The Bookends Review

the potted dipladenia on my porch
only reveal their wine-red delicacy
when watered well
there’s a lesson in there
somewhere                  I wonder
was it the wintertime
the aridity between
the desiccated care
that withered us out 

we shed each other like
snakes shed old skin
for newer seasons
may it be of sweetness
with new kin
            may the ground
we slide on stay smooth
like dipladenia leaves
after the rains

– Nzeru Aquilar Nsaí

…

...continue reading

Dòng, Dòng—Dòng,
Zī—Zī-zī—Zīzī
Pèng——

first, a sharp sound pierces my ears
leaving me gasping for air.

my soul seems to leave my body,
as if the Black & White from the hell
are here to take me away.

my heart pounds wildly,
almost leaping out of the chest,
& my legs become floppy—
one word: panic.

like an earthquake is coming,
the life is slipping away. i’m filled with fear.
my lips instinctively turn into pale,
losing their colors.…

...continue reading

I have no memory of my parents ever reading a book to me. What I do remember vividly was the magic of the children’s books that I read to my son when he was young. They were as new to me as they were to him. Some seemed to illustrate important life lessons, especially Winnie-the-Pooh.

Up until Jesse was about three years old, I read him books with plenty of pictures, like the Dr. Seuss books and The Very Hungry Caterpillar. But Winnie-the-Pooh and his diverse companions in the Hundred Acre Woods hit a magic button for both us. Around the time we read the book, we also watched the classic movie, Pooh and the Honey Tree, singing along with Pooh from our living room sofa.…

...continue reading

It was a bookmark during the last week.  He hadn’t noticed.  Rarely did.  She would wait for his Friday night shift.  Sleeping neighbors wouldn’t see the taxi.  She wondered how it would feel touching down, and if she needed a new book for the journey; something with fresh, unread chapters.

Dog-eared pages scarred novels across his shelf.  No care.  Fitting.  She lived for the quiet hours; long-awaited calm.  Silence apart from the soft purring of a cat that wasn’t hers.  She craved something of her own; unblemished, familiar.  New without being foreign, easy to understand.

Parts of her would remain; fabric dangling from coat hangers, bottled aromas in cupboards, worn letters from happier days tucked into corners of drawers, out of sight.  She knew to cradle the essentials of her soul, take them with her. …

...continue reading

~inspired by George Mason’s “The Harvest Moon,” 1877

Harvest moon glares, jagged from clouds grinding
their glazed edges against her.

Harvest moon bleeds in colors of oak & maple,
her face round as a hazel leaf.

Landscape burns in a blur of garnet & tangerine
peppered with people & dogs
& scythes.

Landscape drowns in bellowing & howling
& the hiss of metal crescents
against grains.

Frayed cats slink over blades & between
the pauses in lusty laughter.

Frayed cats patrol this field of autumn’s
benediction—fleshy broth

of limb & spine & belly.

– t.m. thomson…

...continue reading

Devon was a difficult patient. Eleven years old when his aunt brought him to me. “He hardly ever speaks,” she said. “But he used to, she told me, before the accident.”

There had been a house fire which killed his brother and his parents; only Devon survived. Devon ran to a neighbor for help. He said he smelled smoke and couldn’t wake his family. The fire department concluded that the fire started in Dylan’s room, possibly from matches.

The aunt was the mother’s sister. It had fallen on her to tell Devon the news and, for now, to raise him. “He says he wants to live in a box,” she said. “That’s why we’re here.”

Our early sessions were unproductive. I was new to the trade.…

...continue reading

Jim Henderson was trying to concentrate, but couldn’t. He was supposed to be studying for a test on “Julius Caesar” tomorrow, but was brooding about Eileen Robertson’s having dumped him for the senior class president. Caesar had been stabbed in the back by the conspirators and he’d been betrayed by his girlfriend, a greater tragedy.

As Jim sat at the desk in his bedroom, the Folger text of the play, with all the arcane Elizabethan words helpfully explained on the left-hand pages, shimmered before him like a desert mirage. Eileen was gone, no girl would ever love him, he was going to flunk the Caesar test, drop out of school and spend his life stuck in the jerkwater town of Sierra Groves.

He put the book down and called Eileen, but it went straight to her tantalizingly breathy voice mail.…

...continue reading