Jacob William Cox, Summer 2016

Generations
Jacob William Cox

She sat down in the shade and giggled. Oh, they were such silly people! So silly they made you giggle, and want nothing more than to run away through the first hot day of spring. Find a nice spot in the shade of a towering sycamore, and hide.

Sunlight filtered through the young leaves, mottling the roots and ground. The young girl smelled dirt. Earth. And she liked that smell, a rich living smell; the idea of bugs and worms. She dug her fingers in the dirt, moist after the rain which had fallen in the night. The pale blossoms on the trees, blown away in the winds, floated in ones and twos on the surface of the lake. Bending around the tree, hiding from nothing, she could see all this, the pond, the petals, and a mother duck with a few ducklings trailing.

She got up and walked over, dragged her dirty hands over her dress and stood watching. Continue reading “Jacob William Cox, Summer 2016” →

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Brian Dean Powers, Summer 2016

My Voice
Brian Dean Powers

I always sound hoarse.
Like a radio half-tuned to the station.
It’s hard to make myself heard.

I repeat myself often, every day.
It’s hard to make myself heard.
That’s the voice I have.

I can’t converse in noisy places.
Don’t ask me to speak to a group.
I’d rather not talk at all.

It’s hard to make myself heard.
There’s a furrow in my vocal folds.
There’s a flaw that can’t be fixed.

You might not hear my hello.
What can I say?
That’s the voice I have. Continue reading “Brian Dean Powers, Summer 2016” →

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Matthew Rotando, Summer 2016

The Beast That Lunges
Matthew Rotando

The best thing about remembering is that it’s in your hands. You revolt against sleep and become a phantom in time, moving through rooms and visions as a wiry, feral child. You don’t need words to eat, to find shelter. You taste water in air and move to it with your thirst. You kneel over a lake at night. The outline of your face is a surprise. You breathe hard and lunge into recollection. You run backwards and laugh at your heelprints in the earth. Snakes slide back to their skins. Fires grow into trees. Pearls soften to sand. You unwrite the future for the happy beast you are becoming. Rain whispers quietly upward. The past begins to show. Clarity is dimness. Your hands as clouds, as fins, as roaming notes. Continue reading “Matthew Rotando, Summer 2016” →

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Brian Fanelli, Summer 2016

Two Poems

Wandering South Street with You
Brian Fanelli

The day will be fleeting,
so I want to photograph you
near neon lights, storefront mannequins
in pink corsets and red fishnets,
your hair tucked under a knit hat,
some brown strands visible behind your ears.
I want to photograph all of you—
your chipped gold nail polish,
black stockings hugging your thighs,
white smudges of salt on your boots,
the plastic mustache you bought
as a gag and wore as we drifted
shop to shop, café to café.
By sunset, our hands will unlink,
and we will drive home,
that two-hour Turnpike haul.
After you drop me off,
I’ll glance back and remember
this day, here on South Street with you,
when your hand curled into mine,
and we pretended Continue reading “Brian Fanelli, Summer 2016” →

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Raymond Cummings, Summer 2016

Two Poems

Your Ad Will End After This Video
Raymond Cummings

A family of robins cuddles in a nest,
hatchlings nestled, timid, beneath a
mother’s wings. Reflexively, the
smallest bird rolls a white eye as if
watching you dream around him.

 

Rose
Raymond Cummings

Poised and trembling before a starry Alaskan
Plane, I hunt every word. They melt like wax
seals, felled at your bare feet, provocatively arrayed:
a shrine of faith. At a touch the barrette snaps
and long, black hair spills free. Around your
middle you wrap my arms like a sash; dreaming,
we sway in the half-light of a honeymoon suite.

Continue reading “Raymond Cummings, Summer 2016” →

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