by Charlotte Mathews

At the exhibit of unwearable shoes,
the woman beside me tells her
granddaughter about the dangers
of high heels, how they can trip
you up when you least expect it,
leave you bruised and muddled,
late for the event that made you
put on the things in the first place.
But these shoes aren’t for wearing.
They’re designed to tell stories
or to get us to tell our own, which
is exactly what my friend does,
explaining that we can be held liable
for an abandoned car or decrepit
trampoline hanging out in our side
yard. The legal term is attractive nuisance
and refers to any object that could lure
children who might not understand
the hazard, who routinely cherish
what adults no longer even see:
the heart shaped puddle,
the dandelion gone to seed.

by Charlotte Mathews

Number 29 looks at me suspiciously
like she thinks I’m behind the decision to
move her to this pasture without
the round bale, the one further
from the creek where she likes to shift
and circle, then lie above the water
in the late afternoon sun.
She’s the color of butterscotch,
of light on broom sedge, and between
her mascaraed eyes is a cyclone of fur
so stately it’s almost implausible
When I touch her, it smells like
childhood, like bread just out of the oven.
Like we could go on and on without worry.
She and I abide a long time, minutes, just
the two of us, the rest of the herd gathered
beside the barn near the western gate.
In the adjacent orchard hundreds of peach trees
are poised to burst open in a show of pink
so lustrous it’s enough to break your heart.
I think of my neighbor who I once saw
photographing spider webs in the morning.
It was like time stood still, this grown man
enraptured, catching beads of dew in light.
Maybe all loves come like this,
briefly stilled, intrepid and raw.

by Charlotte Mathews

At the exhibit of unwearable shoes,
the woman beside me tells her
granddaughter about the dangers
of high heels, how they can trip
you up when you least expect it,
leave you bruised and muddled,
late for the event that made you
put on the things in the first place.
But these shoes aren’t for wearing.
They’re designed to tell stories
or to get us to tell our own, which
is exactly what my friend does,
explaining that we can be held liable
for an abandoned car or decrepit
trampoline hanging out in our side
yard. The legal term is attractive nuisance
and refers to any object that could lure
children who might not understand
the hazard, who routinely cherish
what adults no longer even see:
the heart shaped puddle,
the dandelion gone to seed.

by Laura Ross

You and I talk about the weather,
knowing whatever you have
will ebb its way southward to me.
Jet stream is what we call
our connection—clearly
dependent on wind, nothing static
on the line. Sky-housed satellites
tick with barometric data, our voices
in the round, umaveling
the long coastline between us.
From your yesterday to my tomorrow,
the same rain. Highs and lows.
Artic chill, barely a sheen in the subtropics,
where currents humming in your eastern pines
will ruffle the fronds of my queen palms.
How can I say that I carry more
than just your weather—
an instinctual ache in my bones.
What drifts from your latitude to mine
grows warmer here—
vapors lofting into the same words:
nimbus, cumulus, cirrus, stratus.
Syllables so soft they should be
written longhand in languorous script:
I miss you. I miss you. I miss you.