by Leah Twitchell

She was rearranging the furniture
In her parent’s house —

As if by changing the shape of the house as it had been then,
The memories of what took place there and then
Would become void here and now;

As if the house were a body,
As it is said to represent in dreams,
And she was erasing
Every pattern of touch on that body.

by Michael Lee Phillips

What was the first question and what was the answer ?
That’s what I’d like to know.  And how did the answer know
That it was, and was supposed to ?

Omonia Square would reveal it, if it were asked.
Omonia Square would gaze the length of Athinas Street
And find the answer.

Athinas Street is the greatest street in the human world.
More answers are found, per linear foot, on Athinas Street,
Than anywhere else in the human world.

One needs a balcony above this street.
The best answers are always out on the street before sunrise.
At the Attalos Hotel I would get up before dawn
And sit on my tiny balcony

And read mystery novels,
And watch the answers out and about on Athinas Street.

Some would call that paradise, but I, personally, would not be That unkind.

Some questions marry the answers they court.
It’s understood.

Omonia Square understands.  It has been sitting forever at the end Of Athinas Street.
Be assured, Omonia Square would never read a mystery novel
If there were answers out and about.

Especially if those answers had chosen Athinas Street above all other
Streets in the human world
As their place to be out and about.

All the answers repeat themselves all day long — and, no, they did
Not get lost on the way from the oracle.
And, no, they do not repeat the answers together like a chorus.

When the questions show up later, they will find their answers.
That is easy enough to do
On Athinas Street, the greatest street in the known human world.

by Kimberly Cloutier Green

You were a big, horns – only concert of a man.
I was your sapphire – tongued chameleon.
Kiss me, kiss me.  You know the rest.
Now the preacher’s packed his tent
and the amen choir’s scattered.
The Got Milk ? billboard on Main trembles

the way you do when the sun clocks high noon
and freezes us on our knees — baby in her high chair
has green sparks for eyes, but there’s never any guarantee,
and nothing

honorable in this grief — we’d made plans
for a different future.  Now we spin and spin
in our aluminum boat, oars out of reach, and no way out
except the Marble Proscenium.
The keyhole requires a delicate instrument —

the miniature trumpet on Satchmo’s charm ring,
or the songs it plays — the ones that pierce and hold on,
leaving us with our faces in our hands.    Use that key

before our children are gone,
before theirs have names we don’t recognize,
before the sky turns finally red
and all the colorblind fish with their tiny magician hearts
forget how to steer us home.

by Amalio Madueño

can’t I believe it will flow forever
all that time since the Conquest
running through basalt in the high valley
where I stand figuring Fall in a new place
that will cease to exist before the petroglyphs
give up their pitted, abraded visions
as clouds race past purple tuff
& white wooden graveyard crosses catch light
& I think I know something of the life
I have lived & of water flowing
& the course of leaves drifting to dissolution
as I clear the running channel & recall
what it was that fed desire &
the motion bringing me here & soon on
to some new place the whole time
thinking where did I think I was going

Note:  Acequia: Southwestern United States.  An irrigation canal. [Spanish, from Arabic as — saq°y~h, irrigation ditch.]