by Mary Paulson

It’s inappropriate to
leave your door agape,
accessible to outsiders or
to like being liked
too much. It’s
irregular to enjoy the
slow scan of
strangers, ill–advised
to encourage longing
in a man because he is just
a man always
willing to try his
luck at your precipice.

It’s vulgar
to want to be painted
naked, directly
on your skin, indecent
to have him seated, watching
you metamorphosize, become
glittering, green–
tipped, a winged thing —
See, his dark pupil is glazed
and fixed, see how his
mouth comes alive.

It’s wrong to want
to be held
down or to crave
him bare, stripped,
in awe. The boy is after all, one
of the better parts of a man —
at such times, isn’t it
corrupt to feel like his

mother, hunger
to ruffle his hair,
pull him close, take him
by his hand, take
his breath, take
everything just because
you can.

By C. Stephen Witty

Your eyesight poor
Hand shaking
Your left leg’s
Hanging there

And clutching
Your empty
Land agent begging bowl
You cry out

For the Shawnee
Who took you in
Held you
Like a newborn colt

Your mother
Shooshing you
To listen to
The forest

The calling of your
Ancestors
The quiet voice
Inside

Before the hoards
Drowned out
The ancient
Songs

By C. Stephen Witty

A lack of vittles
To the sturdy leg

Starves the muscles
Weakens the tissue

Tightens the skin
Neurons stumble

It doesn’t work
So good anymore

What was that word?
How do you do that thing?

And if you’re
Say Lou Gehrig

Blurry–eyed
You tip your cap

Turn and say
To your admirers

“I’m the luckiest man
On the face of the earth”

Thinking “they’re clapping
I’m dying”

Still, with a glimmer,
Conjuring

Something new
Maybe fresh spring air

Rushing madly through
An open window

By Joanne Esser

I wish I could send a sign —
a letter, a photo, a memento —
to the now–old man

locked in the care home.
Though his mind is too delicate,
they tell me, to read, to see

without fear; those gaping holes
in his past threaten
to swallow him every day.

Perhaps if I could be a bird
outside his window.
If some kind aide

would slide open
the unbreakable glass to let in
a fresh autumn breeze,

I’d perch on a branch
where he could hear
my song, the few plaintive notes

that would touch gently
a chord deep inside him
where words no longer reach.

Not the places tinged with shame,
regret, what he wishes he had not
indulged, only the sweetness

of connection, soul to soul,
that happens in this world too rarely.
If only I could fly

in feathered disguise,
my throat release a melody
subtle yet sharp enough

to stir buried
memories, but only
the most pleasant ones:
two hands, tentative, touching.
Or that time we walked
among the lilacs, new,

alive with that fragrance,
innocent of what the future
would impose. That happy.