by Richard Jarrette

We could walk freely inside Nebuchadnezzar’s killing furnace most of the time
because our God–weather was generally mild,

smooth sailing, and you cuddling with the lions, me throwing bones with the
executioners, having some laughs, a few herby beers.

But God–weather’s tricky, drove me to my desk to drink the black inkwell straight down,
you to your room to expertly bandage the precise

hieroglyphics drawn on your thighs with that fine surgeon’s scalpel. Our love talk
blew all over the place in the goddamn weather.

Your poems are like licking honey from God’s fingers, you purred.
A fragment of you is the fractal equation of God–beauty, said I.

(Like Giacometti shouting at Braque while drawing the death portrait) Wake up. You
cannot be dead, Katja. You are not dead. Wake up.

by Richard Jarrette

I didn’t know the contours of my own face till you
held it in your hands and said, I’m taking this everywhere.

These seven days, Katja, seem like seven thousand years
since you walked into your River Ouse
backpack laden with momentos.

I think the tip of your cigar, held aloft, was the last
thing you saw, laughter forcing black
water into your lungs.

Here the west wind gnarls a cypress on the headland,
fragments of what I can release of you swirl
through sea grass on the tide.

by Carol Bachofner

Old Pima came down with the wandering sickness. It edged in when he was digging for water out back. Took over, settled into his heart for four years, stayed until the man’s grandson came home from college. Ira Hayes wandered into Iwo Jima, got it raising a flag that didn’t recognize him. That’s how it gets in sometimes. Comes and goes. There is no warning. Ira Hayes was a hero, then he wandered into a ditch and drowned in 6 inches of water. Old Pima puts a walking stick by the entrance to his house. In case it comes back. He wears a dream catcher on his shirt now. He heard from an elder that the sickness comes from crazy dreams getting in through the chest. He hasn’t slept in his bed since Old Woman walked away. Grandson builds a fence to keep it out. Granddaughter cooks outside to confuse it, make it think there’s no house at all. Old Pima smudges. Heya, heya, heya –hey. Linda Little Dog stopped singing and wandered off after breakfast. She might be gone an hour. A week. She might be under the road. Old Pima notices his walking stick wandered off at about the same time. It was half haunted.

by Max Hjortsberg

Remember when
you could fix everything yourself ?
Some baling twine, a coat hanger, a pair of pliers,
and naturally a roll of duct tape,
and you’d be back on the road
rolling toward the horizon
onward to some open arms
that would pull you into an ample bosom
and not let go until the next morning
when you’d wake in a tangle
of long black hair and bed sheets.