by Paula Cisewski

But if he was hungry the thief
or his children were

hungry who said
he has children

better if he has the thief
stealing the taste from your supper

with his lean disdain
like a crow the thief

liberating us from a bit of
our excess the thief

so intimately slides
his hand in your dark pocket the thief

grows a beard for a portable hideout
the thief is eternally strolling away

his getaway the thief ’s will it end
clumsily a mistake a pearl

brooch for his mother’s birthday
who said he has a mother

better if
the thief

retreats into night
close your curtains

there’s a raccoon
in the alley the thief

looks right through you to
your most treasured object the thief

is loyal to his private country
we assume

who said he has
a privacy the thief

that didn’t belong to
someone else first

by J. B. Sisson

“You’ve got the breasts of a mermaid,” he said
and added, “She just called.  She wants them back.”
A fantasy implodes with one wisecrack
and festers, even for a newlywed
slowly succumbing to a curious dread,
as though a comment were a sneak attack
by her beloved mythomaniac
walking a cliff trail on West Quoddy Head:
green water flashing in the rocks below,
an eagle rising on a thermal draft,
the raucous mockery of a white crow
as if a multitude of sea gods laughed
while Melusina opened her trousseau
full of the marvels of her ancient craft.

by J.B. Sisson

In 1666 there lived a duke
whose angels told him, “All the world is crude.
Ignore the fools who call you Monsieur Prude.
Proud Duke of Mazarin, flounce your peruke
and give your kitchenmaids a sharp rebuke.
You’ve seen them milk the cows with fingers rude
and a sly squeeze.  You know their thoughts are lewd.
No wonder these punk hoydens make you puke.”
Those puckish angels filled the duke with dread.
Eventually his fickle duchess fled.
He called his servants to his potting shed
and, since he had become a tulip, said,
“Transplant me to my favorite flower bed
and every day spray water on my head.”

by Janice Miller Potter

of a century
happened just like that
at your dad’s estate sale
a snapshot of you at

six months fell from a box
that romper your mother
sewed on her Singer
was trodden by a heel

still your baby face
beams through an oily map
while your paddies reach
for a great bid ball

should you be sold
now that Vietnam’s cinnamon
and you are a hostage
no child of yours will save

with Doughboys and GIs
they fire you blanks
for your soldier’s pay but
we play tapes that rasp

like a codger stuck on
kids who took napalm
betel–red teeth cheap cunt
corpses in bloody paddies

baby did God
toss you that clove–studded
Christmas orange
or was it a lesser grenadier

the one who is shelling
out gold stars to mothers
for fiery black
headlines from Iraq