by Molly M. Caldwell

The skin on my father’s calves
hangs like a translucent bag
full of tiny purple lightning bolts —
little blue streams, climbing
towards his knees.
Thick–soled sneakers
bare his smooth ankles,
ankles I know better
tied in leather boots.
There is no toolbox
in the bed of his truck
or handkerchief folded into the pocket
of his jeans, saving his sweat
and snot for the week, or two.
At dinner he reads a eulogy
he wrote for Jim,
swallowing lumps
like cold mashed potatoes that rise
from the pit of his stomach
up into his throat. I am mourning
the way he used to look
in a tank top — wiry hairs, reaching out
from his sunburnt chest to say: Hello,
we are a man! in an Italian accent.
His whole face is as though it has been pressed
with a rolled–out pie crust,
I want to peel the dough
delicately back from his hairline
and iron the creases on his forehead
with my thumb.

by Eric Forsbergh

Cook!
Boil us a pot. Fresh.
Or yesterday’s.
We don’t care
as long as there’s no skin of mold.

Better take it bitter. Black.
Pull up a stainless chair.
Talk.
Regurgitate your dark blood.
I’ve got nowhere to go,
surrounded by gray steel,
red exit lights,
the overhead ting
in nests of pipes,
the heave and shudder of a ship
plowing through
multitudes of troughs.

Navy coffee:
glue, lubricant, truth serum, fuel.
Something to go with
a stamped metal food tray.
It’s the only at–sea substitute allowed
for your favorite poultice
of nicotine tar and alcohol.
A poultice you could smear on
to cover the fact
that she may lose interest
when you’re nine months at sea.

On your return,
if you show up at his door,
her dad might break it to you easy.

He could smell it coming.
Like him,
you’re one more man
with animal remains of war
hung around your neck.

by Ceridwen Hall

There’s an island in the middle of a lake.

During summer, boats go back and forth.
People bring dogs and bicycles. They circle
the island, walk the beaches, explore pockets
of inland forest, and its tiny history museum —
with eels preserved in jars, grainy photographs.

Sometimes they have to wait for a ferry to take
them back to the mainland. They get ice–cream,
sit on a cliff, and watch the water hit the rocks.

In winter, once the ice is solid, if the tires are rugged
enough, one can drive right across the lake, deliver
supplies or collect firewood. One might even walk,
on a carefully flagged path, over the frozen surface.

But there are weeks before spring while the ice thaws
and cracks. It doesn’t melt immediately, might freeze
again overnight. There’s no driving over, no boating.
One stands on the shore, tries to see across.

by Ceridwen Hall

Travelogue
     Edmonton

When I cannot see the earth or hear beyond
the roar of the engine, nothing seems real
but my cramped animal legs — because
unmoving. I dwell often in my restless mind
so if now a water bird sits in my lap
I am grateful, refrain from doubt. The sky
doesn’t change when I travel, only my relation
to it. Parsley runs feral across the garden
and the boy brings me a handful. Sunflowers
grew also, but they are gone. Already
the trees here have turned, the leaves fallen
to crumble underfoot, beneath the wheels
of the wagon. Everything the children watch
is animated, everything we say, I hear over
the engine still buried in my ears. We pass
three rivers leaving town. My sister doesn’t ask
any wrong questions and I believe she knows
my journey north was also a form of time
travel. It is cold enough to want layers,
warm enough we can feel the sun against
our backs. We speak of our father
and our mothers. I am thanked for sharing
mine. I didn’t realize anyone had noticed.
I am not alive in the past and then I am torn,
as a child, between mother and sisters —
a quiet battle, mostly words, most unspoken.
Now my nephew draws dinosaurs, says we are
going to find their bones. My niece asks
and I answer, again, the meteor. I end
with because. A hare crosses the highway
and survives. When we speak of our elder
sister, we speak with compassion for what
we do not understand. When I must leave,
the girl wraps her arms around my legs.