Round & Round
When I was 7, I roller skated at the Burien Southgate
with the cousin I no longer know. she and I linked arms,
pushed off into roaming sphered laps under the corona of a spinning disco ball.
There is certain freedom in circles; feet no longer planted as anchors
to the earth, movement fixed in push, coast and glide. After, 7-11 Slurpees
for the summer walk home. Every now and then, I spin the prism in my window,
create the round and round of illumination, wonder about that cousin.
Kersten Christianson
Dancing children
and Taylor Swift pervade my living room. They move as if tomorrow won't be
juniper in soil, pancakes, math homework, their mothers telling lies about boys.
They move because movement is precise, the queen, the way monotony goes to joy. I watch them
knock the table, nick knees and go to the next. Shakira on a bridge— a thousand cameras
and they need none, only being’s space, rhythm against sofas and walls, me who cannot
confirm or deny their notions of the world at ten, their exhibitions and their fate.
The room shakes. My poem cannot move them yet and that is better. They are living.
Carl Boon
Briers and Brambles
Long ago as teens coolish days I spent rambling on through spiky brambles as scrub and briers grasped upon me honey bees buzz about the brush. Blackberry jam dreams, while an intoxicated mind forever schemes. Another splash from Dad's flask in a life of fails we keep filling the pail with those fine ripe sweet blackberries.
Ken Allan Dronsfield
Waterproof
The hood came low over my lids; forcing my eyes down on dome like days, Days when the mist had lowered horizons, bringing the world closer as I trudged to school, Closeted in the black barrier of my waterproof, that buffeted drops to dance before they fell.
The other girls had neat black duffels, with coloured umbrellas that clashed in the air; Their tied waste bands pulling thinness in, while mine was shapelessness. On narrow paths, I was pushed off the edge of the line.
Walking behind with lowered eyes.
Jo Boon
A heart accepting April showers at the age of twenty-eight
Today was hollow—I couldn’t remember its name. Last night my head felt dislocated, floated; I craved sleep. Sleep had hidden well, didn’t come even to the call of a bottle of rosé wine, skulked in through the front door with the birdsong.
The rain fell today—hard sheets, American rain, slicing through the buds of English spring, moving me back to days of hot wind and lightning.
At dusk the sun returned, wounded, dying—it bled into the clouds, while I stared out the window and wondered at the absence of fireflies.
Kate Garrett
Growing Up
Walk and find the courage to continue on, wading in the stream before you. Walk and blend with people who are not like you, who contain their nightmares in a jar and hold them out only to project on to countless others. Walk and rise from the bloodwind, a little to the left, a little to the right, rise from the blinding grief of heartache, from the dull and nameless faces surrounding your golden aura, rise and find kindness where there was once disconnection, rise and find appreciation in the pockets of the sad and confused. Walk this day like you always do, driven by a higher calling, affected, but not overcome, sleeping little in this holiest of holy lands.
Allison Grayhurst
Retired
She sat beside the kitchen window watching snow fall over sycamores What could she hope for, some good news brought by mail. An unexpected call?
Her phone rang with reminders of medical appointments. No mail ever came but bills from doctors, clinics, hospitals, ads, charity appeals.
Gloria had grown accustomed to suffering, inured to the idea that her life was without much happiness or success. Accustomed to pain running along her back, through her knees, her feet, shortness of breath, cancers.
Now in retirement, what was really left? Death used to be something she could brush off. It happened to someone else. Now it seemed so close, as if it might come any day from some cold hand.
Joan McNerney
Ancient
I am an old soul I have roamed this earth for eons In the time before time I was scattered among the cosmos
I have seen many wonders That mortal man has forgot My spirit holds within it Many joys and sorrows
I have lived among the cave people I did worship with the Druids I danced around the fires Of many native cultures
I sang with the sirens of old I painted the sky with The blood of my ancestors As I thanked them for my life
I am an old soul As ancient as the sun I transcend time and space I am here with you today