by Stephen Petroff

All I will say of that great tree is that it has been cut down.
I went for a visit and found it gone.
I was determined not to be stalled
by a death so large and sudden.
In the late afternoon, I went home
and continued my activities, as ever.
My first business was to make a pot of black tea.

As evening fell, a great deal of water fell,
from the sky, rain water.
I was suggestible: The tea tasted of rain.
As I drank from my old cup,
I listened at my open window:
I heard individual rain drops fall,
and I heard the things the raindrops hit:
a woodshed roof,
a piece of plywood propped under the eaves,
the leaves of the crabapple tree,
the leaves of the peach tree.

I flew the length of the ravine behind my house,
“using only my ears as wings,”
and I heard short bursts of sharp rain,
I heard the raindrops hit every bush and stone.
It was the kind of night I love,
but I wasn’t satisfied with it.

I would never deliberately complain about
how much I suffer from self–pity,
yet with the loss of this great catalpa tree,
I have dreamt of becoming Evil.
I knew that the rain was best for me:
I wanted to listen, rather than speak.
I listened to the storm and drank tea.
All the same, there was the earlier image before me,
the great tree of my life, reduced to a stump.

When they saw down a large tree,
they saw it up, as well.
I always expect the sawed–up tree
to look like a butchered ox,
but there is no red flesh,
no slabs of fat, no blood at all,
no empty chest cavity,
— if there’s no tree–disease, there is no empty torso,
just arms thrown wide, and that look of headlessness.
All the same, if someone would paint
a picture of the best section of a giant
(freshly–killed) catalpa tree, it would be
like one of the famous oil paintings
of a beef–critter’s hanging carcass
(Rembrandt and Soutine)
brush strokes aswirl on slaughtered wood,
wood swollen like muscle, muscle streaming with light /
light like living minerals /or powdered gold,
gold in a form that you could eat,
golden food for the conqueror of the tree /creation
that has sheltered whole families,
and who but the one devouring it,
can know if its flesh will be sweet or bitter?

by Stephen Petroff

It has surprised me that my
oldest old friends, unseen
for thirty–five years,
still remember the great problem
of my youth,
“What color is sunlight
in a cup of coffee?”

I weep at their faith in art,
and at my inability to handle my colors.

by Kieran Fionn Murphy

Looking down
four palms warmed around ceramic
‘o’s holding whipped cream monticles that wobble
bobble on a sea of dark–roast Kenyan & then I send them
dancing to a clicking spoon with you synchronised a hand away
we potentize day from half–remembered dreams imbibing morning
conversation turns to last night’s coupling & did our daughter hear us
when she rose to pee we froze a film paused a statuary waiting
for a flush then return to silence when our marbled skin reanimated
pressing play to catch the climax ending at least we’re laughing
out the window where an afterthought of moon whispers
in pale blue an ancient wisdom–myth that flutters
close but unlike you my love I can’t quite
reach its fingers

by Kieran Fionn Murphy

The prim afternoon sun hid cloudily as a blue
tugboat barged the Rhine. Sophie, beside a Beatles–
haircut Irishman, nonchalantly tossed a wine glass
over her head when a German said Swiss daughters
couldn’t vote, Wahnsinn, and shameful state secrets
and smug Swiss men meant that nothing shocking

happened in Basel. Sophie’s glass shattered, shocking.
The waiter, balding, black–tied, wielding a blue–
handled–broom, understood how to sweep up secrets.
He approached on shards that crunched like beetles,
wondering who had raised such a daughter.
Professional, he first replaced her broken glass

saying, ‘It appears the lady dropped her glass.’
‘No,’ Sophie said. ‘I threw it. Isn’t that shocking?’
‘And will Ma’am do it again?’ ‘She’s not my daughter,’
said the German. ‘I might,’ said Sophie, crossing
blue–jeaned legs. ‘I understand,’ the waiter said. Cleaned. Beatles
tunes hummed from the Irishman. The two kept secrets.

It was due to Sophie’s parents they kept secrets —
no suitor suitable. Finbarr would slip out the glass
bedroom window, swan–silent, shoes in hand, Beatles
record under arm, when her folks stopped by. Shocking
them not an option. He loved cars, owned a brash blue
Hillman, sat in it as parents checked on daughter.

Back home, on Patrick’s Day, he sent their daughter
a fresh shamrock — could he return, make secrets?
Yes. He rode the ferry, car’s soft–top down, him blue–
capped in a bright red MG–TC. He tapped on her glass
window, and in Café Spitz unwrapped a shocking
fab new album, Hard Day’s Night, the Beatles.

Some time after, him black–suited like the Beatles,
they told Sophie’s parents to expect a granddaughter.
Future in–laws paled, felt ill, pronounced it ‘shocking,’
announced a hasty wedding, waved away their secrets.
Big bellied, Sophie swayed as the wind bucked the blue
ocean liner. Scherben bringen Glück? Yes. Broken glass

did bring luck in New York — Beatles charting, no more secrets,
a daughter, two sons. They sold natural medicines filled in glass
bottles, and, shocking, swapped a sleek Morgan for a Volvo in
blue.