The Walk to School

July 2018 | poetry

The chainsaw revs, wakes us to falling

limbs and pulping. Not the birch,

I pray, to what God of no

mercy, I know not. For it is the birch,

too close to the power lines, being

carved out. My son squeezes my

hand. People fear roots, I mumble—

which sounds creepy— maybe

the tree was sick, I add.

The comfort-lie, we both know— leaves

gusting down the picture-perfect block.

Joey told me entry-level jobs are being

replaced by artificial intelligence.

This shit is real, my son blurts.

(Joey: his best friend’s older brother.)

Typically, I would chastise this shit

is real. And lambast Joey.

Instead, I ruffle the top of his cherished

head. When did he start using hair

gel? My fifth-grader trying

to be tough, to take my eyes of what was

once my favorite tree, to comprehend

this irrational world. After drop-off,

I drag back home— only the trunk is left.

Goggled workers, in bright orange, feed

the silver branches to machines.

Someday, robots will do this. They will

also drive trucks cross country, scoop

ice-cream cones, walk our dogs.

The city trucks are a jolly green.

Emblazoned across their sides:

Yes, cultivation is good here.

by Rebecca Irene

Rebecca Irene is a graduate of Swarthmore College, and recently received her MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her work is published, or forthcoming, in Eunoia Review, Sixfold, Amaryllis, Dime Show Review, and elsewhere. She received a 2018 fellowship from the Norton Island Artist Residency Program. A Poetry Reader for Hunger Mountain and The Maine Review, she lives in Portland, Maine, where she supports her word-addiction by waitressing.

Karla Linn Merrifield

July 2018 | poetry

Materials

The copper widow

offers a penny a thought

to fill her basket

with derivative fortune

cookie drivel of evil

~

The two-bit widow

dispenses small-time wisdom;

small-minded yokels

in small towns throughout the land

think me soothsayer gypsy

~

The très chic widow’s

custom-fitted tuxedo,

a George Sand number,

parfait with kitten-heel pumps,

and couture pop-art bow tie.

~

The watchful widow

on stake-out beyond the wake

of amplified loss

catches the constellation

Orion hunting me down

Zodiac Ripple

I was born on a full moon

a bad-ass moon

in Aries’s house

my sun sign in tight-ass Virgo’s

has a big bulgy ball of loosy-goosies

to contend with

some rules

apply

some rules don’t (as here)

fickle the application thereof

I know the rules

know which is which

a poker face doesn’t stand

a chance

you can’t

fake me out

the aggrieved

grammarian

prim-grim librarian

is off-duty tonight

my ram rises

for George Wolff

by Karla Linn Merrifield

Karla Linn Merrifield, a nine-time Pushcart-Prize nominee and National Park Artist-in-Residence, has had 600+ poems appear in dozens of journals and anthologies. She has 12 books to her credit, the newest of which is Bunchberries, More Poems of Canada, a sequel to Godwit: Poems of Canada (FootHills), which received the Eiseman Award for Poetry. Forthcoming this fall is Psyche’s Scroll, a full-length poem, to be published by The Poetry Box Selects in June. She is assistant editor and poetry book reviewer for The Centrifugal Eye. Visit her blog, Vagabond Poet Redux, at http://karlalinn.blogspot.com. Google her name to learn more; Tweet @LinnMerrifiel; https://www.facebook.com/karlalinn.merrifield.

Feeding the Pup in the Early Morning

July 2018 | poetry

I love our pup, she whose DNA chooses to chew

the coffee table’s legs, any book, shoe or the pair

of reading glasses I left where anyone my age

would set them in case of fire, storm, the need

to finally pay a bill, much less an inappropriate

drop-in by someone you would never add to

your daughter’s wedding invitation list. However

it’s 7am and I must feed her. There’s a schedule,

a set of behaviors prescribed in validated tomes

by those who decided never to major in philosophy,

dance history, or literature. They opened their minds

to trial and error, determining a schedule is for sure

the only way to raise a confident and willing companion

who will at some unfathomable day give up dragging

anything dangling—bed spread, sweater, scarf, shower curtain—

who will come when called, sit, lie down, heel, fetch, love

me even when there is no treat. But it’s 7am and I

staggered to bed after meeting a deadline at 3am.

The schedule proclaims “Feed the pup at the same time

every day.” If she sleeps just a measly hour longer, do I

risk her turning into the neighborhood’s teeth baring

dingo who digs up Mrs. Phelps’s petunias, snarls

at the priest on his daily walk, steals the dump truck

from the sandbox down the street, snaps at the kid

selling magazines for a trip to Haiti? Will I be

the one whose best friend must be muzzled for

sleeping into just one more hour of just another day?

Do I take a rabid risk? Oh hell, God bless the kibble.

by Jack Ridl

Jack Ridl’s collection Broken Symmetry was named the year’s best collection by The Society of Midland Authors. His Practicing to Walk Like a Heron received the Gold Medal for Poetry from ForeWord Review/ALA, and his Against Elegies was chosen by Billy Collins for The Center for Book Arts Chapbook Prize. He was named Michigan’s Professor of the Year by the Case/Carnegie Foundation. More than 90 of his students are now publishing their work, several of whom have won first book awards.

Stuff

July 2018 | poetry

To minimize        sorrow’s splash & sizzle

baby lava drops        slow motion fall

leaving their tear ducts      empty of ways

to transport    the stuff of grief

some lean       toward heavenly things

the blue & white fluff    of paper Mache

obese clouds      of thunderous joy

the pretty and perfect        pulseless distractions

made famous         by the stuff of faith

consumption     is rarely subpoenaed

for questioning             too much stuff

in the gut’s garage           too much mail

in the mind’s cold box         to sort out    the real

from      the almost real    the who the hell sent

this wickedness to me     who has time

for such       stuff

Daniel Edward Moore

Daniel Edward Moore’s poems have been published in the Spoon River Poetry Review, Rattle, Columbia Journal, New South, American Journal Of Poetry and others. His poems are currently at Lullwater Review, Natural Bridge Literary Journal, Scalawag Magazine, Tule Review, Fire Poetry Journal, West Texas Literary Review, The Chaffin Journal, Bluestem Magazine, The Paragon Journal and Sheila-Na-Gig. Poems forthcoming are in Weber Review, Stillwater Review, Hawaii Review, Blue Fifth Review, Plainsongs, Twisted Vine Literary Arts Journal, Broad Street Magazine, The Museum Of Americana and West Trade Review. His books of poems are the anthology “This New Breed: Gents, Bad Boys and Barbarians,” and “Confessions Of A Pentecostal Buddhist” can be found on Amazon. He lives in Washington on Whidbey Island. His work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. (danieledwardmoore.com)