Crisp cotton behind me, warm wooliness above, our legs braided: a German love spoon. Our single piece twists to touch, caress and curve, to disappear the spaces between us. Next we’re castanets, concave shells joined, palms full, fingers bent, percussive rotation, moving rapidly in frenzied desire. No tablature nor clef, just energetic vibrato: making sheet […]
Shari Lawrence Pfleeger
Shari Lawrence Pfleeger’s poems reflect both natural and constructed worlds, often describing interactions with family and friends. Her work has been published in District Lines, Thimble Literary, Blue House Journal, Green Light, Paper Dragon, Boats Against the Current (online and print), and Young Ravens Literary Review, and in six anthologies of Yorkshire poetry. Her prize-winning collection of Yorkshire sonnets was launched in Britain 2021 at the Fourth Ripon Poetry Festival. A former board member of Alice James Books, Shari lives, writes and rides her bicycle in Washington, DC.
Coke Bottle
New Zealand Sister
Almost antipodean, in diametric movement along disjoint meridians, wearced and swiveled, twisted and coiled, slowly spinning until life’s voyages conjoined. Now our worlds rotate harmonically together as whānau: extended family, sisters bound bygenerosity, kindness, appreciation for each other and the natural world. As pohutukawa bloom, she honors me with pounamu, prized stone of Maori chiefs,fashioned as koru, the […]
Misuko
I. Having feared water all her life, my mother now floats between life and death. Japanese Buddhists embrace Misuko: humanity infusing a newborn drop by drop until the child is whole at seven. My mother’s oozing, losing humanity drop by drop, mirroring our mortality. She seems stuck, dying more each day, in my mind each […]