Blue Morning Glory Vine
by Emily Black
I stretch on tiptoes to touch the top of a vine grown on Mother’s tall trellis. A blue morning glory has bloomed there. Many other vines live there too, but the memory of this blue flower shines like a beacon and a harbinger of things to come. Mother’s in the hospital and not expected to live. When Daddy and I arrive, she’s a thin, ghostly-white apparition in a hospital bed. I don’t recognize her. My memory of the flower’s stunning blue color in sunlight helps me as I look at Mother’s lifeless face. As soon as we return home, I go straightaway to see this flower again. Its pretty petals have closed. I think that means that Mother won’t live. Next morning the blue blossom flourishes again, and Mother does rally and soon comes back home. Each year of my long life I still stretch myself toward the blue light of a fresh morning glory.
blue flower petals
a touch of divinity
eternity now
Winning
by Paul Lewellan
The day of the draft lottery, my supervising teacher Ester Lamb assigned the Shirley Jackson story “The Lottery” and asked me to lead the class discussion. She was being ironic. After school I quit debate practice early. Only the seniors Gary and Lillian knew why I was distracted. They asked what my birthday was. “May 25th.”
During student teaching, I stayed in Des Moines with Aunt Mildred. Her husband was a long-haul trucker. She appreciated the company. I did yard work, home repairs, and my own laundry. She fed me. On Thursday nights she played bridge so that evening I swung by Peggy’s for a pint of Pabst Blue Ribbon (60¢) and a cheeseburger (30¢) with a dime left from my dollar for a tip. When Credence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son” came on the jukebox, it was time to leave. “I ain’t no senator’s son….” If my number came up, I was going to Vietnam.
At 7 pm I grabbed a can of Falstaff from the Frigidaire and turned Mildred’s 20-inch black & white RCA to CBS, Rodger Mudd broadcasting live. I watched as 366 capsules were mixed in a box then dumped into a glass bowl. Each capsule contained a slip of paper with a day of the year. The Chair of the Armed Services Committee extracted one. The slip inside read September 14. Males born on that date between 1944 and 1950 would go first.
Other capsules were drawn: April 24. December 30. February 14. October 26. September 7. Numbers filled the board. After June 6th, number 110, I went for another beer. The tension started to drain from me. When number 213 was selected, March 8th, I turned off the television and sat in the darkness. I’d finished the six-pack.
I was startled by the phone. I usually let it ring, but that night I answered. “Hello.”
“You’re safe….” It was Lillian, my debater.
“What do you mean?”
“They haven’t drawn your birthday yet. So you’re safe.”
“I suppose I am.” I felt the relief swell.
There was silence on the line, then finally, “You can get a teaching job.”
“That’s the way it looks.”
More silence. “You’ll be great at it…. You’re already great.” I wasn’t, but I knew what Lillian was trying to say. “I watched the drawing with my sisters. Marsha’s boyfriend came up 92. “He’s going to enlist, hoping he can get some choice.” More silence. “Did you watch the drawing with anyone?”
“I was alone.”
“You weren’t….” She hesitated. “I was watching with you. My heart was raising the whole time.”
“Really? Why?”
“It’s hard to explain. I thought you might know….”
It was my turn to hesitate. Finally I admitted, “I suppose I do….”
Bowl of Black Petunias
by Michael Lee Johnson
If you must leave me, please
leave me for something special,
like a beautiful bowl of black petunias—
for when the memories leak
and cracks appear
and old memories fade,
flowers rebuff bloom,
sidewalks fester weeds
and we both lie down
separately from each other
for the very last time.
Bad Wannabe
by Jeff Mann
Wars of 1975
by Alex M. Frankel
Five urchins open my face, climb in.
Inside they cut and cut,
I feel them in my ligaments and veins.
They gift me with jabs
and say they’ll show me.
I call out to Mommy,
she recites sticks and stones.
I call out to Mrs. Brocklehurst—
“I’ve got boys in my head, they cut and cut.”
She, who teaches of right and wrong,
laughs and walked away.
Every word has sticks that spread.
Every word stinks like lockers, gym class,
hallways of the creaky school.
The urchins uproot my hair,
poke and slap my giant pimples
so I run, I am their sissyfag who runs.
On the mountaintop I sneeze them out
—all five of them! The voices of their words
gone, the urchins under my bottom layer.
Now I’m riding on eternal horses, see?
Please cut me down from this tree.
At the Rim of Pwderhorn Park
by Peter Mladinic
Sunday morning.
Cancer taking you away,
your knee shakes under the silk robe,
under the table in the corner,
up and down bone on thin skin sudden,
quick, unconcealed tremor.
I get up, drive home
to my imitation leather white chair,
gold floor lamp, along the wall
two light long boards and six cinderblocks
bookcase, across from the green
banana-shaped phone
on top of the brown two-tiered end table,
the red Turkish rug, not real Turk,
part of the not snug person I was,
wrapped up, cocooned;
the high ceiling, the windows’ view
a brick wall, dark windows so close
you wouldn’t know an alley of lawn lay
catching little sun.
Sure as I breathe I’m in love’s bosom.
In love’s light I bask. In my heart
silk covered bone-thin flesh,
tears for you, your life far away,
a moon-pale crescent.