January 2016 | nonfiction
I saw you today. You’d been left behind. Caught in the act of unzipping your old skin. There among the husks of your siblings, you gripped the maple tree, your body the color of new leaves unfurling. I saw your convulsive twitch, your jointed limbs. I witnessed your struggle to be born. That moment of leaving your armor.
We are not strangers. I know you from your song, August’s soundtrack, that vibrating sine wave. Your evening crescendo rises in the ears of joggers, gardeners, children at play on browning lawns. We shout to be heard from under the trees—or fall silent altogether.
I know you from your shell, torment of my childhood. Yesterday I lifted your kinsman’s carapace from a raspberry. My fingers shivered to do it. Recalling crackly monsters my brother left on my bookshelf, my pillow, my light switch.
I know you from your jittering bounce on the ground, a curiosity for the dog, an opportunity for the cat.
Once you appeared at my back door after I wrote a poem in which you starred. You looked up at me as if to say, You rang?
But I’ve never seen you like this, freeze-framed in the act of vaulting into your new shape.
Does it hurt, this slow-mo backflip into freedom? It looks like it would hurt.
Maybe it hurts like a foot gone to sleep, the flow of blood returning. Maybe you sense that soon, very soon, your new wings will dry.
Do you look back at your exoskeleton once you’ve juddered free? That hull too small to contain you?
I look into your unblinking eyes, and I think not. Perhaps it’s more like this: You climb, you rest, you open your wings.
The buzzing symphony pulls you to the treetops. You ready your instrument.
by Shawndra Miller
Mennonite by birth, mystic by nature, Shawndra Miller is a writer and community organizer who lives in Indianapolis. She is coauthor of Sudden Spirit: A Book of Holy Moments and is currently working on a nonfiction book about community resilience. Her work has appeared in Edible Indy, Indiana Living Green, Farm Indiana, and Acres USA, as well as Boiler Journal and Lavender Review.
January 2016 | poetry
Electrons circle
protons, neutrons
of an atom’s nucleus.
Radio signal, steady
beeps fade out, long
distance voyager.
People talk as their
electric and magnetic
fields converge.
Atoms bond together,
make molecules that
form everything.
Lone dog left
in a cage wonders
what he did wrong.
Biosphere clings
to lithosphere’s roll
round an elliptical.
by Steve Hood
Steve Hood is an attorney and political activist. His work won an award from the Pacific Northwest Writers’ Association and has been published in many places including Crack the Spine, Maudlin House, and the anthology Noisy Water. His chapbook, From Here to Astronomy, was published by Pudding House.
January 2016 | poetry
I once walked calmly through the cold, dark woods
Not afraid of what could have lied ahead
Strapped to my cold back were my gear and goods
Far away from any cottage or bed
I went to be alone with just my mind
Needing some time for me to clear my thoughts
It was not long before my head aligned
And I finally got what I had sought
Walking this path taught me one simple fact
That in a place where dark and evil creaks
You always find what always seemed abstract
And you find out that you are not so weak
A place alone is a place to find peace
A place alone is for your mind’s release
by Trevor Tyma
January 2016 | fiction
It was ten minutes to closing time at the cell phone store and Gillespie struggled with what to do after work. He had narrowed his options down to either hanging himself or going to the grocery. Now he was stuck, since both seemed so appealing. On one hand, the notion of vegging out in front of the television with a Hungry Man dinner made him breathe deep and flutter his eyelids. On the other, death’s sweet release was permanent and contained no calories. He now had eight minutes to decide.
Oh, hell.
An old woman shuffled through the door and it banged against the two-wheeled grocery basket she pulled behind her. Her hair was platinum and held down with a polka-dotted kerchief. Gillespie smiled wanly at her, knowing he wouldn’t be leaving on time.
“Need some minutes!” The biddy hollered at him good-naturedly.
“Minutes we have.” He clicked his mouse. “What’s your number?”
“How would I know?” She thrust the phone at him. “I never call me.”
Gillespie took the phone. It was covered with something sticky. He punched up her number.
“How many minutes?”
“Ten bucks worth.” The bill came at him and he took it. It was sticky as well. He completed the transaction as quickly as he could, then turned back to the woman and froze.
The old lady held a banana, and it was pointed directly at his heart.
“Take it. They were on sale at Kroger. Strawberries and oranges, too.”
He took it and thanked her, and she and her cart banged out the door and down the sidewalk.
In his car fifteen minutes later, Gillespie peeled the banana and considered his options.
He hadn’t eaten a strawberry in twenty years, and today they were on sale.
by Robert L. Penick
Robert Penick’s work has appeared in over 100 different literary magazines, including The Hudson Review, North American Review, and China Grove. He lives in Louisville, KY, with his free-range box turtle, Sheldon.
January 2016 | poetry
Watercolors
Some days I’m convinced
It’s the pain that makes me real.
Reminding me I’m breathing.
That I am happy to be here.
That I am strong… but some days
Some days it spits and hisses,
and I just can’t love it when I feel so fragile.
It is replaying a slow beautiful loop of misery
Thundering down paper skin
sparks are bursting through the surface
and they are arranging themselves
into prickly and asymmetrical patterns
I close my eyes and I am rocking gently
counting the notes of this symphony
but my breath is coming in waves again
Those wild gulps are cresting the dam I’ve built
A dam made of “I can do it”s and porcelain
For a moment I give in and lean against it
Pressing my cheek on the cold reality of it
Hoping it will hold a while longer
But I can feel it giving, rubble is littering my lap again.
I’m trying to bite back a weakness
but my face heats as I feel the tears
It’s gone feral again
and in all its uncontrolled glory
It is flinging ugliness at my skin
It splatters and spreads like watercolors
Painting everything I touch a sick eggplant color
and leaving copper on my bitten tongue
Because I don’t look fucking sick Do I?!
I’m a tough girl!
It’s been this way so long…
Haven’t I gotten used to it?
Some days
Well, some days it just surprises me
You See Yourself
i see you, i see you seeing yourself
i wish I could see if you pick at the fuzz
on the arm of your sweater
when you read what I write,
that’s what I imagine
and yes I imagine too much
so much
picnics and fresh air and fresh fruit and fresh smiles
dark nights and warm fires and
really
good
books,
books that you might actually read,
because you read things.
and you would remind me that i imagine too much
so much
but its never quite enough
i find myself spinning in your footsteps
like a vacuum
picking up whatever you have dropped
breathing it in with a whir and a grin
because like a vacuum,
yes either kind,
i am hungry
and empty
and always trying to fill myself
with
your
self
and if i was a betting woman,
and i am,
i would place money on the he loves you petals
because he does
at least in some small way
or you wouldn’t be reading this,
you wouldn’t be trying to figure out
how to stuff all these very visible feelings
back in between lines,
the lines i read between to get them.
Maybe we speak different languages,
maybe you don’t speak…
i worry a lot,
so much,
i should start a therapy group.
i wouldn’t invite you
of course
you would already occupy so much of that hour.
by Raychelle Lodato
Raychelle Lodato is a 36yr-old mother, wife, and poet who writes under the names Cybilseyes and Diminished.Me
