they tell me I cannot donate, stamping
the word
……………..REJECTED in red across my
wrist like a branding iron, but less superficial.
I had felt an obligation to sign up, because
I was a universal donor—a term which,
I recognized, was quite ego-inflating;
……………..perhaps, I mused, I could play savior,
and be needed, and be one of many.
I thought there might be something poetic in
seeing the blood move from one shriveled
bag to another,
……………..skin like plastic and vice versa,
or at least, I figured it’d make me a better poet,
to say my heart had beat outside of me;
yet, in the reflection of fluorescent
……………..lights on the linoleum floors I saw
……………..……………..my resolve begin to crumble.…
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When I told you how I’d
love to take a picture of you—
I was talking about you as
you were then, in motion,
eyes alight,
hair framed in a halo
of the dying sunlight,
looking, looking, looking—
at something far away,
something through the glass
and the engines, the asphalt
and the crawling things—
something far from
this wretched place,
something far from me.
I wished to capture you as
you were then, in a moment that
we would never return to.
But the memory, I suppose,
is permanent enough.
A slow-developed shot,
already murky,
like vintage film.
Someone else will have you
that way again, and it won’t be me—
But at least I can hold on to this.
I will have you
in my mind, if nowhere else,
just as you were and
will never be again.…
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The wreck is a weird
symphony: the exploded
air bags rumpled as
a just-empty bed, the way
the metal bends like her
jacket that day at Brinton
Timber, the buttery smear
of the engine smashed up
to the skeleton.
There were two
dents for her knees, a cracked
plastic brassiere, and gaps
where the fine curves
of the doors won’t spoon,
and a delicate timbre when
the control knobs tumbled
from the console.
The paint
curls as paper from the book,
one window tossed to ice
cubes, one streaked like hawk
feathers, and the shattered
truss sets the hull down,
like a woman being beaten
who clings to the ground.
– Jared Pearce
Author’s Note: “What sounded” was a poem that came from my going to a wrecked car in order to retrieve any further property from it; we had been hit head-on.…
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“…only the names of places had dignity.”
– Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
No farms recede from Ives Dairy Road,
Just row after row of June Cleaver homes—
No apples blossom on Orchard Lane—
Acres of trees? Not one remains.
No trout swim near River Street,
Just pavement pounded by weary feet—
Moo-moo-moving are herds of cars,
Gassing their way down boulevards—
Our supermarket is Evergreen Park
Where traffic lights dispel the dark—
We call our shopping mall The Open Field—
Not even the names of places are real…
– Robert Piazza…
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The scent of leather, shoe wax
and the cobbler’s aftershave,
pears, broken
crates of ricotta cheese, rinds of parmesan stacked
haphazard on barrels of yellow beans,
fagioli, hard as beads,
crushed beet
leaves, broccoli florets, snap
peas. The scent of basil stops
at the back of the storage room, where grandfather
sits, propped up in suspenders and shirtsleeves, head
tipped forward, shoulders hunched, his work
consumed by their broadness. A ray of light
slices the top of his head, green apple in one still hand,
coring knife in the other, the peel
falling into the milk crate. By his blackened shoe
a grey mouse rubs its furry back
into the stitches, nibbles a hunk of cheese.
– Paula Brancato
Note: “Her Grandfather” is a revised version of a poem originally published by Mudfish in 2008.…
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These sunflowers
are the most gorgeous
I have ever seen.
We bought them
at the farmers’ market—
$25 is a fortune,
but we didn’t realize
until they were
already in our hands.
Now they sit firmly
in this one-off vase
created by an artist
we especially admired.
A wedding present.…
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A straw poll was taken and the leading candidate is Getting lost in someone else’s dreams.
A surprising, distant second was Taking out the trash barefoot in a Midwest snowstorm. It
seems frostbite complements of a frozen Fargo tundra isn’t the challenger one might
think. Something about living out someone else’s aspirations deeply resonated within
the voters. When asked why she selected that, a middle-aged, single woman who
directs Hallmark movies said, I couldn’t stand the guilt I’d feel knowing this fantasy isn’t
mine. An octogenarian who enjoys days of Dominoes and Bonanza marathons
confided, It’s just not right. Not everyone imagines tending to the Ponderosa alongside Little Joe
and Hoss. I understand the dynamics of being stuck in a world rooted in a make-believe
where the fiction is written without the protagonist in mind.…
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