The Rural Chronicles : Junctures
But I keep looking for the core world, a deeper place, that bright bell of sun. We’re not Presbyterian school girls, after all; we’re in the middle of a wake-up call.
Ubh
I’m struck dumb suddenly by this egg, this enormity.
This immense incomprehensible oval and its lovely silence.
Basil Leaves
this is our home she says, skin and bones built up with love
we put basil on everything
News!
Best Reads of 2018
As we enter a new year, our staff looks back at our best reads of 2018. Cassie: My best...Pushcart Nominations
We are pleased to announce our Pushcart Prize nominations! Congratulations to our talented contributors; we are honored to have...
February 2019
The Burial
My husband says he wants to be buried by the sea, like Neruda, so when his eyes can’t see the ocean anymore, his body would still be close to it.
Waiting for Rescue
Drifting here on the far side of the moon and sun, she feels strangely at peace. Trigger does, too, in the falling rain and the question of goodbye.
January
I will be home soon in bed. I will wake up in six hours. I’ll be home in nine minutes.
December 2018 – Pushcart Nominations
Pirate Town
In a few minutes, predictably, the air brakes gave an angry hiss and the ton upon ton of steel strained to stop the momentum of its own barreling progress. The train finally came to a stop in the open desert.
12:59:51:06
Looking back, I can only remember the nickname given to the luger at those 2010 Winter Olympic Games in British Columbia: “BAM-BAM!,” they cheered. He was a favorite for gold. I can’t recall which country he was representing, just his…
You Prefer Hearing Poems Read Aloud to Poems on the Page
I’m trying to explain my poems.
Sonnets equal boxes, into which
we place the cat, a gun, & all our problems.
December 2018 – Pushcart Nominations
You Should Be Dancing
The ground seemed so much farther away than usual. The soles slid on the carpet. She felt like a little girl in her mother’s high heels. She did not feel sexy.
End
Always late, and always your sleeves carefully folded. A cat knows the sunny spot.
Drinking Dead Birds
Before I had my son, I thought I was too careless to be a mother. I had a bird for eight years that I’d gotten from a flea market as a gift. His cage was cleaned when my parents told me to clean it, his water bowl goopy and pink.
July 2018
The Boy Who Was Divided into Time Zones
In the mornings he pulled on the trousers of the day but could not choose between his corn belt and his bible belt.
Remember Floating
She asked me, “do you like Miss Donne?
You’re both girls. But my dad says that’s okay.”
Company
Les just sit togeddah, we talk story.
Bum by Aunty sing a song, but fo now goin talk story.
Bout a beudeeful girl who wen bump her hed, jus like you.
June 2018
The Unknowable
she—having regained composure—messaged him: Your mother needs to know you are all right and she foolishly expected an immediate response
Bodies
What’s needed now is bodies—
when the cold wind blows
Although, Etc.
Why didn’t I steal you
before doors were barred,
make a camp under the boughs?
April 2018
Dear Johnny Castle
we knew you were trouble, in the pits of our stomachs,
or maybe lower…
Nine Months after Joyce Rose, Aged 67 and Expected to Die from Cancer, Moved to the Seashore to Make One Last Attempt to Write the Good Novel
She waited for a gray-green tentacle to slither up from the water.
Azalea Festival Queen Patricia LeMay (L) holding the Norfolk Mace and being kissed by her father Gen. Curtis LeMay (R)
Their faces are very close;
it seems he is whispering to her.
February 2018
Oh, Venus, what shall I do with you?
So you’re not the Anadyomene — suck it up!
Too much pudica peek-a-boo
sfumato
So they named you Mona Lisa,
as the song goes,
blather on about your smile.
Woman With Beautiful Breasts
this anti-Willendorf
bares one swollen breast-bud scored of real clay
January 2018
Chicken Wings Fall from a Building
Defenestration: to throw something out of a window.
Death by Burning
“Baby, everything’s gonna be fine,” he says. “God has a plan for us, and I promise you, it ain’t death by burning.”
Bell
my bones a bell and my flesh a bell, my tongue a vibrating rhythm all its carpet own
December 2017
Security Lines
what if I can’t travel with
because of
oh you know
Exhale on Descending
We fly over a trailer park
with empty slots, above-ground pools,
a Marriott with hourly rates
Lexicography
The run of a horse
is a gallop. Roam, rove
with restraint. Run those hounds,
those errands. Run your eye
down the list.
November 2017
Gio’s Arm
It was hairless and white, without visible scarring. It looked like there had never been an arm there at all, as if this were just a different way for a body to be constructed. It possessed a peaceful aura, Quinn thought.
The Poppy Eater
There is that much shadow in her, that much dusk of an open earth.
Rain. Saturday Morning. Training Wheels.
We’re far from the seventeen flavors of hell I run across in the course of my week, things that are just never good: glue traps. outgrown swing sets. waiting rooms.
September 2017
All That I Can’t Hold On To
I wish for a reason
To remain whole
When all I want
Is to be dismantled
Hallelujah
When the work is done
there will be more work. That’s what I show
the kids everyday
The Son Under the Bridge
He wants her to believe he’s not fit for the world, no matter how well she’s tried to raise him, or what tools she’s given him. God is her witness, she’s tried hard.
June 2017
Back @You
Don’t let them into your head.
Going to French Lick
“I just hated everything about Trump in the beginning,” she admitted. “I couldn’t stand him at first. Nothing about him I liked. I prayed hard and a lot on the subject, and I believe he has truly obtained humility with the election result. I really believe that!” she said for emphasis.
Territorial Pissings
I was pretty sure from what I’d heard in church that if I did black magic then I’d be cursed by God. Just look at what happened to Kurt.