Bill Edmondson
is a poet living in Santa Rose, California, who teaches at City College of San Francisco. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Fugue, Field, Margie, Redivider, and Bayou. He is learning late the vital importance of giving himself completely to his craft — and says it’s like falling in love.
Larry Dyhrberg
had a long career as a high – school history teacher. He now divides his time between part – time teaching at Southern Maine Community College, house – husbanding his wife and two daughters, and pursuing the one true shot on the golf courses of Maine. In 2006 –2007, he and his family spent a year in Bayeux, France, which gave rise to some of his poetry. He lives in Falmouth, Maine.
Alice Bolstridge
has published stories, poems, and essays in many magazines and anthologies including Cimarron Review (Oklahoma State University Short Fiction Award and American Academy of Poets Prize); Intricate Weave (Iris Editions); Passager (1995 Passager Poet Award); Nimrod (finalist, 1998 Pablo Neruda Poetry Award); Maine in Print (2005 Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance Poetry Award); Out of Line; and Wolf Moon Journal. More information at www.alicebolstridge.com.
Elegy for a Crow
by James K. Zimmerman
you’ve got a sick crow in your yard
the neighbor said
but I know this: crows don’t get sick and
sit around on the grass
no
they sit around on the grass to die
I looked at it closely
primordial raptor beak an elevator
caught between the first floor
and the basement
nictitating membrane still a candle
stuttering to say its name
in hovering darkness
I agreed to come back later
we don’t come get dead crows
the USDA hotline said
just shovel it into a bag and
throw it in the garbage
I came back later
my crow was belly up
wings splayed unthinkably
a ship’s hulk in a dusky harbor
flies hoping to salvage the eyes
I picked it up gently
the stiffening black body
with a plastic bag and put it in another
a pine box for an unmarked grave
tied the bags shut
threw my crow away
and with a last breath
whispered goodbye