by Elizabeth Tibbetts

Our guide holds a telescope thick as a man’s arm
as she scans the bay for signs of a finback’s spout
or the black back of a minke breaking the water.
She’s a bow–legged–seen–it–all woman with a serpent
twining its green tail around one calf and a carp

swimming the other. She knows what she’s talking about —
It’s not all good news out here — pods shrinking, toxins
spit out of a nursing whale’s fat into her milk. Still . . .
everything looks perfect, the Bay of Fundy ruffled
as we sail towards islands that pop up like muffins

along the horizon. Even Old Sow is quiet, mere current
where, in a few hours, two meeting tides will churn
into a whirlpool. Someone shouts, and we all turn
to watch a mink submerge, surface, then sink again.
Ledged seals lift their heads and watch us pass

as our captain follows the whales, but they never
come close enough to heave up beside us.
But as we sail back in, off starboard, a frenzy of gulls
shrieks over a rough patch of water where porpoises
encircle a school of fish. A bald eagle flies in, then

another, and two more, so close we hear their wings.
They dive and rise with herring flapping in their claws,
then mid–flight tear at them with their yellow beaks.
Oh my god, we cry, our voices torn from us as we float
together on this great salty body we once crawled from for air.

by Susan Sherman

Imagine a globe spinning through space
You are standing in Canada    The stars are
singularly bright    You watch them in silence
You are standing in China    Bikers struggle
through crowded streets    Pollution so dense
it obscures the light    You are standing in Spain
It is summer    The sun burns your flesh
as you reach toward your daughter’s hand
You are standing in Africa    The Serengeti is quiet
Predators wait for night    You are standing in Antarctica
the sky dimming in preparation for winter’s long sleep
You are standing at the North Pole    or in a big city
Calcutta perhaps    or Moscow    Buenos Aires    New York
You are standing in the suburbs    on the plains
on an    island    Do you ever think it curious
no matter where you are    freed of gravity
you will fall into space    Perhaps even now you
slant at a ninety degree angle    or worse
with your head hanging permanently down
How athletic to be stretched out sideways
rigid as a board    What determination to remain
the wrong way round    the soles of your feet where
your head should be    Have you ever considered
how distorted our perception of who we are
how we are placed might be    when we are    all of us
standing    every which way but up

by Susan Sherman

Will they cry for us when we have gone
the objects that adorn our lives
When we have left    will they miss our touch
our need for them

Do they know they are the chosen ones
or do they fear we will tire of them
set them aside    bound as they are by our desire
not theirs

A ball point pen    white    with gold bands
imported from France    birthday gift
from a beloved friend    A fountain pen
sun yellow with black enamel tip
Relics of an earlier age

Forty Oz books hidden from prying eyes
Well worn novels    books of religion
philosophy    the occult    long out of print
All those books we hold dear    have kept through years
with leather bindings    colorful illustrations
childhood dreams

Even the magazines we treasure    worthless
to others    A college t–shirt    now sizes too small
A pair of boots    useless    but prized
A turquoise necklace from an old lover
too full of memories to wear

All the things we refuse to throw away
Each one holding a piece of our past

When we have gone people may cry for us
but even those who hold us dear
at a certain point move on    Our objects

belong to us alone    We have left part of ourselves
behind in them

Lacrimae rerum: the tears of things
Do they love us as we love them
Will they weep for us when we are gone

by Judy Kaber

Each morning they accumulate
in the belly of my stove, grey,

giving off little smoke or heat,
hiding the small, hot coals

that I will use to start anew.
Each morning I kneel, peer in,

shovel out their soft bodies,
spill them into the waiting pail.

They are light, all that remains
of the past, of the hard logs

that I carried in, of the trees
once standing in the silver copse,

before the growl of the chain saw
and the groaning truck that pulled

them clear. I think about my children
as I carry the pail to the ditch

to spill out the ashes, their toys,
the way they made castles from clay,

the role playing card games, the nights
up late in their rooms, while I lay in my bed

trying to sleep. I hardly ever see them
now, though I still have boxes labeled

with their names on the shelves.
The ashes cascade down, dark clumps

among them. Pieces that never
finished burning, that leave dark marks

when you lift them in your hands.