July 2014 | back-issues, poetry
Arbor vitae, meaning tree of life:
rooted in the sagittal section
of sheep’s brain –
little cerebellum and
white-matter trunk,
white branches tucked within it.
The branches bare, as in winter.
Another, in the Kaballah – perfect
orbs suspended, tied
to the ceiling, to each other.
Tattooed in the characters of a language
whose characters were indecipherable.
Its intricacy mesmerized: no roots,
no reaching branches. The strings
between spheres held like taut sinews
with no need for beginning or end.
Yours a galaxy, stretch of strange planets
holding each other aloft.
Mine a single, irreversible cut.
Courtney Hartnett
Courtney Hartnett is an MFA candidate in poetry at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She graduated from the University of Virginia in 2013 with a BA in Interdisciplinary Writing, and her poems and prose have appeared or are forthcoming in Appalachian Journal, storySouth, Blood Lotus, and Dew on the Kudzu. Courtney was a finalist for the Crab Orchard Review’s 2014 Allison Joseph Poetry Award.
July 2014 | back-issues, poetry
Eurydice
What would he say if he could see me like this:
stinking of nicotine, sitting in the dark
across from the fucker with fat fingers
who’s never seen anything like me before.
Would he kiss me
Or tell me to brush my teeth?
Nowadays I can drink a carafe of wine and not feel a thing.
I got all the mean, deep feelings a girl could want.
Does that count for something in a lover?
What would he say if he could see me:
“Just because you went down south for a few days,
it doesn’t make you a bohemian.”
Would he bring lilacs?
Would we drown in the silence?
Would he find anything irresistible left inside of me?
Maybe I can still forget about him.
There’s always that distant possibility.
The Man I Loved
He drifted out with the tide.
He burned away on the end of a cigarette.
Or maybe he went out for a carton of milk
And never came back.
It was a harmless kind of disappearing.
Kate Douglas
Kate Douglas is a writer and performance artist living in New York. As a playwright, her work has been produced at Ars Nova and Joe’s Pub. She is a recipient of the National Society of Arts and Letters’ Lavina Kohl Award for Excellence in Literature and the NJ Governors Award in Arts Education for her short play Treading Water. Her poetry has been published in Contrary Magazine, among others.
July 2014 | back-issues, poetry
small promise the mountains back deep
in distant dawn as too
now a truck slows from great swell
small and low, within
bladder is full and cells nervy enough
sing freedom
for empty gravel, for roads which run
and the dark differs
as all altitudes once, done and knowing this so
the brain springs
so settles this indifference as the shake sure
comes as the tuck back
and at just-almost, where green of the grass,
frost covers, all eyes for
and for boots dusty, red and glad
simply for the cover
a cap is pulled as the colder gets and gone
still as waits, the door is open
past hay patch and shot rang, and not far off
awaken have the birds
Mark Magoon
Mark Magoon writes poetry and short stories, and secret songs for his dog. His poetry can be found in print in After Hours and Midwestern Gothic, and on the web at DIALOGIST, Ghost Ocean Magazine, and The Nervous Breakdown. His creative nonfiction piece, Chef!Chef!Chef!, can be found at Burrow Press Review. He lives in Chicago with a wife far too pretty.
