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by Candy Sue Ellison
1.
When unveiling you
my hand has a thousand eyes;
they blink, you open.
2.
Your hands make a web
that now catches my body:
a delicate net.
3.
Turn off all the lights
to see what turns on inside:
Fireflies blinking codes.
4.
If I were to burst
into blossom at your feet,
would you deny me?
5.
Thighs: a field aflame.
Heart: corn, ready to be husked.
Hands: mend the ruins.
by Ed Higgins
I am word driven. We all are actually. All these questions, a Möbius strip.
Speaking as if words were another kind of intimacy we soon arrived by
noun, verb and syntax at the heart’s empty page, not a moment too soon.
The inability to say myself. Because you may be listening and both of us may overhear only to discover what neither expected or desires.
And because there are geese heading North again and lavender and white crocus opening to spring bees carried to them on this morning’s sunlight.
I travel these words past signs and misgivings looking for sweet smelling honeysuckle hung in the arbor there.
by Ed Higgins
You are actually groping along
slowly in this completely dark
space. Staying open maybe to
constantly shifting possibilities.
That is your story, really
but it still may be a false lead.
Only you hang on for dear life
like that cat-in-the-toilet
goodbye cruel world poster
with you forever fearing
someone will flush you
after pissing on your head
or worse. But because
you are stubborn enough
(and keep reminding yourself
through all this desperation)
finally some magic silk thread
will be found leading you
through this god-awful labyrinth
which according to Plutarch
is of pre-Greek origin anyway
the word labrys being a Lydian
word for double-headed axe.
And where in the end you meet
the Minotaur. From which
no one could ever escape.
Except you will, you will.
by Faith G
A day like any other;
as I stare out at this blue-crabbed coast.
I am fixed on the waves and their gentle foxtrot;
first turning outward, then inward towards themselves,
in the hope that their slow dance will somehow calm me.
Lately my anger feels so powerful,
it could stop God’s plan daily at 3:00pm.
Eating, sleeping, walking by rote,
but I cannot aptly execute the tiniest gesture
with my obsession.
Must I now also accept that there are no clear, dispassionate thoughts
moving through this stagnancy?
I kneel down on the coarse New England beachcover;
praying for your memory to fall into the sea.
I stare at the pillows of clouds
as tears gather on my cheeks;
they are the texture of rain falling
on late November soil.
It is difficult to project whether
my genuflection will help me forget,
warm to again or not,
the peculiar lineaments of love.
A few years prior, I might not have recognized your trademark,
and yet, I am still very much alone in body and spirit.
Somehow I think we together decided that last day
that your brand of segregation
would work quite well
in both our worlds.
by Faith G
She pretends not to be there.
Crouching in the corner;
the fat little girl with the large black eyes;
so intent on watching his upper arm muscles
expand and contract
as he tosses the first
of two drawers of clothing
halfway across the room.
He gets this way on Fridays,
when he goes to Pepe's.
Usually lasts the weekend.
But when he goes to the garage on Mondays
it becomes another Saturday Night dream.
Still, it's better than when
her momma's away,
when he grabs her and kisses her cheeks
over and over again
with his slobbery lips and puckered mouth.
She wipes the spit away with the back of her hand
but the wet dirt won't go away.
And better too,
than the days he flings the back of his hand
across her mouth, calling her stupid
like he calls her grandma.
She longs to be kidnapped,
taken away to the country,
with grass and trees
and dogs and cats
like the ones he won't let her have.
Where she can have all the comic books
and candy she wants.
She sleeps alot.
That's her world.
He can't take that away;
though some days he tries.
