by Daniel Lusk

These zebra mussels
are mistakes we made
in our youth.

How clear the water now
and how clearly
we can see them.

They seem
to have multiplied.

But isn’t clarity
a good thing?
We should be happy.

Yet what is there
for fish to eat,
or our children, coming after.

by Daniel Lusk

     — after a painting by Sally Coppersmith

Out of our view overhead,
clouds like spinnakers.

Stippled lake giving way to shoreline
so there can be a place for these

women and girls in ribboned hats,
ears cocked for the possibility of sounds

the boy, who may have thought
himself the first ever to skip a stone.

As if they had come to remember us
and changed their minds.

Some will think them
the “coast guard” of this lake
with a preference for white.

Former people,
echo chambers of the spaces
where they stood.

by Daniel Lusk

     “Why am I soft in the middle when life is so hard?”
          Paul Simon, “You Can Call Me Al”

A young woman bursts from the doors of the library
in Avignon, exclaiming “Peecasso! Peecasso!”
After that,
you can’t go anywhere in the world without regret.

Petrels fly through waves.
When I grow tired of flinging myself
off swinging bridges
as if I thought it were a measure of something,
I will, like penguins, abandon flight.

I’m sitting in another meeting
when a new young mother stretches abundantly.
These affairs of the moment remind me
how lucky I have been,
diving for pearls in my own bed.

by Annie Seikonia

in the aftermath of twin
mourning doves

next the rows of sleeping buds
Persephone’s bouquet smolders

deep purple flowers
reflect a reversed world

glimmers of blue
blind tethered birds

an inescapable cave
carved from twilight

her long hair braided
with forest green

a dazzling burning sun
buried in her chest

she wore her clothes backwards —
a somnambulist

when she dreamt of blossoms
in the frozen river

her warm breath
caused the radicles to stir

           spark sing break

the ancient city astray is
reflected in sparkled pieces

of dew her brave temples
rise between scrapyard

and neon, her soft hands
caress soft leaves

           slipper light, flight, drenched night

quit your job and stare
at the weedy throats of blossomed flight

blur the landscape into shapes
then remember her

moving through the haunted mansions
planting these reversed

bouquets

her ghost still clinging
to the dark wedding