by Michael David Madonick

We cannot reconcile ourselves, the incongruities
of our bodies and of our natures, that which is cast

in the purposeful inheritance of our incisors, two worlds
buck – toothed, joined.  Above the water and below,

it is always a matter of mediation, breathing and
holding one’s breath.  That we forage, skim the deep

reaches of the pond and then rise, leaving each measure
of our find on the surface or in our den, is a kind of

communion, an offering, registering the spirit of our dual
lives, the constant transformation, the covenant with

the world we leave behind.  Soft enough for a czarina’s neck,
or fodder for some fiery Cajun roux, the afterlife affords no resolution.

Yet, here, in the now, in the soft repellant glide across
the pond, we are nearly delightful, toppling the bulrush

to make our furtive home.  And if the aroma, our name,
that spreads a warning to our bourgeois neighbors, is not enough — humility

then, has fashioned a tail.

by Daniel Hales

See how the wind folds and pleats the water?
Hear how each wave says, repeats: the water?

After two years marooned on pine needles
how eagerly your prow greets the water.

Can you recall the first time you saw it:
that thoroughfare of tall fleets, the water?

It seems I must reintroduce myself
each time that my paddle meets the water.

Bees emerge from flowers pleased as can be.
Where do herons find their treats?  The water.

Have you ever begged for some need as one
lost in the desert entreats the water?

I’ve liquidated all my metaphors
except for my favorite conceits, the water.

Is the bottom near?  Farther than it seems?
Master of countless deceits, the water.

There’s always more waiting to be reborn;
a cloud congregation completes the water.

Thanks to hydroelectric engineers
a dam efficiently eats the water.

Never content to remain in one place,
it approaches and retreats, the water.

A truly humbling sight to behold:
how a waterfall unseats the water.

Though a sea insists it is infinite
how easily the sky beats the water.

If I could ask it to teach me one thing:
how it accepts its defeats, the water.

Eventually time will erase me
just as a long drought deletes the water.

I’m another whose name’s writ on the waves,
syllables scrawled on its sheets, the water.

You challenge me: go ahead and name one;
a poet better than Keats?  The Water.

by Karina Borowicz

If I cry when I tell you the dream
don’t console me simply believe me

it’s hard to put my darkness into words
to describe the sounds of the battle
coming closer

the huge frightened eye of the horse
as I lay my face against its sweating neck

by Karina Borowicz

Again the circle of green light.
My neighbor is sewing.  With the two
natures of a moth, his hands
hover there, one futility
the other wing hope.  And the fabric
is bunched up, from here
it’s not clear what until a shirt
dangles its arm.
          Other nights it’s something
else, a square of cloth, a sock.
The work smaller and smaller till it appears
nothing’s there, but the needle still moves
or what might be a needle, and what might
be thread is pulled, up and out.