By Martha McCollough

beneath the floorboards
even the rat’s composing its memoirs
on the backs of my ancient homework

(blotty blue cursive
list of kinds of coal —
anthracite bituminous lignite —
a diagrammed sentence
chief exports of south america

nun’s red pencilled blah blah blah)
my childish diligence

no one cares about any of that
thinks the rat, correctly

By Carolyn Gelland

Grasshopper’s ears
live in their forelegs.
If one of two
membranes is destroyed,
she only finds
him by
a series of mistaken
flights.

That girl, stoned
to zero, one,
one, zero,
sat on the front steps
of the Forty–Second Street
Library
ten years ago, picking
pills from her vomit,
re–popping them.
Dead in six months, you think.
I saw her yesterday —
still looking for the last
judgment that can find
someone
to resurrect.

By Linda Buckmaster

It’s at the back of the yard beyond where the lawn is mowed
and witchgrass grows beneath a brushy tangle of wan raspberry.
They dragged the tree out here after New Years, a few bits of color
still stuck to it, saying, we’ll have a winter bonfire later in the new
snow.
But time passed and the brown grass now waits for green,
and they talk instead of pushing the tree over the edge
to the beach below for a summer fire in a lingering twilight.

It’s that kind of place — where children of a certain age go to be
naughty
in the sweet fern, not knowing they could be seen from the
second story,
if anyone bothered to look. And later as a solitary adolescent, sit
in the fog
and gaze on what can be seen of the gray–faced bay and ponder
big questions
about small things. Where the husband goes after an argument to
smoke
a forbidden cigarette, wanting to think about the marriage, but
planning,
instead, repair of the wooden steps down to the beach. And
where she wanders
sometimes, wondering about the empty beer can and thinking,
we should clear this and plant a nice row of rosa rogosas.

But now spring pushes and heaves itself forward. The one–note
tune of peep frogs
plaits the air. The tree lies on its side, and the spike where the
star once was
now points toward the horizon, the outer needles rusting with
age, but close
to the trunk still deep green, so that as you brush past, it lets out a
sharp cry of balsam.

By Kit Robinson

XX

Writing in a garden

Writing on a plane

Writing on a sofa

Writing in Spain

Writing on a park bench

Writing at the end of the bar

Writing on deck

Writing in bed

Writing in the head

Writing when dead

XXI

Writing in a hotel room

Writing without thinking

Writing on the back of a proof sheet

Writing in another language

Writing left–handed

Writing in a library

Writing next to a drainage ditch

Writing a postcard

Writing to keep from crying

Writing just for fun

XXII

Writing under the influence

Writing up a creek

Writing while walking

Writing without borders

Writing on a train

Writing under water

Writing for money

Writing to music

Writing for children

Writing writes itself