Poetry
by Margaret Kogan.
“The smell is like nothing else. / Sickeningly sweet and kind of smoky, / like something burning and rotting at the same time, / it filled my father’s hospital room / and stuck to our clothes and nostrils / long after he died.”
by Margaret Kogan.
“First open the windows and empty the garbage. / Next start the laundry, lights and darks. / Strip the bed, wash sheets, pillowcases, / mattress and quilt covers, mats and towels.”
by Kent Leatham.
“These things happen. There’s nothing /
beautiful about it. She gave up her breasts / two years ago, but the cancer returned, pushing / through the sutures, the larval wasp consuming…”
by Amanda Auchter.
“Tucked beneath my mother’s shirts /
and camisoles, a paper bag / of prayer cards, I find…”
by Jill M. Allen.
“A decade after we burned through the mysteries / and you taught me cartography’s other dark /
arts, I dreamed of you coming for a garden tea…”
by Catharine Clark-Sayles.
“From 1850 to 1890 forty-one of fifty-six infants born on St. Kilda in the Hebrides died of tetanus caused by the custom of anointing the umbilical stump with oil stored in the dried stomach of a goose.”
by John Willson.
“Belongings: The short-sleeved blouse, /
its paisley rayon desperate / to breathe light in your form; / the comb that hungers / for the pull of your hair; / the wristwatch, clicking in stir…”
by Missy-Marie Montgomery.
“The deer stepped out in front of my car /
so politely, as if to say is this a good time? / And it happened that it was, / perfectly timed between cars and patches of ice. /
I braked. She stepped gracefully across…”
by Nellie Hill.
“To understand the heart / you’ve got to memorize arteries, vessels, / and which goes where, which is red / and which is blue, what’s likely to pop open–“