January 2015 | back-issues, poetry
My grandfather snapped
fish spines off the coast of
Tel Aviv. Slick carcasses
slipping through his coltish
grip as though they were still alive
and thrumming, kicking in the Adriatic.
Latent instincts for survival sparking through
the only dormant muscles in the desert.
Stripped to his tawny chest he would wade
knee-deep in the algae & water pooling
under the orange groves, catch the rainfall
of citrus in skyward arms.
His soles thickened to leather from
skittering across the baking streets,
parched & shriveled like denied lips.
In the gravel he gathered you,
palms coarse, desiccated, groping
for your final strains. You escape
in relieved exhalations, lifting from
the earth at intervals wider than
floodgates.
Saba tugged Shoshana’s umber
plait, twined it around his enchanter’s
finger. They were twelve when they met—
she, staggering in from Jerusalem, caked
in Masada’s dust. Eighteen when they
holstered guns & swallowed smoke.
I do not know this place, embedded
as it is with the bodies of my ancestors
& their enemies, dyed in blood hot,
livid from the midst of battle. I scrawled
my prayers once on notepad paper
& twisted it within the crevices of the
Wailing Wall but can’t remember its contents
or whether it rests there still, atrophying.
I do not know this place, though I
am derived from its crumbling dirt
as my classmates do not know my
name was snatched from a city
on the West Bank, not from Plath poems
& air spirits, though sometimes I wish
that were the case.
I will not tell them.
Mother caresses my chin to tell me
I am my name—Ariel, the Lion.
Yet my grandparents’ steps
still thump in my ears, the bombs
will always shudder and rattle
my white-washed bones. I dart
back into my burrow, and I know
their smoke lingers.
by Ariella Carmell
Ariella Carmell is a senior at Marlborough School in California, where she is Editor-in-Chief of the literary magazine and Head Copy Editor of the newspaper. A Foyle Commended Poet of the Year and a recipient of Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, she has work published or forthcoming in Cadaverine, Crack the Spine, Vademecum, Crashtest, Eunoia Review, and Canvas Literary Journal, among others. She also blogs for The Adroit Journal about the intersection of film and literature. Come next fall, she will attend the University of Chicago.
January 2015 | back-issues, poetry
Jacuzzis are holy.
Garage door openers are holy.
Back-up cameras and recycle bins—all holy.
Putting the red flag up on the mailbox, waving at the elderly
getting my toes wet with dew—holy, holy, holy.
Keeping my eyelids open and trying to sleep like fish,
signing my name with less letters and more scribbles,
counting crows feet, counting yellow toenails,
counting haircuts, counting plucked whiskers,
counting constantly.
Bookshelves are holy.
Missing dust covers are holy,
magicians and black and white T.V. shows,
Penn Jillette theories and Andy Griffith justice,
Uncle Walt songs and Ginsberg poems—holy, holy, holy.
Drinking beer before noon, drinking liquor right after,
drinking it warm (or on ice) with a friend (or not).
Waking up drunk, waking up sober,
waking up tired, waking up hungry,
waking—always holy.
Table wine is holy.
Candle sticks are holy,
dishwashers and cloth napkins,
the folk art cricket made from wire and a railroad nail,
rock salt from the salt flats in a salt cellar—holy, holy, holy.
Opening an empty cedar chest to still moths and crumbs,
staring at stretched cobwebs immersed in the sun,
swallowing nests, swallowing nectar,
swallowing chimes, swallowing saliva,
swallows—always holy.
Self-portraits are holy.
Ceramic urns also are holy.
Tape recorders and keyboards,
drawing pads and gold-plated ball-point pens,
calligraphy and stipple—holy, holy, holy.
Unfolding a letter, unfolding a chair, unfolding
into downward dog, from child’s pose, into corpse pose.
Picking apricots, picking green grapes,
picking out a husband, a shower curtain,
selection—always holy.
Twist-off caps, dresser drawers, remote controls,
carpeted stairs, revolving doors, product recalls,
keycodes, passwords,
restaurant reservations,
last-minute invitations,
cell phones, voice recognition,
land minds, and secrets—holy,
holy word, holy water, holy book,
holy soap boxes, bathtubs, soap dishes—holy,
holy drains and draining, empty.
—originally published by Chagrin River Review online journal, Lakeland Community College, Fall 2013. Online.
by Trish Hopkinson
Trish Hopkinson has always loved words—in fact, her mother tells everyone she was born with a pen in her hand. She has two chapbooks Emissions and Pieced Into Treetops and has been published in several anthologies and journals, including The Found Poetry Review, Chagrin River Review, and Reconnaissance Magazine. She is a project manager by profession and resides in Utah with her handsome husband and their two outstanding children. You can follow her poetry adventures at trishhopkinson.com or on her Facebook page.
January 2015 | back-issues, poetry
wrapped in headscarves and blankets
you wait on your wooden rocking chair
sky black with the stars falling
around you like leaves of autumn
for it is that season where change
is inevitable and the air carries cold
and new riches to your nose and mouth
with dawn approaching as fast as it does
you aren’t sure which birds speak first
though a cacophony sets your spine
more erect in that sitting position
so you begin to release yourself against
the covers you’ve brought and suddenly
your body shivers with the first sight
breaking the horizon at eye level
a shriek of color sends vibrations
through your ears and down to your toes
with the birds wailing and the sky brazened
like you’ve never before felt
so that lake ice before you begins to melt
and the release of methane shoots
in all directions to mirror that light
so you unfasten your layers to the ground
for our sun’s enduring warmth
by Andrew Gavin
Andrew Garvin completed his undergraduate degree in International Relations from the University of Southern California. He now lives in Wilmington, North Carolina taking Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.
