by Ellen Sander

a snowball that picks up everything in its path, picks up
        the affair you thought you got away with, the umbrella on the bus,
                the wrapper you dropped behind your back
                        on the trail

        a snowball that picks up everything in its path, picks up
                the beer can by the side of the road,
                        the cousin’s birthday you pretend to forget,
                                a tip left on another table back when
                                       you were broke

        a snowball that picks up everything in its path, picks up
                the insult muttered after you thought you hung up,
                        the child forgotten at school, the takeout pizza you’ll eat
                                all by yourself

a snowball that picks up everything in its path, picks up
        the tempo, the pieces, the paper, the pose, the past,
                the peril, the pressure, potential, the placement,
                        Velveeta at the grocer’s on
the way home

by Elizabeth Gordon McKim

for Etheridge Knight

Till the last breath
and that kept you moving
through the dance and de /cadence of America
’cause you were too desperately scared
to stop even on those last days on earth
when you said I desperately need
to shit or when you were sixteen
and you desperately needed to get away from Paducah
so you joined the army or when you were dying
and your morphine and dilaudid pills were stolen more than once
and you were desperate there would never be enough
to take away the pain and you were scared and scarred
and running since the early days
laying up in the jailhouse with a man who murdered
his wife cut off her head and you still a boy
put in jail for stealing a radio in Illinois
with Baby Cisco and Ed Mac / Donald
scared and scared
now I’m up here sitting
by the St. George River Maine
watching the blue heron stand on one leg
and listening to the birch leaves twitter
and I think of thee and me
and I fall asleep into a basket of stars and meteor showers
and I wake into a bucket of blue
I turn this way and that minding the breeze
And watching the little bitty brown moth shudder
At my window today I saw its shadow cross my book
I love you
more than I can say
I’m sitting and staring for the two of us

Scared and sacred
In the hoop of the world

by Elizabeth Gordon McKim

Have we met before ?

Yes
I met you once.
In the parking lot.
I remember I was wearing
Nylons.  What were you wearing?

I don’t remember.  Nothing.  Nada
What is your middle name ?

Don’t have one.  My parents told me
  I could choose.
I chose violet.  They said
No.  No violence.  No
Violet.

What did they know ?

Nothing.  Exactly.

Have you been to the mountain ?
Behind the parking lot ?

I used to go.
Now you have to pay.
So I don’t go.

What do you do when
you’re not wearing blue ?

I put one finger up
And one across.
Eight into prayer
Position.
  I dance until
I break.  Give up
on the almighty.
Complain to the goddess.
Threaten strike.  Walk
Out.  Walk to
  Downtown
Center.  Retire the side.
Sing repetitive
Phrases in all my known
And unknown languages.  Dream.
Try to sleep.  What do you do?  

Doo whaa   Doo wha.

Wise up and wait
Till the the next question
Comes barreling
In.  All fun and wild
  Games.  Can you hear me
Howling down
Our names ?   Our
Name