April 2015 | back-issues, nonfiction
To the Man Who Was to Be My Gardening Companion for Fifty Years
You used to love that I see the fierce beauty in a little chaos. I first cleared that web of woodiness cautiously. I pruned instead of hacked the curious entanglement of Greenbrier and Wisteria. The roots seemed to reach as deep as our own. Coiled arms weaved and roamed within a contained jungle; unaware of their confusion. Wherefrom were the clustered blooms and the source of those thorns? I trimmed the entwined vines and branches to create a negative space. The lofty window then was in view.
A too-early spring bestowed a lavender waterfall. You should have seen it. The Wisteria’s light-green leaves were infrequent, and the blooms hung like grape clusters. The pods of the flower were velvet, and when I ran my hand underneath them, they felt like delicate mala beads across my palm. The sweet smell of baby powder hung in the air, and I longed to be near them. I sat on the steps of my front porch to hold the impermanence of a Florida spring.
In the Fall, you came and took measure. We dug perfect beds in the sun. You replanted shy-yellow lilies. To flank a much-better laid path. But, the vines. Our bare limbs bled from thorns. We have to get at the roots, you said. You pulled hard and we cut underground. You wielded shovel and saw. To conquer Mount Parnassus’s Pythons. All roots were exposed and then gone.
Now the rusty swing squeaks in the nearby park. The squirrels’ throaty barks fall from the Laurel tree. A sliver of lavender peaks through pale- green buds on the spiraling vine that hugs the Crepe Myrtle trunk like a gentle rebel.
by Johanna Lane
The Voice of the Withlacoochee
To see colors along the Withlacoochee River, you must be there in the slanted light. Walk with her there. Let soft shoes touch the path like a shushing finger to the lips. Notice longleaf pine needles gilded from the sun’s glow. The sinking light unmasks a lapis sky. See the soppy, pine-needled path become maroon, like the underside of a great blue heron’s wing.
Don’t worry if you are out of step with your companion.
Separate the stiff palmetto fronds for her and step down to the riverbank. Don’t fall. Walk closely to the roots and stay on solid ground. As the sun descends, watch how the tannin-stained river appears copper. Be mindful of shin-high cypress knees, so you don’t trip. See them scattered like old faces in a crowd. Focus in on one. Study the intricate lines like those around our eyes and mouths. They reveal our sad and happy stories.
Imagine the deep, gentle flow of a raised river when you see high water lines on Cypress tree trunks. But the shallow reveals gnarled roots grasping the bank; its knuckles protrude and fingertips sink into the soil.
Plan to return. As the setting sun erases the lavender hues in browned grasses, recall what wasn’t said.
by Johanna Lane
Johanna is an adjunct instructor of English at Saint Leo University. She writes personal essays that focus on the diverse and complicated natural environment of Florida and how this can mirror the dynamics in our most intimate interpersonal relationships.
April 2015 | back-issues, poetry
I sat among the books and the shelves rattled and shook
The covers flying open as the words wrestled their way out, shattering the air with a collective shout,
Settling down into a song the words took shape, rising and falling each one struggling to find it’s space
The melody began, drifting, dancing
Lazily the tune took me like a stream, each turn and bend showing me a new dream
The harmony joined in, as I looked upon the banks and saw the rolling hills and fields ready to be filled with whatever my mind could make
The stronger words decided to have their turn, as the stream gained strength and a river was born
Dropping me down in frigid waters, and the song was gone and the only sound was the chatter of my teeth
Then I burst through again, and drawing breath, riding the crest of the wave, I found myself at the sea and knew I could stay afloat
As the sun warmed my skin, I heard the sweet hymn once more, and looked out and saw forever stretched across the shore
by Crawford Krebs
Crawford Krebs is eighteen years old and lives in South Carolina.
April 2015 | back-issues, poetry
Self-help book publishers
Looking for old answers
In new packaging
Of crafty cover art
Catered to mid-life upstarts
Caught up in life’s heist
Stealing unpredictable
Trust fund diamonds
Hiding from the sun’s glare
Seeks futility’s self-awareness
Posing as repressed confessions
Yet still contributes to yearly profits
by Charlie Weeks
Charlie Weeks is the type of guy who writes with any liquid poison soaking in his mind. He has been recently published in lit mags such as the Dr. T.J. Eckleburg review and Summer edition of Haunted Waters.
April 2015 | back-issues, poetry
In every family photograph
I see what isn’t there,
the change in my face,
my father’s gestures,
my mother’s hair.
I search through the box of photographs
for evidence. The fights we didn’t hear.
The book and its damning inscription.
Do I imagine the rift in the photograph,
the four of us on the couch in Texas at Grandpa’s house?
Mom is holding me still
her hands on my upper arms
as I lean toward the edge of the frame.
Eddie is resting against Dad,
his whole body balanced,
a weight on my father’s knee.
Dad leans away.
Mom looks dazed, her smile as static
as the turned up ends of her plastered hair.
I read an article years ago about how you could
tell which Hollywood stars were breaking up
by paying attention to body language in candid photographs.
Do I imagine our demise
in the way my parents lean away from each other,
in the way my brother tries to hold them still,
in the way I struggle to escape?
by Lori Gravley
Lori Gravley writes poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. She earned her MFA from the University of Texas at El Paso. She has published poems and essays in a variety of journals, including Flights, Ekphrasis, and Mock Turtle Zine. She has work forthcoming in Crack the Spine and I-70 Review. She lives just outside of Yellow Springs, Ohio between a meadow and a cornfield.
April 2015 | back-issues, poetry
hide with me
in the unfinished corner
of creation
from Hannibal,
Busta Rhymes,
and Google
Matthew McConaughey
will have no power
until sundown.
we will play yahtzhee in the dark,
the dice with convex dots
so we can feel something
there are lightning bolts
in our eyes and we can split trees
by looking.
let’s read
the curvature
of the horizon
to each other
fingers thrust into the copper blood soil
your face deep in citrus and silver.
it’s dark but for your thoughts
and the full clouds.
by Akiva Savett
Akiva J. Savett’s poetry has been published in a chapbook entitled Preservation and appeared in The Orange Room Review, Poetry Quarterly, Kerem, Circa, The Red River Review, In Parentheses, Four And Twenty, The Eunoia Review, Etcetera, and was published in The Washington Post’s “Autobiography As Haiku.” He teaches English and Advanced Placement Literature at Winston Churchill High School in Potomac, Maryland. He holds an MA in English from University of Delaware and lives in suburban Maryland with his wife Alison and two children.
