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James Owens
They are preparing to flee the city. It is the fifth year of the war, and she is three. A stiff pose, held. A tiny white dress. Mended lace foams at her throat. Her father scowls through his beard And grips her against his chest Like a valise full of her mother’s bones. James Owens’s…
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Richard Jordan
On Mother’s Day It’s been nearly fifty years but standing at the grassy shore of Clarkson Pond as sun sets fuchsia above still-budding maples, I can hear you calling whip-poor-will over and over. It was our ritual, though there was never a response. I don’t think you expected one. Those birds from your childhood became…
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Peter Mladinic
The way you take the side of a lead pencil and shade something in is the way the river came at me, whether looking out second floor glass or standing on a bank, the river shape was part curve, part zigzag, as a hand with a pencil-on-paper horizontal. By contrast, the human-made cascade, shelved, tiered…
