o r
K
I have canceled my membership
in the Angry White Ex-Wives Club.
Doing so, I realize, will mean
losing the subscriptions to
Whining 'Women and Why Me?t
Please don't take this personally.
As a Twelve-Step Program,
it's among the best!
It's just that I'm ready to
Move On.
I want to be Normal now
to speak naturally, unaffectedly. ‘
Train 27 will come soon
to the old station
with chipped paint and
I'd like to erase
the hyphenated family titles
or substitute a synonym:
instead of step-mother, how about
stair-mother
stoop-mother
front-porcSmother
veranda-mother
or just --
mother?
I'd like to make a new subscription list
of all the ex-Angry Ex's,
the ones who want
anniversaries without apologies
and tomorrows that don't talk back.
dead grass.
Somewhere down the line
the temperature is below zero
and my dad asks
if my coat will be sufficient,
My Mom's legs shine with hints of summer
She had good legs
My Dad says that is why he married her
Sometimes he carries her over his shoulder
And she laughs and kicks and shrieks
And he says, "Have you seen your mother?"
They giggle like children then,
And I say, "No, sorry" .
Again, they giggle
I watch her painted toes wiggle
My Dad teases the bottom of her foot with his finger
This time she howls her laughter
and it bounces off the ceiling, off the walls,
into my Dad's heart
Her tan legs fly about
At last they relax against my father's chin and
he flips her over onto the couch,
Looks her in the eyes and says;
"You know I married you because you have good
legs."
At which my mom takes advantage
of his outspread arms
and tickles him
—-
— Elizabeth Holloway
pour hours will go by,
probably too fast,
and the gentle rocking of
train 27
will go on without me.
äSeteaeefi
— Lacy Keller
So, I've incorporated,
taken out a patent,
and I'm planning to publish
optimistic little articles ,
from the Other Point of View.
Salty crystals of sand
running downtosea, >
a shifting sky
lifts the sand strip
into a garden
of subtle suns
once blue, twice orange.
That there is life after
surgery of the soul
amputation of angry ex-relati ves-by-
marriage ,
and the purging of pains in the neck.
What the heck?
This
Night gently rakes
the back of time,
marking the return
of the farthest planet
frozen
suspended in a trajectory
drawn along
an ancient edge.
I will write happy poems.
— Kathy Haynie
edition
of Poets'
Corner
I moved the peonies last fall.
I wish they’d come up so I could see where I put them.
features
poetry
n.
submitted
Yesterday in the woods I saw two Snow Queen.
It’s easy to miss them, they’re so tiny.
Last spring I knelt and cried when Lfound the first one.
by Diane
in.
Averill's
While looking at the snowdrops blooming in the front bed
I noticed the alder leaves I’ve yet to rake away.
winter
TV.
term
poetry
class.
V
Tender skunk cabbage shoots are poking their heads out of the
swamp muck
taking a look around.
Is it time yet?
V.
I wish I’d planted those crocus bulbs last fall like I mearit to
but Spring always seems an eternity away in October.
— Janet Martin
Lights wash against
the tattooed arm
of morning,
gaudy rosettes of casual clouds
gone in a minute,"
belonging to horses
ofthe night
returning to corrals
of yesterday.
Now in the valley
all sorts of strokes .
scar the vast dry lake
of my father.
Once, I thought he owned
all that remained unspoiled.
Rabbit tracks in the Snow
wrote to him alone;
hearts beating as one
unseen, between the lines.
Icy winds protected
his World — only now
the valley is white and dry,
divided by the interstate
highway — stolen sometime
while I was away.
— Ronald Rasch