by Jared Harél

I learn how to juggle.

I learn how to juggle
because there is no good
reason not to learn

and because I enjoy

the metronomic slip
of fingers to sky
back to fingers again

and again, I learn

for I am always forgetting
and because objects
have a habit of falling

without our help.

by Elisabeth Harrahy

My lover beckons from the back porch swing
for me to view the magic of the sky.
Beneath the thin cloud canopy now sings
a circus tent of crickets magnified
in concert, young spring peepers honored guests.
I pause — then push the worn screen door and head
outside to hear those sounds I once loved best,
but listen to my lover breathe instead.
His breath, it seems to whisper, “Take my hand,
away we’ll go above the sassafras,
beyond the big–top.” While our bodies stand
amid the laurel, earth perspires grass
in cycles — bringing life, then bringing death.
So bound, I fear, I pray then to be deaf

by Paul Marion

I have escaped from crazy America,
Sitting in a café near City Hall eating quiche
And drinking Swiss beer with Rosemary
On a Sunday morning in the August heat.
Green light–rail cars, washed for the new day,
Stop and go a few yards from our table.
The server, like others from Amsterdam
To Heidelberg, speaks English to us.

William Carlos Williams wrote: “The pure products
Of America go crazy.” We’re not the only ones.
It’s often true, not always, but often enough
To slow us down when we cross the street
Or head for the next bend in the river.
I just want to sit for a while at a distance.

by Paul Marion

Bells at five on the Rhine, running silver–blue
North to Mannheim and Nijmegen,
This hot slow Sunday, late August in Basel,
Where the banks are fleshed bridge to bridge
And past my view — the good citizens soaking.
One of them enters the water each minute,
Adding to the flotilla of loafers and thrashing jocks,
In the ritual float or swim, most with a sealed colored bag,
The Wickelfisch, bobbing ahead, a freelance buoy,
Its clothes, phone, and wallet aiming for Strasbourg,
But bathers stop long before France and swim to land
To repeat while sun warms the wall where folks combine,
Watching out for each other, no lifeguards in sight,
The authorities on season break in the Italian hills.