by Robert Kennedy

Once familiar objects turn hostile
In this cubic void of dark space.
Bloodless hands reach from angular sleeves,
My throat throbbing in jugular terror.
Feet, ready to kick,
Are tensed somewhere
On hard muscles.

Surfaces are hardened by the inky air
Flattened against the invisible wall.
Acute desperation is fanned
By an upward growth from the floor.

I know the room can be switched
Back to friendliness again,
But the switch is superimposed
On nothing. My hands frisk an
Invisible gown — my own exhalations.
If I could only find the door,
I could kick it — really hard.

Keys invade the lock, and with a jar,
The bed, the chair
And I take a step back,
Insipid, sickly, older
In the punishing, grey light.

The warder sees only stagnant remnants
Of order: a glass, a crust, blank paper.
I turn from his question to my sleep,
To the narrow envelope
Of my bed
And its beckoning black.

by M. P. Jones IV

Late in the darkness
startled by the sound of what
could have been the bleating
of a young calf the one
my father bottle fed
after we found his mother
at the edge of the field
the hay leaning heavy
with flecks of blood
and the red clay too hard
to bear the paw prints
already the vultures
had assembled for their
wake in the pines
with the sun bending
weary at noon’s stalk
her body growing ripe
as we dug the shallow pit
worn handles of the shovel
straining against the clay
with shadows from the field
moving into the treeline
we loaded the truck
and still later heading home
when we discovered
the fledgling owls living
in the oil can that hung
to the left of the cabin door
what little refuge we require.

by Douglas K. Currier

Start by giving away the good things,
the accumulated of value. Choose
carefully, and do it slowly. Say that
you are downsizing, uncluttering, making
things easier. Watches, cashmere, the art work
of others — make gifts to family, friends, relations.
Empty the storage unit. Goodwill
will take the clothes, shoes, books,
and life’s other sundries.

Burn the personal — perhaps in the backyard
fire pit your oldest gave you the summer
you had friends — photos, newspaper clippings,
certificates, tax returns, pay stubs, failed poems,
thank–you notes, cards (Christmas and birthday).
No one wants your past — each has his or her own.
Burn all that you kept to remind you, but
that you forgot nonetheless, and quickly.

Remember to cancel the gym membership.
They want notice a month in advance in writing.
Pick up whatever you have at the dry–cleaner.
Cancel the cable and subscriptions that linger.
Pay off your bills within reason. The post office
will hold your mail — three months or so anyway.
Email all your contacts telling them you’ll no longer
be checking that account — details to follow.
Most everything else will take care of itself.

by Marcia F. Brown

Barely dawn and a new bird with a lunatic song
is perched outside my window — six startling–shrill chirrup–chirrup’s ascending rapidly, then
one long descending trill — like someone falling
down stairs or a kid on a playground slide.
He picks himself up and does it
all over again. Can’t stop. Or no —
it’s more like a drunken bluesman
who’s spent all night at the club and goes
weaving and riffing up the empty street, still
crooning the blues in the cool half–light.

My old teacher says when he can’t sleep,
he lies in bed and writes in his head. So I try it
but I can’t write jack with this bird shrieking
like an air raid warning at 4 am. Which reminds me
that the poem I am trying to write is called
The Day the Wind Took Up and Carried . . .

because of a couple down South I saw
standing in the rubble of their home the day
the wind took up and carried everything away
and I wondered where do you go from there
with nothing but your Red Cross cup of coffee,
your paper wallet full of vouchers, and a free
T–shirt from the Home Depot trailer?

I want to know how people do this
after the wind . . . but the bird won’t let me
get about my business of feeling my way
into this loss, the huge space of what used to be:
a neighborhood, the woman–with–the–dachshund’s
house, the corner where you poked your letters
in a blue mailbox. He’s all I can think about:
Chirrup–chirrup, whistie–down–the–stairs . . . I bet

even that wind couldn’t pry
this little sucker’s feet from his perch. He’s no quitter.
But wait — maybe it did. Maybe he was
knocked loose, buffeted around with the toss–pillows,
bathroom glass, the CD of Tupelo Honey — my bird,
taken up by the wind and carried
all the way from Natchez, blown up the coast
to sit outside my window and sing about it.

And maybe he’s telling me my poem
needs to be like the blues: not figure out why
things happen or pretend to know
what he or those people holding the broken picture frame
are feeling after the wind . . . just make
one long lament — something you could sing
lurching your way up the street
in the first and somehow startling
light of morning.