Next to You, Permanence by Elizabeth Jacobson
“Next to You, Permanence” by Elizabeth Jacobson I wrapped the corpse of a juvenile bull snake I found on the road around a slender branch of a young aspen tree, coiling it into three even loops. The fluid from the snake’s body collected in its head, which swelled to many times its normal size. The next day, flies covered the body so thickly I could not tell a snake was what they clung to. On the third day,...
Horseshoe Crab Fandango by Nancy Krim
“Horseshoe Crab Fandango” by Nancy Krim Head to tail to back to belly, you begin… spin salt sand into shell. No one tells you, you just know skin hardens into what protects. Remember to lie low beneath the tidal surge, keep still, up to your slits in sand. But always and inside in spite of you and your glossy shell, the body grows beyond its own protection. Moon shifts, bulges on her axis. You awaken, short...
Summer at Twenty-One by Eva M. Schlesinger
“Summer at Twenty-One” by Eva M. Schlesinger I loved the air before dusk Still warm, no longer hot I lay in the front porch hammock, the crickets singing with glee kids playing ball on our dead end Merry Street I lay watching the sky change from light blue to stardust to purple writing in a little notebook my grandmother gave me I wrote about the moment I was in I had sunk my teeth in like a delicious apple...
The Arbor of Chance by Peggy Dobreer
“The Arbor of Chance” by Peggy Dobreer ____________________ Share your response to this work, in any form, here Peggy Dobreer Artist Statement: Peggy Dobreer is a Los Angeles native, poet, dancer, teacher, founder of E=Mc2Bodied Poetry Workshops, and curator of THE RwIrGiHtTe READ at Stories Books. She is widely published, has one collection titled, In The Lake of Your Bones, Moon Tide Press,...
Poem as a Field of Action by Berwyn Moore
“Poem as a Field of Action” by Berwyn Moore We seek profusion, the Mass—ill-assorted—breathless—grasping at all kinds of things—as if—like Audubon shooting some little bird, really only to look at it the better. —William Carlos Williams, “The Poem as a Field of Action” I had not been thinking of death when they stung – three wasps hiding ...
Safe House by Jude Rittenhouse
“Safe House” by Jude Rittenhouse A child: eighteen months but too old in the eyes. The joy that makes you reach toward children has dissolved. This baby’s famished smile creeps beneath my skin along with the women’s bruises, missing teeth, broken limbs. Fragments I will carry with my own when I go home in one hour. Something no other woman here can do. Those in this shelter’s living room, crowded...
A Village of Their Own by Niloufar Behrooz
“A Village of Their Own” by Niloufar Behrooz There is a small village in Iran called Abyaneh. You might notice this ancient red village on your way to Tehran from Isfahan. Abyaneh is one of the oldest villages in Iran, known to have existed around 2,500 years ago, and it is considered a major tourist attraction for its historical, anthropological and architectural antiquity as well as its rustic atmosphere....
Mother of the Disappeared by Roz Spafford
“Mother of the Disappeared” by Roz Spafford From The Gospel According to Mary Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones. Psalm 137:9 In the dream it is always the same: They bring me his body, dressed in something I have never seen. The wounds are bruised and red like eyes. Across my lap, he is too long and...
Questions for the Angel Gabriel II by Anna Hundert
“Questions for the Angel Gabriel II” by Anna Hundert and another thing: are the pink lumps of flesh inside me divine, the strange alien bones and the red meat of the almost living, my legs grow weak from the weight and I want to know if I can still say no, could I have ever, was it ever a question of wanting. my...
Abbey of Our Lady at Gethsemani by Sherry Chandler
“Abbey of Our Lady at Gethsemani” by Sherry Chandler Bells clang. For matins maybe or lauds. The Hours of prayer are chimed, the knell of ordinary hours and quarter hours resounds across the countryside. Beyond these walls the earth shudders with Reaper drones and Hellfire missiles. Mountaintops are leveled, bedrock fractured. Border fences rise and island countries drown. Trappists singing praise the clock...
The Ghigau Women by Sun Cooper
“The Ghigau Women” by Sun Cooper The Ghigau Women ᎩᎦᎤ, or the Ghigau, was a title bestowed by the Cherokee clans upon extraordinary women who had demonstrated uncommon bravery and benevolence in battle and in community; this title was held for life and literally translates: “beloved war woman.” She was given a ceremonial symbol of her role: a white swan’s wing. Its anatomy is both graceful and powerful enough...
Village Shakti by Verena Tay
“Village Shakti” by Verena Tay (for Kamini Ramachandran) I, woman, dance for me! My spine snakes into talons, your gaze pierced. My breast-hip curves to heart beats, your rhythm smashed. My feet pound paths fresh, your grasp spent. My smile bites Eve’s apple,...
Isles of the Wise by Sharon Suzuki-Martinez
“Isles of the Wise” by Sharon Suzuki-Martinez Led by women since time immemorial, the world’s last official matriarchal religion survives in the Ryukyu Islands (Okinawa). My mother’s parents and all their parents were born on these islands. Mom never wanted to visit, and characteristically, would not explain why. This mystery always drew me to Okinawa. When I finally visited, my husband and I saw utaki or...
Water Women by Alla Bozarth
“Water Women” by Alla Bozarth We do not want to rock the boat, you say, mistaking our new poise for something safe. We smile secretly at each other, sharing the reality that for some time we have not been in the boat. We jumped or were pushed or fell, and some leaped overboard. Our bodies form a freedom fleet, our dolphin grace is power. We learn and teach and as we go each woman sings~ each woman’s hands are...
St. Lunatic by Gayle Bell
“St. Lunatic” by Gayle Bell That’s what my kids call me able to try to fix the whole world in a single bleeding heart I bare it all baby an offered hat, clothes still with good wear a burger, coffee, a shoulder, an ear Ms. June has a smile like a brown berry sunshine a greeting like a country hug Mr. Willie can sing spirituals that would make a statue get happy Alabama tats on a shoulder A yes mam, Gods...
Host by Roz Spafford
“Host” by Roz Spafford From The Gospel According to Mary Hungry for justice, he won’t eat, not one grape nor flake of fish. His flesh is grass, dry as a whisper. His wish: to divide his body like those fish. Gambling on scraps, returned in baskets, overflowing. He would be bread dry and flat broken for us. He would be memory. Behind him the demons hiss. Subsistence is what they give us: our sardines...
Dogma by Cynthia Reeser
“Dogma” by Cynthia Reeser Everywhere you look, churches. A proliferation of churches. It’s the Bible Belt and to be expected, but this, really. My son counting churches—it’s a game, wherever we drive. Churches in the country, churches in the city, churches in the suburbs. Churches across from other churches, dogmatic competition. Every other building a church. A church for every person, one for every other...
Where God Lives by Jeanne Bryner
“Where God Lives” by Jeanne Bryner It is hard to believe in God, even now. He was always somewhere else. Maybe fishing. Sometimes I get mad. Like when my sister was eight and I was six. Daddy went drinking, left us all alone to tend our baby brothers. We were potty-training the chubby one, Ben. I knelt to pull him off his potty seat and his weenie got caught in a crack of blue plastic. Blood spurted as if I’d...
Bring Me the God of Mrs. Garcia by Susan Kelly-DeWitt
“Bring Me the God of Mrs. Garcia” by Susan Kelly-DeWitt The thread was flame-colored, like vermilion flycatchers she once sketched in the countryside near Buenos Aires. Portugal snipped a length and smoothed it with her plump fingers. The sharp she would use, one of her mother’s good golds, weighed less than a hummingbird’s feather. She slipped the floss through the needle’s eye and thought of the rich man...
Incantation by Maureen Cummins
“Incantation” by Maureen Cummins INANNA. ENHEDUANNA. NISABA, colored as the stars. KALI, The Ferocious, The Vengeful, goddess of fury. MEDEA. ELECTRA. LADY MACBETH. IPHIGENIA, murdered by her father. SAPPHO. MURASAKI. DE PIZAN. Learn your alphabet. Practice your ABCs: Aphra Ben. Aphra Ben. Aphra Ben. _________________________________________________________ JOAN OF ARC, bound and burned. HÉLOÏSE, captured and...
I have not yet written a single page by daylight.
Harriet Jacobs
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