by Megan Grumbling

I sky it high      the white      as if a child

lay giggling here beneath,   breathing the light

in billows as it settles,   seeks its rest

upon each piecemeal bone of cheek and breast

imagined whole      such height      as if above

myself, as smooth as if loft were, like love,

susceptible to bone, and from below

relearn myself as blind, by what these bones

displace      delight      as if the universe

were one, were sheer, receptive to each curve

of clavicle or lip. Once all the pale

has touched, I’ll blow a last warm lift, exhale

as long as I have air, then let its kiss

descend      alight      as if to sleep in it.

by Peter Bradley

It is such a common occurrence that the eyes of others
slide over the sight of it with nary a question or raised eyebrow.
As if they know its origin and it’s not worth asking about.
A black blot, not unlike a scarlet letter,
a lasting reminder of how long it takes a thumb nail to grow.
So don’t ask.
But please remember.
Somewhere between the laying of the roofing shingle;
the holding of the nail; and the double bounce of the hammer;
there is always a deeper story.
It lies beyond the obvious pain and loss of memory,
and it is always inexplicably driven home with clarity.

by Keith Dunlap

Among a stand of long dead trees
bleached white by the intense salinity
of flood waters that consumed the town,
a road built in the seventies still winds around
the former slaughterhouse at Villa Epecuen.
For twenty–five years, local fish and eels have passed
through windows filled with shadow now instead of glass
and around the abandoned art deco tower
and the enormous block letters spelling “Matadero.”
But now the scabrous edifice sits alone;
its plaster surfaces peeling and its facade collapsed,
like a skin–diseased bather come to take the cure,
who, waiting by the roadside, isn’t sure
whether she has missed the last bus back to Carhué.

by Keith Dunlap

I have entombed my love poems to you
in the moldering casket of your heart.
Yet I keep returning to the plot of grass,
keep mumbling the half–forgotten phrases out loud,
haunted by visions of decomposition,
under an evening sky of purpling clouds.
As the flesh creeps back from the sockets around your eyes,
your soft hair dries into angel hair kindling,
and your wedding ring loosens on your bony finger.
After seven years, I cannot take it any longer,
and break every solemn vow I have ever made,
hire common laborers to dig through the soft dirt to your grave,
casting aside all sentiment, sweating with nervous pride,
to steal once again what you treasured best,
the manuscript of my devotion from your lifeless breast.