Presence 85

on the street
a man with an empty cart
by the window
i with a blank page
both of us foraging

~ George Swede

at checkout
we make small talk
on fuel prices
as she generously bruises
my apricots for free

~ Jenny Polstra

date
with a mortician
they trace
the dotted lines
on my skin

~ Jared Frank

Thomas Sunday
the squirm of each
baptismal candidate

~ Joshua Gage

heat haze
the cool blue tiles
of the Arab Hall

~ Ruth Holzer

midnight storm
the flash
of a white cat

~ Mary Ann Conley

closed factory
grass reaching
the time clock

~ Nalini Shetty

partial eclipse
the rasp
of a crow’s call

~ Brad Bennett

Bird-tracks on the snow:
Lines from a Hittite poem
Written this morning.

~ Liam Aungier

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In Their Own Way

Will I ever own a house again? Did I ever really own the last one? Or the one before that, where we lived when the kids were born … Where the boiler heated the water to scalding in seconds, and the cesspool seeped dark broth up onto the snowy back lawn. Where carpenter ants from the infested maple melted wooden window frames, and mould held unquestioned sovereignty inside the bathroom walls. Where a fat Tolstoy paperback caught drips from the leaky roof in an attic box and kept water stains off the living room ceiling …
The happy family living there the same way as all happy families, until not. A taste of blueberry-lavender pie. The indigo bunting newly tattooed on your left shoulder blade, its wing yours. Flashing glass on a high-speed train creating the momentary illusion of perfect stillness in reflection. I sometimes think that we should never move.

vernal pool
the platypus sheen hues
my daughter’s eyes

~ Thomas Festa