Vol. 7 No. 1

Summer 2024

Red Astral Uterus
Editor's Note
Albanian Folk Dance
In the Barn
Death Cleaning
How Everything And Nothing Changes
The Civilian Conservation Corps
Sunrise and Mountains
GPS
One Spoon or Two
Pando
Matching Blue
The Body of God
Annual Visit
Joshua Tree Yellow Flowers
Neighbors
Artichoke
Centaur
Epiphyte Lessons
Joshua Tree October 14 2023
Invisible Work
Loblolly Pine in August
Enthralled to the Dead
Nothing Compares
The world goes on
Why We Let the Striped Bass Go
Sunset in Joshua Tree, 2024
The Walker
shame and the way it hangs from the body like wet linen
Life Cycle
Unsafe at Any Speed
Today a River
This Man on the Street
Alder and Salmon
Induced by the Ice Moon,
Don't Look
At South Lido Park, When My Husband Has COVID
Ice Cave
Nonverbal Communication
The Making of Horses
Series: Asemic Metamorphoses of Space, (vers. 14)
What Noah's Wife Did
The Pregnancy Pillow
Sunrise, September Five
Even Though My Ulna Popped out of the Skin When I Fell off the 6th-grade Monkey Bar…
Loosdrecht schaatsen
Wood Ear
Foraging for Wine
Wisława Szymborska and the Wounded Angel
Bracken
The Forgotten Tree
If you could be any animal?
When My Mom’s Ghost Comes To Visit Me
Parent's Day
Blues
A Decade of Seasons I
Hairpin
As Highway and Bridge
The Drive Back Home from School with Mom
A Decade of Seasons III
Two Defenseless Haibun
Germination
Elevated Convection
Marigolds
Turbulence, A Zuihitsu
Harmony of Humanity: Evolving Empathy
Missing Persons Report #3
What's It Like To Be a Guinea Pig?
Desert Penumbra
Tangled Yarn: Abstract Elegance in Tufted Artistry, Where Fashion Meets Canvas IV
Keep Child Away From Window
Red Signs
By Water
The light at the end of the tunnel
Starting from Scratch
Bird Singing in the Moonlight
The mnemonic FINISH neatly summarizes the symptoms of antidepressant discontinuation syndrome
Taboo and Emotional Ambivalence
Bad Omens
This is My Impression of a Very Good Girl
Ordinary Nights
Dialogue with the innocent dragon

Wisława Szymborska and the Wounded Angel

A Polish poet was taking her exam on the History of Humanity.
It was still winter, but the first snowdrops had pushed
Their way through the hard earth. The grass was still brown,
But there were bushes with leaves. Inside, a pencil scratched
Stubbornly against a sheet of cheap paper. The questions
On the exam were difficult, were impossible. Beyond the window,
The sky would not let go of winter, and no one was warmed by the
          sun.
She closed her eyes and saw the two boys. The one in front
Looked straight ahead. His hat, jacket, and pants were so black
They could have been made of stone instead of cloth. His shoes
Had been repaired and repaired again. If he had any hopes left,
They were for a bowl of soup and a slice of gray bread that tasted
Of rye and lard. The other boy wore a jacket too small for him.
He was angry and, if she had asked, would have told her to throw
The pencil onto the floor and leave. There was something sadistic
In the way his eyes squinted at her. She could not force him
To recognize her or anyone. The boys carried an angel bent over
On a stretcher. A bandage covered the angel’s eyes; there was blood
On one of her wings. The angel carried the exam answers in her
          hand,
A few white snowdrops she couldn’t see. Her robe trailed along the
          ground.
The Polish poet knew it was too late. She’d grown old, and the exam
Was already over. But the boys refused to stop walking, and the angel
Still allowed herself to be carried, bent over on the stretcher. The
          Polish poet
Returned to her apartment, sat at her desk, and listened to the traffic
          outside.
She could hear footsteps in the hallway.

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