by Tinker Greene

Is Margot’s birthday. The ocean slate
is scrawled with whitecaps, soon
to be erased by squalls of rain. Tonight,
full moon with wastebasket, clock, and
backward–scudding thunderheads beyond the
birthday cake, our tiny circle in the dark.

by Tinker Greene

Wednesday morning and a smell of fresh
insecticide in the air. Two cops
in shorts on a bench outside Starbucks.
It’s the Fourth of July and my aunt
says she’s flying her flag
indoors so no one can steal it.
Kenny Dorham’s loud checked jacket
on the cover of Midnight
at the Café Bohemia — How
goes it, Kenny? My America:
a swim in the river, then silent
tar beach rooftops arching across
the city as dark fireworks
spill from the end of his horn.

by Tinker Greene

is a hayfield in a stuffy attic, piles of Life
magazine in rows like bales of cut hay. A noisy airplane
with a star on its side is buzzing the well we found
near the tree part way up the hill, under a rotting
lid. Past mossy stonework we drop clumps of dirt
through the clouds to watch the flash

when they hit the surface far below.
Two miles to town, and the woods are thick
with Germans and abandoned automobiles.
The Betit brothers wear berets, their rifles
stand next to the bulldozer. Squinting through
the smoke of their Gauloises they siphon gas.

Over the lake the thunderheads
gather as rabbits run from the scythe.

by Maria Surrichio

A fine line —
tangy on one side, tainted
on the other.
It doesn’t start that way.

Each brush with brine coaxes
bacteria, mold, the sherbety–orange
stickiness, the meaty smell

that lingers on fingertips.
Creamy, yeasty oozes
to barnyards and sweaty feet —
nothing smeared stays innocent.

When the fridge opens,
the rank aroma hits
like a conspiracy

among the sweet, simple virtue
of carrots and butter —
subversion
in a Sub–Zero.

A long marriage. He tells you
it’s make or break, this toxic bloom
between you, the deposits

it leaves.
It’s not the first time.
With each, a more complex pang
of flavor — the secret note

of maturity that teeters
between vitality and decay,
can turn gritty

and bitter. How to tip
to pungent ripeness, to name
what melts, growing close
to the tenderness of rot.