
Regal would have commanded my attention;
or utter dishevelment, a husky whiskey elegaism.
She didn't know the meaning of
mimulus, nor could she have named
clouds over the laundry as cumulus,
but she was out there hanging sheets
even on sultry days, sweat rolling
down between haltered breasts.
She drove my sister and me
to the municipal swimming pool -
probably enjoyed being free
of adolescent intensity -
she shopped for groceries on special,
she picked us up reliably,
she managed to look like a girl
for my father - the era when
women called themselves girls -
days she worked fourteen hours
straight, churning butter or
ironing pillow cases nine-thirty
at night. She helped us girls
buy formals all net and froth
fitted over strapless bras,
told us about menstruation,
how to fasten the pad on the belt,
taught us to cook. There were days
she lay on her bed and wept the whole day.

Blue
by Mary Mackey
 
One day
suddenly
without warning
everyone in the world
turned blue
not the pale washed-out blue
of a summer sky
or the gray-blue
of old silk
but full turquoise
bright and hard as
a Navajo stone
set in silver
 
at first
there was mass panic
governments fell
commerce collapsed
immigration officials went
into shock
and were found wandering along
fortified borders
singing snatches of old
Lawrence Welk tunes
 
on battlefields all across
the planet blue soldiers
ran screaming from each other
no one knew who to shoot
no one knew who to hate
the enemy was suddenly
beatified
gorgeous and familiar
as the palm of one's own
hand
 
in Brazil
three abandoned children
from a cardboard favela
walked unrecognized
through the biggest shopping
mall in Rio
and were accidentally
presented with promotional balloons
 
in Berlin
five Turkish families
sat on benches in the Zoo
for most of the afternoon
unnoticed and undisturbed
 
in Miami
a Haitian cab driver
was inadvertently hired
to teach advanced French
at an exclusive
girls' school
 
as time passed,
the confusion deepened
landlords had to be sedated
real estate agents were found
curled in the fetal position
around For Sale signs
 
in Chicago
over 200 loan officers
attending a convention
at the Airport Hilton
suddenly took Jesus as
their Savior
 
but for lovers
blueness was a gift
the world around them
opened up
blossoming and blossoming
like a great blue cornflower
 
innocent and strange
they lay in each other's arms
blue lips to blue lips
blue breasts to blue breasts
making long, blue love
 
and when the blue nights
came down at last
and the blue sunsets
hovered over their beds
their blue laughter could be heard
as soft as silver bells
as they whispered to each other
those magic words:
azure
cobalt
indigo
lobelia
aqua

Many Kinds Of Laughing
by Grace Grafton
 
It is the perfect temperature and the sheets
of this day hang between peach trees
whose fruit adorns mothers' laps as
they cup babies' elbows and cheeks
beneath history's staid cupolas. I
do not contemplate architecture, nor connive
moves that would sweep away my neighbors'
knights and pawns, or pull rivers' teeth.
If flags are flown, I laud their affair
with air, adjust my voice to wind's
tarantelle. I will not give up this day's
nurse-logs nor the promise of plovers' legs,
how each step they take seems to break
a joint that miraculously mends itself.

The Poem That Was Magnificent
by Ann Menebroker
 
came over email, came like the earth
shaking around you, came like a flood
of beautiful language. It could never
be a haiku, or close to a tanka;
it would be Mt. Kilimanjaro
in Tanzania. It would be adjectives
and gospel truth. It would be
deep river honesty. It would
be the mosquito and the leopard.
It would sting. It would eat
flesh. It would sing arias
and balance twelve moons.
It would be valet service
to your first appetite. It would
make you not want to be a
poet anymore, but to be
the poet's material. It would
be like the first time your
child came to you and
called you its own country.

Hit and Run
by Rafaella Del Bourgo
 
Teeth left scattered on the roadside verge,
one eye gone,
face and body --
that of a patchwork woman
as if a circle of aunties had stitched me back together.
Scars journeyed through the color palette.
Bones knit, finally,
a white and silent craft.
 
After the driver's trial
my husband took me camping,
laid me on pine-needled ground,
made love to my Raggedy Ann body.
I felt our daughter catch inside me,
flung my hand above my head
touched cool flesh of mushrooms
thrusting up
through the forest floor.

Reprinted from the Wisconsin Review, January 2002
Image: morgueFile

The Fittest
by Gail Entrekin
 
All summer there was a dead vole,
or mole, or pointy-snouted mouse
on the doormat every morning,
often with its guts spilling out its neck.
Jack liked to bring them in through the cat door
alive and well, where possible, where avarice
and battle lust hadn't pushed him over the edge,
made him bite down too hard, split the thin skin
like a juicy pear. He liked to put them down
good-naturedly, let them run around a bit
on the deep green carpet, let them taste hope,
make a real run for the baseboard
before he grabbed them on the fly,
tossed them into the air by their tails,
held them down with his soft-whiskered
cheek, pressing his huge golden eye
to their terrified faces, until he grew
bored and weary of the game:
the same pathetic attempts to flee,
the same ridiculous tiny squeals,
and bit their heads off, dropped their bodies
just outside the door,
and probably
when the coyote stepped out of the woods,
grabbed him up by his fluffy throat
and bit right through, if Jack had a moment
to reflect, he thought damn
and then he died.

Toto Takes the Last Bus Out of Kansas
by Ann Menebroker
 
In sleep no one needs us.
Dreams may be the heaven
of our sleep. We can fall
out of the sky thousands
of feet and still wake up.
We can love dead people.
We can do wonderful things
and believe ourselves.
It's virtual reality long before
they gave it a name. But
that is only if, when dreaming,
we know we dream; if only
before the worse part
comes, we can stand like
a director of a movie, every-
one on their spot, yelling
CUT!

Previously published in Rattlesnake Review
Image: morgueFile

Solstice At Bella Coola
by Custis Haynes
 
Climbing to the petroglyphs
the trail runs high along the gorge.
We follow it not speaking, hoarding breath.
December and the rocky steepness scissor lungs.
 
Far down the creek is locked in ice,
no sound but snow-crunch under boots.
Mine fit, safe, inside the prints of yours,
encompassed,
as close as we have come to any touch.
 
Sudden narrowing.
The trail veers left around a boulder,
opens out on flatter ground.
And, in the instant that you bend
to brush the snow away from stone
the numen of the place comes flooding up.
 
Your sleeve sweeps over granite,
exposes carved dark faces, snow-seamed still.
Their eyes stare out at the solstice noon,
wide in their winter waking,
stone hair writhes,
and mouths wrench open
to devour? or to counsel?
 
I kneel five feet away, uncover one
who whispers ancient knowing.
Peeling gloves, I work with fingertips
to clear the incised lines of snow,
then spread my hand out in the raying of its hair.
 
You do that too, cold flesh to icy granite,
and then, between our hands
a current builds and quivers through the rock
and throbs and mounts, and sets the atoms dancing
until it's like the starting of the world,
and stone is warmed until we cannot bear it any more
and lift our hands away,
reach out across the petroglyphs
and as the sun swings over in the solstice sky
touch
fingertip to fingertip.

Witness
by Mary Mackey
 
there were once beasts called elephants
when one could not get food
the others fed her
they were taken for their tusks
which were made into bracelets and piano keys
and their feet which were made into footstools
the seals were made into hats and coats
the salmon were fished out of the rivers
and eaten
the ostriches were taken for plumes for hats
the giraffes became seat covers
 
there were once trees
older than our oldest cities
with trunks as thick
as the pillars of temples
near the end people tried to save them
by sitting in the tops
but they were forced down
and the trees became plywood
 
Swordfish were served in fine homes
on long polished tables
covered with exotic sauces
bones of wild mules were
ground up for glue
 
Mostly it happened by accident
no one meant to get rid of the frogs
at night they used to sing so loudly
we had to shout over the sound of them
and then one summer they sang softly
and then one summer they stopped singing
 
the honeybees died of some kind of virus
and then the crops failed
and the fruit trees stopped bearing
and a great silence spread over the fields
 
small things died
things we hardly noticed:
wild grasses
obscure fish
plants that didn't flower
bacteria
tiny brown birds
a kind of grasshopper that only lived in Africa
a plant that grew high up in a tree in the Amazon
where no human being had ever seen it
a biting gnat that people were glad to see go
clothes moths
a Siberian squirrel
some weeds along the side of the freeway
some silly-looking thing that lived in the sand
that the curlews ate
some tiny green plankton that floated in the sea
that no one knew about
 
soon only the oldest of us could remember
a time when we woke to the humming of the locusts
when a coyote danced in the sagebrush
a beaver felled a tree
a rhinoceros bathed in the mud
and wild roses bloomed in the ditches beside the roads
 
on summer evenings
large birds
used to cross the thin golden plate of the sun
 
in the forests
the whippoorwills sang all night long