I can’t put my baby in a stroller. There are no rattles or binkies in my mansion. No cradle would ever hold her. I named her Emily but no one would ever call her that. She was the only good that ever came out of that man my parents auctioned me off to. He was … Continue reading
Monthly Archives: March 2015
Fall 2009 / Issues / Poetry 2009 / Volume 40
change — Kacie Svoboda
I wish that my favorite cousin had not grown from a kid whose gap-toothed grin even Ritalin could not tame into a teenager who toughly hides his smile in pictures. I wish my friend did not let boys (or men) control her life in back rooms of drunken parties, on blanket-laid football fields, or in … Continue reading
Fall 2009 / Issues / Poetry 2009 / Volume 40
Aardvark — William O. Burns
I remember my grandfather With his red robe, Creased pajamas underneath, Budweiser in a Texas cooler. He would ask me to spell aardvark Even when he wasn’t remembering things so well. “How the hell did you know How to spell aardvark?” “You told me!” We were in the kitchen. It was hot. Grandma was baking … Continue reading
Fall 2009 / Issues / Poetry 2009 / Volume 40
My Father’s Voice — William O. Burns
My father’s voice sounds Like a car without a muffler. He is reading me poems, Poems about me. I think about when I was ten years old, When at 11:00 one night, I stood at the edge of our diving board, Waiting for him to request a dive, The air was chilly, And the board … Continue reading
Fall 2009 / Issues / Poetry 2009 / Volume 40
The Good Life — Brian Daldorph
I lit another cigarette. Couldn’t think of anything else to do. Juliet stopped eating carrots to say, “That stuff will kill you,” It was tough trying to live with a woman that good. Last I heard she was saving India and Africa was next. I wrote her a letter that said I’d changed my ways, … Continue reading
Fall 2009 / Issues / Poetry 2009 / Volume 40
Ringo — Amorak Huey
Ed Sullivan Theater, 1964 I wanted to be a singing cowboy, you know. Got chills when Gene Autry threw his leg over the saddle burn and sang: South of the border, down Mexico way… I walked tough, talked tougher, carried a razor blade behind the lapel of my Teddyboy suit in case I got grabbed. That … Continue reading
Fall 2009 / Issues / Poetry 2009 / Volume 40
Cytology — R. D. Drexler
I wonder if in the end We are simply talked to death – Our minds filled like septic tanks With comments about our lawn, Our neighbors, life on TV, Our new snow tires, our I-pod, How much a Caribbean Cruise costs, whether to buy brats Or ribs for the tailgater, & what about the weather? … Continue reading
Fall 2009 / Issues / Poetry 2009 / Volume 40
Attention Historians! — Darrell Epp
attention tenured historians, the public wearies of your improbable power fantasies and dreary morality plays. skip the mongol invasions and hutterite genealogies and find room in your textbooks for the following: the first cigarette, the last hotel room, dorothee’s footprints in the snow, her favorite pyjamas, the lost toys of kindergarten, the ideal that begat … Continue reading
Fall 2009 / Issues / Poetry 2009 / Volume 40
How to Approach Visual Poetry — Linda Back McKay
Somebody hunkers in front of a fireplace. Somebody else is knitting a sweater. Nobody is listening. Not to the sheep bells, not to the blaring angle of geese. Not even to the fire’s crick and crackle. Certainly not to each other. In the book somebody is reading, the letters line up on the page until … Continue reading
Fall 2009 / Issues / Poetry 2009 / Volume 40
Sleeping with Lorca — Lyn Lifshin
It’s not true, he never chose women. I ought to know. It was Grenada and the sun falling behind the Alhambra was flaming lava. I could say I was too but some things should be left unsaid. But I remember his fingers on the buttons on the back of my neck, my skin burned as … Continue reading
Coe Review 