July 2011 | back-issues, poetry
My hands feel sweaty
As I gently lift you off my lap
Your gray tail curves against my arm
And I feel as though you’re holding on
Not because you’re afraid to fall
But because you’re afraid to keep holding on
Fragile bones of starvation can be felt
Amongst the ungroomed, greasy hair
You hide away in my arms as I move on
Closer and closer towards the door
With the bell that lightly chimes
“Appointment with death”
Sounds of youthful chirps and barks
Surround us as I hold you closer
Remember when you were that small?
So playful and curious with the world
Always getting into trouble
But were always forgiven
The time when you escaped
Through a broken screen
Or when you would sneak a drink
From my glass on the floor
The countless missing hair ties
I gave up looking for
Yet you managed to win me over
With your crisp, lime green eyes
Your feminine dainty paws
That small heart shaped nose
Whiskers as white as snow
And of course, your signature meow
I will miss your calming, loud purr
Seeing your “shark fin” tail as I lay in bed
Hearing you scamper up the stairs
Petting your silky fur, rubbing your alert ears
And even finding the “present” of
A mouse at my feet
A woman calls out your name
And you look up with recognition
I pretend to not notice that these moments
Are our last together
As I kiss the top of your head
I whisper my goodbyes under my breath
And walk towards the guiding light
–Nicolle Devoto
July 2011 | back-issues, poetry
Wooden poets buoy above the lawn
on knees carved of earth and splintered words,
spitting fire to grave. They ember on
in true pyrrhic fashion, flutter and burn.
Women with lips like peach pits plant coals
under their tongues and lay with palms agape,
effigies in flesh. Your bones shiver and roll
into velvet sky, the living aflame.
Their faces smolder violet and rip seams
beneath their eyes to glimpse Jupiter’s pass
through watered cosmos, and the stars recede
until you become silhouette and ash.
–Katelyn Delvaux
July 2011 | back-issues, poetry
Today, in the safety of noon’s optimism
I allowed my thoughts to return to December
Though I never felt her winter,
I knew, she was colder than most.
Children built snowmen,
From my window, I watched
Carrots that once served as noses,
Sinking in sleet.
December’s evenings brought
Uncles, Aunts, Cousins, Friends.
They all came to say hello and goodbye.
Some hellos were the first in years
Their goodbyes, surely, the last.
And when dawn arrived,
New snowmen were built.
Some with twigs as arms,
And others,
without.
Their coal eyes longing for limbs
To move freely, as humans should.
Day by day, I watched snowmen melt
Drooping eyes, withering arms
And silly scarves.
From my window,
I wondered what it would be like,
To be rooted in one spot
A mouth full of pebbles
And memories evaporating like snow
–Maria del Canto
Maria del Canto has been published in the literary magazine The Battered Suitcase as well as New York University’s journal for creative writing.
July 2011 | back-issues, poetry
of an animal mind
inside our animal bodies
there is a tumbling fire:
it roves our skinwalls
like a lighthouse,
it creeps across us
in waves of tingling
it accumulates in the folds
of our darker parts
this is why we will never
be separate from them: i
have always felt this heat,
and seen it in every feral
eye i found: we are all
wild. our jowls fill with
purpose. we know the rules
of the hunt: kill or give
yourself to the light.
the blood in your teeth
is the trophy of your
own trembling existence.
i like glinting in the brake:
i am in wait.
the darkness and the light
hum in unison inside me,
they are binary and seethe
with equal fervor: i am free.
a motion
you give your eager motion
to the salty requirement
of being alive: it is a
terrible dance we all hate
the steps of. there is no
thing so impossible, to you,
as the inaccurate roundness
of the moon. the way she
balloons makes you believe
in the candor of science.
i calculated the apex of your
natural life and you were
disappointed. surely not
so long to wait! the light
grows tiresome and i am
late for the party. the clouds
are moving now: they shuffle
together like a deck
of cards.
the tincture will not reverse the feathers
my lungs are full of feathers
&when i inhale i begin to flutter
everso upwards, the light thickening
on my tongue like a syrup:
i am becoming a bird from the inside out!
there is a tincture that coats me like a nightgown:
they have given it to me to reverse this process.
but i feel hollow quills growing
in my throat: my teeth elongate everso
unnoticeably and harden towards a beak.
in the places i used to feel sexual now
i feel only the throb of coming spring.
and sky, o sky! you are mine and i am yours
and soon we will rub our bodies together and
we will taste the salt of each other and crash
like waves into each other as long as we live.
my bones are emptying of marrow.
now there are the hollow spaces
in to which i stuff wild tufts of air
&my fingers grow too long and thin
to do human work.
David Courtright is a young poet & musician from Atlanta. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Marco Polo Quarterly, Barrier Islands Review, and The Sun Magazine.
July 2011 | back-issues, poetry
We often drink to swim in sorrows past
Only to relish in the marvel of their sweetened complexions
Seasons seem to bear no malice on thoughts and actions spent
Worlds apart from modern conviction
We often drink to swim in sorrows past
Retired disappointments we find abandoned
We often drink to swim in sorrows past
To find them snug and sound ….
….no longer our bedded companions
–Jacob Connley
