by Nina Bennett

The chemist:
Water seeps through the brick, dissolves salts,
evaporates, leaves a white crystalline
deposit on the surface.

The pathologist:
Redness, a rash, an eruption on the skin.

The botanist:
The gradual process of budding,
to flower out, blossoms unfolding.

The Frenchman:
A teenage girl’s blush, that first flush
of knowledge when a boy takes her hand,
the way she opens to his kiss.

by David Filer

The slough is finally
calm, and in the last
light, the palisades

are doubled, white mist
dissipating twice.
I was afraid for

us then, the silence,
the unanswered calls,
the tide’s slow rise to

its fullness, knowing
how brief it would be.
How far away is

too far, how many
miles, how many hours
are too many to

get back here on time,
before this rising
moment has passed? Yet,

we’ve done it before —
years — and you’ve always
been safe. So, still

well worth the long wait,
well worth the gamble
of staying at home.

by Maria DiLorenzo

who handled their women
like art in a museum, forbidden

to touch, yet sometimes slyly
touched, my grandfather in 1945

kissing my grandmother’s hand
at the drive–in then parting ways

on her stoop. The moon hung
like a chandelier, those sticky

fingers of light groped every inch
of ground, empty ballrooms they’ve yet

to dance in. Longing was like craving
a cigarette and not lighting one,

letting her hand go like a balloon.
She listened to the patter

of his shoes, the radio set low,
tuned to the song stuck in his head,

say, it’s only a paper moon,
sailing over a cardboard sea.

In two separate houses, two separate
rooms their hearts jazzed along

until drowsy dead air
bloomed, and the song forgot

how to sound, making them fall
asleep without each other.

by Polly Giantonio

Her shoulder,
soft and full as a swan’s breast,
illumines homely features
in graceful symmetry —
ivory beauty with reticent eyes, adrift,
and full, sealed lips.
Behind — her sister, eclipsed
by her honey–suckle aura, mutes a reprimand.
On the garden fountain
ledge, a child idly circles
a finger in water,
while her sister whispers —
          Father would be furious —
          but tell me, what was it like?