by Eric Forsbergh

It looks appealing
dressed up as a nasal spray.
Designed in white, a little rocket ship
with a tip that, all the way,
reaches to the inside corner of the eye.

Harmless.  Anyone can pocket it.
I bought it just to carry down
cracked and potted streets of anywhere.

Me,
nothing but a passerby.
You,
lying like a deer hit at the side of the road.
Or on a sidewalk,
collapsed like a mattress in a dump.

Lungs suffocating.
Retinas like pinholes.

If I can’t jostle you awake
I’ll root it up your nose and squeeze.
911, and all the wailing.
Why wouldn’t I,
after what I see
our local medics do ?

I’d like to get just one day back
with no one left for dead outside the wire.

by Craig Cotter

Making Tea
for Great–Aunt Jane R. Mahoney, 5/7/03 – 5/26/95

The last time I saw Aunt Jane
in Little Falls

she was 91 and moving slowly,
oxygen tank in tow.

She invited me to the kitchen for tea.

Gave us each porcelain cups
and poured in hot water.

She held a Lipton tea bag by the paper square,
dunked it into the hot water

not waiting a second
before pulling it out —

the weakest cup of tea I’ve ever seen made.

She added cream
and asked about my life

which at that stage
and on-going

wasn’t going that well.

*
Aunt Jane collected bells
displayed on mahogany three-tiered stands

in her livingroom.
When we visited

as children
we sat in dress clothes
and had to be careful not to bump into the bells,
many of which were glass.

This last trip
in my early 30s

she remembered I’d liked the Liberty Bell,
and asked me to take it and any others I wanted.

I told her I didn’t want to disrupt her collection.
She insisted I take some bells as tears rolled down her face —

not a sob (Aunt Jane was very formal).

*
I took 3 bells which I’ve lost.

It was only driving down West Monroe Street
to my grandfather’s house on Moreland Street

that I realized she knew she was dying.

*
Aunt Jane never went to funerals, including to her husband Leo’s. The neighbors said she wouldn’t go to her own funeral.

by Craig Cotter

Because
for Diane Wakoski

We were driving
unpopulated New Mexico

no people that is
going north

or some other direction
summer, blue sky

your poetry
taking us
when “Because” came on
from Abbey Road. 

We were driving west
or some other direction
their voices dilating
New Mexico.

You sat beside me
as my CRX flew east

or some other direction
more perfect

than snipping basil
on the poached egg

because we weren’t alone.

by Alan Catlin

Apology for Bad Dreams: St Croix 1953
after Robinson Jeffers

Memory or dream ?

The white horse
at the base
of a ravine

securely tethered
to a tree

struggling
to set himself
free

panicking

as tropical storm
winds bend trees
at the top
of the plateau
toward the earth

snap the trunks

pull out the roots

impelling the broken
full-grown palms

down

all the way
down