spring 2020
Table of Contents
Return to Home Pagesold separately Lesley Battler
A Symptom of Resignation The Gee Whiz Element of Tropical Storms and Symphonies Jen Karetnick
Humid Weather Me of Me Catherine Strisik
How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Nachos Jessica Covil
A Twohanded Cut The Tornado Cut The Pandora Cut Torben Robertson
blue light Stephanie Yue Duhem
Communion of Tongues Hege A. Jakobsen Lepri
Supermarket Lobsters Robbie Gamble
Family Dinner In Which I Re-name My Father Poem Containing Only Words I Hate griffin epstein
Breathturning Chris Checkwitch
There Is No Substitute for Good Planning Erin Kirsh
Stem of Old French Creistre, To Grow Of Stinging Nettle Page Hill Starzinger
Tchaikovsky, Age 52, Finds His Inspiration John Barton
Like the best myths Medusozoa Sarah Lyons-Lin
Six Gray Moons on a Screen Eleanor Kedney
Monologue of a Fly's Shadow Monologue of a Cow's Shadow Danielle Hanson
Another Vision Patricia Nelson
Moon Turned Her Half Face From Me Lawrence Feuchtwanger
she is in the kitchen now Nora Pace
Humid Weather
—after Lucie Brock-Broido
On Google, when you search, you will find me
well-mannered with the linen handkerchief,
the one I used to get away
with dabbing. I strolled in Crete, sweating
in the agora with iced fish
and Greek men, some of whom leaned
to touch me. Church bells rang. I did not count how many.
I chose the companionship of the distant
foreigner because he
wrote tongue-tied and slept tied
to me and remedied me
to the flushed body and then
to terra cotta. In humid weather I am
raw to the primal.
No white beans, no straw, no woman’s cycles, only
the Ottoman house,
the crazy owner’s singing rising
inside the high walls’ missing stones
of phyllite in the decrepit alley in the neighborhood of Lakkos.
This week the humidity in the agora is so thick
no one sees me as real.
On Google, on one of the links, you will read about me
as a paramour on the flat rooftop
in my fragrant garden,
in tiger lily chiffon, my bared feet, my hymns,
the evening star—nothing hidden, I
sightsee for pleasure.
Curious, does he? Is he warmed by the wind
at the very moment I am warmed by the wind?
Curious, is he damp, somewhere, in haze?