Your embrace is fire ants colonizing under my skin
And tequila torching me until I’m a charred mannequin.
I’d leave you so fucking quick,
But my embrace is snuggling under down blankets
And having no obligation to leave the warmth of our bed until
My embrace is a chokehold with a side of asphyxiation via pillow
And your throat is the acrid dessert awaiting the monsoons.
We break each other and then practice our tourniquets.
You rip my clothes off, emphasis on rip,
right before throwing me on our broken mattress
and kicking my legs apart.
You trail soft kisses down my belly
As I pull chunks of hair from your scalp
And leave claw marks on top of the invisible scars
From years of verbal abuse in our brick house.
I don’t know why you haven’t left either.
We sling insults over breakfast,
Throw dirty looks during lunch,
Play hot potato with pin-less hand grenades between dinner courses,
And exchange kisses between bites of dessert.
I throw your clothes out the windows.
You throw chairs at the walls.
We throw our hearts down the garbage disposal,
And stand, front to back, looking in the mirror,
Wondering how we ended up here.
Bill Newby
Warning Light
(Waiting Room Notes during Auto Repair)
Whether on my side or back
with a half-height or full pillow
the warning light in my shoulder
fires at the lightest touch.
It glows in the dark before sunrise
and flickers as I roll out of bed.
I dress with caution,
open the back door with care,
and turn each page of the morning paper
with a newborn caress.
But regardless if I sit, stand, rush or stroll,
it pulses down my triceps,
across my elbow and into my wrist.
I’m scheduled for annual maintenance
but might need some tweaking sooner.
I hope it’s just a bit of misalignment
or will respond to a quick lube.
I’m attached to the original equipment
and would rather not have to install
even the best replacement parts.
First Ladies at Ruby Lee’s
The first ladies stay there all night.
Their skin glistens red near the Exit sign,
and their eyes lock on the lead singer
as if taking vows.
“You are mine, and I am yours.
Take me now. Take me please.”
The floor crowds with dancers,
but they hold their turf.
One hip-sways and leans
into a shoulder shimmy,
then back in a syncopated pause.
The other bounces
in search of each rhythm
that her feet never find.
The decades pass in familiar choruses,
as we rock in our seats
and lip-read comments.
Swirls of energy devour our waitress,
and Sports Center replays populate the screens.
Hands shoot to Love Shack thumps,
as dancers twirl, jump and swim.
But when others drop, wet and exhausted,
the first ladies refuse to sit.
“He’s got to see what’s in this dress,
and I’ve got plenty of time.”
Touring
We step off the bus
lugging the Ten Commandments
and the accumulated weight
of western civilization’s struggle with brotherly love
tucked in our back pack
next to another plastic bottle
of cool, filtered, spring water.
Our Lowe, REI, and Merrell boots
provide arch support for our modern egos
and protect our feet from the dust, stones and debris
still lingering from Pol Pot’s house cleaning.
Far beyond the moat,
backlit across the skyline of harsh mid-morning glare
lays the silent silhouette of Angkor Wat,
small, black, symmetrical lotus bulbs cut free from the jungle
to provide power for a tourist economy
annually outpacing last year’s records.
Shaven, saffron draped, Buddhist monks
move wordlessly in the shadow of a neighboring pagoda
while we make electronic records of ornate stupas
then pause at the southern entrance for a group photo
before joining the flow of sweltering gawkers
walking the surrounding corridors
where thousands of patient artisans
chiseled stone reminders of the painful damnations
born of infidelity.
The actors wear different masks—
snakes, dragons, phoenixes and turtles,
farmers, fishermen, servants and soldiers—
but the plot is as common as yesterday’s Times.
Our shirts cling and sweat oozes across our cheeks,
but our air-conditioned bus is nearby,
and we can wash before lunch.
La Cuisine Novel
Tonight’s menu is freshly printed
on crisp ivory paper with a bit of weave,
and our waiter, Jackson, is pleased to be serving us
and will return in a moment to answer all of our questions
and get our drink orders.
The view from our seats by the window
stretches for miles across the Appalachians—
ridge lines and forest faces falling into hidden valleys,
mounds that say, “another, another, another”
and invite our imaginations to reach and roam.
And when Jackson returns,
we learn not only about his favorites,
but also the Italian village where Hunter, our chef,
honeymooned with his wife, Jewel.
Each dish is complex beyond belief,
but Jackson can walk us through each sauce
and around every chop, swirl, dip and dollop
that he describes as if watching an inner movie
that never fully projects on our screens.
And every dish triggers another story—
how Hunter experimented with Peruvian peppers,
butchering today’s whole hog,
the ice cream sandwiches Jackson’s mother awarded
so she could sleep when he and his brother rose early,
the punishing rainstorm last fall
when he first tasted Jewel’s escargots.
The room rebounds with stories and laughter.
Glasses are raised. Silver is replaced.
We wait and wonder if our meal
will live up to the press.
Pre-Concert Rituals
The tree frog orchestra tunes up slowly.
They refuse to play in the lingering twilight
and concede the stage to barking dogs, passing cars,
the birds’ ongoing conversations,
and a whistler baiting a hook for another try.
A distant ambulance wails its mission
and sings a fading aria in the wings,
but the tree frogs sit silently
and wait for the light to dim
and the breeze to take a seat
before they get going.
Jennifer Sclafani
This Is How Dreams Start
Without a proper beginning.
no curtain, no applause:
At a kitchen table, a father and son are arguing.
“How much does it cost?” the father asks.
Papa, we will not barter.
&n
bsp; We will pay the rate like normal people.
“Normal people get the best value,” the father replies.
“Only a fool accepts the first price.”
In a bedroom, a wife nudges her husband.
“Turn on your side,” she groans.
“I can’t sleep while you snore.”
Sleep on the couch, then.
I can’t dream while I’m awake.
In a field, a bird catches the worm.
“Bring it home,” I tell her.
“Your babies are hungry.”
The bird doesn’t respond—
she takes flight
and I soar
by her side
into the sky
anxious to see
those tiny swallows—
Until my wingless body
catches up with my
weightless dream
and brings an end
to that which never began.
Speak Volumes
The words come to us
shouted by birds:
buzzards
not finches—
amplitudes
in feet
not
inches.
Mating calls hunt
primal fears
and
swallow
them
up
whole
then spit them out
into thin air,
vapor to smog,
dream
to
dust
like a silence that deafens the senses,
like the flutter of the monarch butterfly.
Hindsight Twenty Twenty
Was I a better teacher
when I couldn’t tell the truth?
Was I a better lover
when I couldn’t fall in love?
What did I do to earn the love
that made us one of two?
What must I undo to become
a mother for all of you?
The children sleep. I can tell:
their eyes, mouths, breath, heat.
and race cars chase their spindly legs
around their school yard world.
They wake me
after midnight
before my alarm:
I want to cuddle.
Without my glasses
I cannot see
where
the bed ends and where
the nightstand
begins or where my
glasses rest—
for only they rest tonight—
or whether they
are weeping
or giggling.
Never mind.
Come to bed.
How dare I waste these
wee hours?
What will I do
when I awake
from this day
dream
of you?
Mot Juste
To write in my native language,
If only I could remember what that was:
Vowels that floated fluidly, before I learned
Enunciation.
Sonorants that straddled song, before I learned
Distinction.
Words that were all mine, until I was given the
Right Words.
Simple truths I told, before I masked them in
Metaphor.
My voice, before the audience arrived:
Was it sweet or somber
full of wonder or worry
of the raven or the wren?
Courage in finding a voice,
or courage to look for sense
in the cacophony of the voices?
The fire from above and the fire from below
And the poem lies somewhere in between.
Contributor Notes
Jim Pascual Agustin writes and translates poetry in Filipino and English. He grew up in the Philippines and moved to Cape Town in 1994. He won the Grand Prize at NoiseMedium and the Gabo Prize at Lunch Ticket. His books include Alien to Any Skin, Sound Before Water, and A Thousand Eyes. His eighth book of poetry, Wings of Smoke, is forthcoming from Onslaught Press (UK). He condemns the murderous Duterte administration. He blogs at www.matangmanok.wordpress.com
Nicole Anania is a writer based on Long Island. She enjoys writing both short stories and poems, and is currently completing her MFA at Hofstra University.
Melissa Cantrell lives in Guthrie, Oklahoma with her wife, Stefani, and a passel of rescued dogs. She has worked in fields ranging from theatre arts to public service to animal rescue, but has always felt the stubborn tug of writing, and has continued scribbling words between bouts of earning paychecks. Thanks to the disordered tracks she’s made so far, and a penchant for reading, she’s a fantastic trivia partner.
Paul W. Child is Professor of English and Director of Graduate Studies in English at Sam Houston State University, where he teaches classes in literature of the long eighteenth century and the early English novel.
Martin Conte is a devoted citizen of Portland Maine, where he tinkers at writing, reading, walking, editing, and educating. His work has appeared previously in Sixfold, as well as in Words & Images, Glitterwolf, Aurorean, and others. The above poems are a part of an unpublished chapbook of “body” poems. Photo credit: Savannah Leaf.
Margaret Dawson teaches English in New York City. She lives there with her husband and two children. She studied literature and poetry at Columbia University and Middlebury College. When she is not teaching, grading, or shuttling the little ones about, she is working on a collection of poetry about the big meaning in the little moments.
Margo Jodyne Dills is a member of PNWA and Hugo House Seattle. She works as a guest blogger, editor, and travel writer on both sides of the border. She lives in Seattle and travels to her little home in Mexico as time permits. She stays busy working on a getting a novel published, writing poetry, dog-sitting and hanging out with her extraordinary grandchildren. Poetry is her passion.
Michael Eaton grew up in Littlefield, Texas, and ran around with Waylon Jennings little brother. He writes poetry to stay sane in a sometimes insane world.
Michael Fleming was born in San Francisco, raised in Wyoming, and has lived and learned and worked all around the world, from Thailand, England, and Swaziland to Berkeley, New York City, and now Brattleboro, Vermont. He’s been a teacher, a grad student, a carpenter, and always a writer; for the past decade he has edited literary anthologies for W. W. Norton. (You can see some of Fleming’s own writing at: www.dutchgirl.com/foxpaws.)
Debbie Hall is a psychologist and writer whose poetry has appeared in San Diego Poetry Annual 2015-2016, City Works Literary Journal, San Diego Writers, Ink Anthology volumes 5 and 8, Serving House Journal, Swamp Lily Review and Tuck Magazine. Her essays have appeared on NPR (This I Believe series), in USD Magazine, The San Diego Psychologist, and the San Diego Union Tribune. She is currently enrolled in Pacific University’s MFA program in writing.
Lawrence Hayes is a writer, arborist, and deer fencer living in Pawling, NY. He studied with the poets Charles Simic and Mekeel McBride at the University of New Hampshire, where he received a Masters Degree in Poetry Writing in 1981. He has had his work published in The New York Times, Water Street Review, Aegis, and other small magazines.
Sam Hersh, a lapsed psychophysicist, lives at the foot of Mount Diablo, with his muse, Jan, and plays at beaches beginning with letters, SAN. By day he figures in the Valley of Heart’s Delight. By night, he rewrites poetry, twists porcelain and refreshes lactobacillus sanfranciscensis to perfect sourdough. His poems appeared in The Ina Coolbrith Circle Gathering, Monterey Poetry Review and the Scribbler.
Jane A. Horvat is a poet and short fiction writer from Rockford, Illinois. An undergraduate student at the University of Notre Dame, she is pursuing a degree in English and Romance Languages and will be studying in Bologna, Italy for 6 months. She believes that the world�
�s various truths are best expressed through creative writing, and she is currently working on a collection of poetry and short stories.
Alexandra Kamerling grew up in the Alaskan interior and currently lives in Oakland, CA. She is a writer, dancer, and choreographer. She received her B.A. from Mills college in English Literature.
Alexander McCoy lives in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.
Bill Newby worked at Shaker Heights High School (Cleveland, Ohio) as a high school English teacher and administrator and at Cleveland State University as an academic advisor and instructor. He now lives near the ocean, golf courses and friends on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. His work has been published in Bluffton Breeze, Ohio Teachers Write, Whiskey Island, and the Island Writers’ Network’s Time and Tide.
AJ Powell is a once and future teacher who raises her children, serves on a school board, and attempts to write in the wee hours of the morning with varied success.
Jennifer Sclafani is a sociolinguist who teaches at Georgetown University and conducts research on language, culture, politics, and gender. Her nonfiction has appeared in Scientific American, Journal of Sociolinguistics, and Language in Society. She is currently writing a book on the language of recent US presidential campaigns (Routledge, 2017). She lives in Virginia with her husband and twin daughters. This is her first poetry publication.
Daniel Sinderson is a high-tech mechanic and a happily married man. He writes often, deeply enjoys puzzles, still listens to punk music, and mostly wears pants out of consideration for others.
Hazel Kight Witham lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two young sons. She teaches English Language Arts in a big public high school, where her students offer constant inspiration. Her work has been published in Rising Phoenix Review, FlashFlashClick, NonBinary Review, and Bellevue Literary Review. She loves how poems can transform the smallest moments of her day into revelations, and help in the slow slog toward kid bedtime.
Aspiring teacher and sometimes writer, James Wolf was born in Anchorage but raised mostly on Maryland’s eastern shore. He has a degree in Early Childhood Education and works as a teacher’s assistant in a pre-kindergarten class, using the quiet of naptime as an excuse to write things in the dark. His work has been featured in “GFT Presents: One in Four” and, with some luck, will eventually find its way into more.