What Momma John Called to Say by Terry Minchow-Proffitt

Back in the day of answering machines

my grandmother called and left a message:

I called and you did not answer.

 

So.

Knowing my place,

I called back.

 

She’d fallen,

she wanted

to tell me.

 

It was March in Dyess, AR.

She’d already put out

her tomatoes,

 

the ones she’d been nursing

along since February, uncurling

greenseedlingsrising

 

into Better Boys

and Sweet Millions,

Tiny Tims, Totems,

 

heirlooms back

in the pantry,

where she put up

 

blackberries, butterbeans,

stewed okra, varied preserves,

her secret chow chow.

 

Shelved walls,

years of jars

she canned.

 

 

Said she’d put all her babies out

early. Then, wouldn’t you know, caught

wind of a cold front moving in

 

so cut the bottoms

from the dozen or so plastic

milk jugs she’d kept,

 

put on her mud-caked boots by the backsteps,

slogged in the light rain

and gray chill past the smokehouse

 

to the garden plot.

capped each,

plant-by-plant,

 

thought, That’s right

cute, little

hats.

 

Worked the grab and suck

of the black gumbo mud

step-by-step

 

till she wobbled and fell

back like a turtle,

flat-out on her silly back.

 

Stared into the cold-wet

rain falling

in her face.

 

Said, I don’t b’lieve

I’m gonna put out

another garden next year.

 

Just lay there

looking up,

stared

 

down the dark

swirl above, heard

the rain beat

                                                                                                                                               

the tin tub

she’d set last fall

over the mower’s engine,

 

came to

herself

before figuring out

 

how to pull

old bones up

from the muck,

 

the boot-by-boot

march back

to the house,

 

before stopping

shy of the back steps

to stomp off the mud,

 

said to anyone listening,

Naw, I will too . . .

I b’lieve I will.

Terry Minchow-Proffitt lives in St. Louis, MO. His poems have appeared in or are forthcoming in Arkansas Review, Big Muddy, Christian Century, Crack the Spine, Crux, decomP magazinE, Deep South Magazine, Desert Call, Freshwater Review,HashtheMag, Mud Season Review, OVS Magazine, Oxford American, Penwood Review, Pisgah Review, Prick of the Spindle,Tower Journal, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Wild Violet, Words and Images, and The Write Room. His chapbook, Seven Last Words, was recently published by Middle Island Press.

Crux by Phillip T. Egelston

I could not carry
such a weight
to be stretched
and starred upon,
and then be gone.

Yet never quite.  But
to be not-quite-gone
always. Always as in

always here, always
there.

The place where the
planks still intersect

and the world spins.

The Poetry of Phillip Egelston has appeared in Assisi, Anglican Theological Review, The Cresset, Folio, Rattle, Paris/Atlantic, Plainsongs, William And Mary Review, and other magazines.  He had a poem featured as ‘Poem Of The Week’ in Four And Twenty Poetry Journal and was the 2001 winner of the First Prize for Poetry in New Vintage Northwest.  He was a 2014 semifinalist and a 2015 finalist in the Narrative Poetry Contest of Naugatuck River Reviewwhere his poems appeared.  In January 2015 his volume of short lyric poetry, RESTE PLACIDE, was published, and in October 2015 his chapbook of humorous poems, A LIBERAL EDUCATION AND OTHER POEMS, was issued.  He is Advisor On Creative Writing And Visual Arts to the Shawnee Hills Arts Council in Southern Illinois.

Living Water by Terry Minchow-Proffitt

LIVING WATER

Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. ~ John 4:11

 

Here you are, Momma, all mother

in black-and-white, and there in Kodacolor—

only snapshots now—

and in every other one there’s that tiny white stem.

Here, my toddler eyes wide on you reaching in

to pull me from the backseat

of a ’57 Pontiac Starchief Catalina,

two-toned, chromed-out with flared fenders.

Daddy has just said, “Over here, Betty.”

So you squint up into the sun

and there, peeking out of your pocket, is a pack,

and stuck in your smile is one that’s half-smoked,

because, of course, your hands are full.

You do what you can.

 

Your children came to count

on your consolation

after you laid us down to sleep,

how you would cough yourself up

in the middle of the night for a glass of water.

The kitchen light would stave

its way golden beneath the bedroom door

with the sweet smell of Pall Malls.

 

When the call comes

about the spot on your lungs

we’re grown and you’re still young.

I grab hold and heave

the news onto my back:

I saw this coming

and could do nothing.

 

The last visit home

you won’t let us talk

about anything except

how you won’t quit,

 

haven’t had one in weeks,

have taken up walking again.

How the ad said

there’s this doctor in Canada

who can help you beat the odds.

Every night your feet soak in his solution.

Joking about your purple soles

and the new tattoo that dots

your chest is as close as we can get.

 

Until I ask about all the empty plastic

Borden’s milk jugs rinsed and stashed

in the storage room off the carport.

You light up: Oh, I’ve been fixin’

to get to that. There’s this healing spring

outside Farmerville folk swear by.

Somebody’s gone and tapped it

so you can get all you want for free.   

Wanna make a run?

 

More than anything.

 

I want to pitch these jugs

in the trunk of your black Cadillac,

drive you to Bernice,

stop at Bill’s Dollar Store,

then head east on route 2

onto and through Farmerville

to a place beyond

the city limits that lives

only in the minds of locals.

 

I want to pull over

where the shoulder’s worn wide,

where there’s no room for anyone but us,

to step out of the air-conditioning

into the livid sun of mid-July,

the thick, bug-buzzed Louisiana heat.

 

There you’ll point out the path.

I’ll take your hand to rustle

slow down the ditchbank

into the savage growth

of tupelo, water oak and sumac,

of wisteria gone wild and tangled

in my mind all the way back—

 

to Helena, honeysuckle, the Low Road

of twisted gravel to Storm Creek Lake

where you’d carry me as a boy

to scout out and gather cattails or mistletoe—

 

till a dark glade

now hits our faces Carrier cool

as the path gives way,

widens into a clearing.

 

Here the water spills silver

from a spigot, a small

shepherd’s crook

beside a wooden bench.

Over our heads someone has tacked

a bible promise to a live-oak, something scrawled

about never thirsting again.

 

Here beneath the promise

you take a seat, huffing.

You sit and watch

while your only son

does what he can do.

 

Here he hands you his damp shirt.

He bends to top off, cap, lift

the first two gallons.

He turns away to lug them

back. His pale back

burns white up the dark

bank of violent green

till the roadside sun breaks

against the shade,

till on that shore you see him

catch fire.

Terry Minchow-Proffitt lives in St. Louis, MO. His poems have appeared in or are forthcoming in Arkansas Review, Big Muddy, Christian Century, Crack the Spine, Crux, decomP magazinE, Deep South Magazine, Desert Call, Freshwater Review,HashtheMag, Mud Season Review, OVS Magazine, Oxford American, Penwood Review, Pisgah Review, Prick of the Spindle,Tower Journal, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Wild Violet, Words and Images, and The Write Room. His chapbook, Seven Last Words, was recently published by Middle Island Press.

In Bethlehem by Phillip T. Egelston

The Poetry of Phillip Egelston has appeared in Assisi, Anglican Theological Review, The Cresset, Folio, Rattle, Paris/Atlantic, Plainsongs, William And Mary Review, and other magazines.  He had a poem featured as ‘Poem Of The Week’ in Four And Twenty Poetry Journal and was the 2001 winner of the First Prize for Poetry in New Vintage Northwest.  He was a 2014 semifinalist and a 2015 finalist in the Narrative Poetry Contest of Naugatuck River Reviewwhere his poems appeared.  In January 2015 his volume of short lyric poetry, RESTE PLACIDE, was published, and in October 2015 his chapbook of humorous poems, A LIBERAL EDUCATION AND OTHER POEMS, was issued.  He is Advisor On Creative Writing And Visual Arts to the Shawnee Hills Arts Council in Southern Illinois.

Holy Roller by Jeff Burt

She’s got seven knots the size
of a knuckle slowly ripping her spine

from her medulla oblongata,
the seizures from the radiation

and chemotherapy raise her arms
and make her feet twitch

and that’s what brought me back
to you, remember, she was a free

Methodist once, a holy roller,
and I was wondering if those years

in Long Beach and Seattle
count for anything with you,

her steadfastness, her diligence,
her tongue wagging of your wonder,

though I confess I never caught on.
But I was wondering if you

could make her free again,
free, no more Methodist,

and holy, no more roller,
free and holy, yours

Jeff Burt lives in Santa Cruz County, California and works in mental health.  He has work in Agave, Clerestory, The Nervous Breakdown, Wayfarer and other publications.  He won the 2011 SuRaa short fiction award.

This Is It by Les Wicks

So full of love
us little dogs
nipping spooky ghost stories.
Life in collars
in a cage
of roles & wonder,
blunder into each
vulnerability spread thin across starscapes.

At the end each wears a thick winter coat, all
we’ve got.
What a miracle,
what a responsibility.

For over 40 years, Les Wicks has performed at festivals, schools, prison etc. Published in over 300 different magazines, anthologies & newspapers across 23 countries in 11 languages. Conducts workshops & runs Meuse Press which focuses on poetry outreach projects like poetry on buses & poetry published on the surface of a river. His 11^th book of poetry is Sea of Heartbeak (Unexpected Resilience) (Puncher & Wattmann, 2013). #12 is El Asombrado (Rochford St, 2015 – a selection in Spanish & English). Visit him online at http://leswicks.tripod.com/lw.htm.

Birthmarks by Mark Antony Rossi

son of a slave
free my soul
before I weep
under heaven’s burden.

seal my belly
another poem
born this evening
knows my name.

Mark Antony Rossi’s poetry, criticism, fiction and photography have appeared in The Antigonish Review, Another Chicago Review, Bareback Magazine, Black Heart Review, Collages & Bricolages, Death Throes,  Ethical Spectacle, Gravel, Flash Fiction, Japanophile, On The Rusk, Purple Patch, Scrivener Creative Review, Sentiment Literary Journal, The Sacrificial ,Wild Quarterly and Yellow Chair Review. Visit him on line at markantonyrossi.jigsy.com.

Five Miles Up by Peter C. Venable

Peter C. Venable has written both free and metric verse for over fifty years and been published in Vineyards, Third Wednesday, Time of Singing, Windhover – A Journal of Christian Literature, The Christian Communicator, The Whirlwind Review, The Anglican Theological Review (forthcoming), and others. He is a semi-retired clinician, volunteers at a prison camp and food pantry, leads vespers services for senior citizens, sings in the annual December Messiah, and is graced with a happy marriage, daughter and son-in-law, and Yeshua.

Atomic Hymn by Seth Jani

There was nothing that night but the blue charge
Of far-off stars lighting the dark.
We held our fists obstinate against the sky,
Dually praising the black threads of evening
Coming down and the raven
With his slim beak of poverty.

May we not forget that we are mere
Phrases in the maker’s mouth,
A wild song cast off amid the
The neon highways,
A primal chant still pounding bone
In the city’s swirling square.

We come from the forest and to the forest
Our own deaths return us.
Small wooden ships that sail the emerald wind
Carrying that precious cargo which
Has no name in every language,
That measureless atomic gem,
That fool’s gold of time.

May we not forget that our own body’s
Generous weight and longing
Contains the shape of pending ghosts
Who shed their features as easily as dust
Yet still cling, amidst the wandering eons,
To their most intimate, most human form.

Seth Jani resides in Seattle, WA and is the founder of Seven CirclePress (www.sevencirclepress.com). His own work has appeared throughout the small press in such places as The Foundling Review, The Hamilton Stone Review, Hawai`i Pacific Review, Gingerbread House and Gravel. His most recent collection, Questions from the Interior, can be read online at www.sethjani.com.

Office by Valentina Cano

My workplace is feathers and sun.
In the morning,
it is a kitchen table
peppered with bird seeds,
where the chatter is
whistles and neon chirps.
The sun sharpens its blade
and it is a desk,
a bespoke green conundrum,
and the down of feathers on my hands, on the keys.
Small bodies shifting in rhythm with my words.

Valentina Cano is a student of classical singing who spends whatever free time she has either reading or writing. Her works have appeared in numerous publications and her poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Web. Her debut novel, The Rose Master, was published in 2014 and was called a “strong and satisfying effort” by Publishers Weekly.