October 2015 | back-issues, poetry
It should be Margaret Meade
leaving her barely palatable threesome
to figure it all out for me.
I don’t live on the banks of the Orinoco:
these rocks on the bottom are
all paved and worn with ruts.
I do want to know why
my brown eyes turned green after
fifty years, why Ancestry DNA needs
my saliva. Is there really no
First Nation in my children
or Swede in my black hair?
Come on, Margaret, crawl out
of that anemic bed and learn
my language, that secret ceremony
that should save me, again, again,
and never does. Tell me the meaning
of rituals I always answered with yes.
Why is time suddenly the last button
on a dress shirt; the half-ripped
left back jean pocket; I’m naked
wading to my waist in muddy
water, leeches threatening.
Just look at me, write it down.
by Karen Vande Bossche
Karen Vande Bossche has been writing poetry and short stories for decades. Some recent work can be found at Damfino and Damselfly. Karen is a hard core Pacific Northwest inhabitant who believes that sun is best delivered in liquid form.
October 2015 | back-issues, poetry
I never told anyone but
I’ll tell you.
About the fire
Folding up my tongue,
The last counted hour
With my stomach shrinking
Toward my graveyard spine.
My body wanted to be pins
And needles,
Balancing voided meals with
Cigarettes. Burn marshmallow
Fat like burning up
S’mores,
Campfire chocolate,
Childhood knobbles
In my rounded knees.
My body was statistical.
It was burned and tarred
And feathered. Monster me,
An under-the-bed story.
Cool dinnertime untruths,
Tamed, lightheaded.
Bless
The daily dizzy shrivel, the
Ribby abdomen poke, the
Airbrush collapse. Spark,
Sear, scissor open
The new pack.
by Alison Lanier
Alison Lanier is a Boston-based writer and graduate of Wellesley College. She recently joined the editorial team at The Critical Flame. Her fiction, reviews, articles, and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Atticus Review, Counterpoint Magazine, and The Wellesley Review, where she also served as editor.
October 2015 | back-issues, fiction
Wordlessly, she positions him beside her, leaning against the boat’s railing for support. She is now somebody’s wife. She is satisfied with their pose—only slightly more intimate than a prom photograph. Even now, twenty-five years later, I can hear the tension in her mouth. Her gaze is direct, flat. Her thoughts are elsewhere. The photographer fiddles with the aperture, trying not to overexpose the fleshy whiteness of her skin, a princess in her past life.
My father is my mother’s contrast. He is brown and complacent. No matter how many times the photographer counts to three, advances the film, my father’s lips stay a stodgy tan line. His eyes are narrow behind the enormity of his glasses, three years out of style.
I try to imagine the moment my mother has described in detail, the one the photographer captured and my father later destroyed—the only time she ever saw my father cry. The newlyweds drop their arms, turn away. Bride and groom, shoulder to shoulder at the rail, contemplating the churning water below. A cork pops behind them. After a moment, he lifts his hand. He wipes his face. His head dips slightly. Her eyes do not turn to acknowledge his movement. Her hands grip the wood in front of her. A small breeze catches his hair, flutters her veil. They are quiet, their bodies stiff. The boat skips over a wave, lurching like a subway train. They stand together. They do not flinch.
by Moriah Howell
Moriah Howell was born and raised in Penns Valley, a rural community outside State College, Pennsylvania. She is currently an MFA student at Temple University, focusing on fiction. She writes poetry and creative nonfiction as well, but feels she was meant to write fiction. Her dream job would be an editor at a publishing house, as well as an author, and she hopes to make those dreams come true.
