Charcoal
An Ode to How
by Michael Allyn Wells
How convenient the butterflies.
How surprising the asparagus
growing wild.
How obtuse of you to question
my motive. How neglectful
your fingernails.
How entertaining the flower
pollen upon your nose,
How real this all is.
How flirtatious of you standing
In the door that way.
How astute of me to notice.
How late I was for dinner.
How apologetic it was for me
to disrespect dinner and the cook.
How fundamentally screwed up
my day has been. How nice of you
to ask.
Beat into Shape
by Richard Le Due
We used to believe we’re the sword forged in the brightest fires a weapon the world would fear,
but now we’re not even a horseshoe created in an age of automobiles, probably just to be part of a game,
instead we’ve become broken branches, tossed into a campfire by hands stronger than our own.
Wotcha
by Michael Moreth
Olive Bread
By Chris Dungey
is a souvenir of Stratford, Ontario,
Shakespeare Festival–our favorite Italian bistro
there. Those loaves ride home filling,
first, the stapled brown bags, the car,
a customs booth at the Blue Water Bridge,
a rest area parking lot off a freeway
back in Michigan and, finally,
finally our refrigerator with their scent.
Try to name the unusual ingredient.
We let everyone guess, while carving
one on the kitchen counter.
Dark brown crust like a bark,
nearly impenetrable to the serrated blade.
Sisters-in-law, step-kids, nieces, nephews,
and neighbors all take a slice
to meet this challenge–“It’s not just garlic,
that’s for sure.” They try to figure out
what those coarse, black fibers are,
embedded in the dense pores.
Each guess is wrong, but now the essence
of the bread has filled the whole house
with pungent place names instead too–
Mantua and Padua; fair
Verona, of course.
On The Weekend Before The Woman Drowned
By John Grey
The beach is warm and calm,
just perfect for perfection,
yet there’s a sign at water’s edge that reads,
“Beware of rip currents.”
The tanning crowd
are too lost in their own skin
to notice.
Children build sand castles
in the path of the army
of the incoming tide.
The sea’s too flat for surfing.
Most swimmers splash and laugh
close to shore.
One or two do venture out farther,
but show no signs of distress.
A tern perches on that sign,
adds its shrieking voice
to the warning.
But people don’t speak sea-bird.
And they only read signs
in retrospect.
Eulogy for Fire
by Richard Le Due
Fire might have been
a better dancer years ago, but water is
wise enough to work
with the cold and heat, like you sweating,
shovelling snow
in your driveway
while your kid complains there’s nothing to do,
just like you used to.
Then there’s the love
we often compare to a flame, forgetting darkness
has better patience,
and rain gives birth
to more than puddles,
all of which
leaves red faced midnights panting enough to prove burning out inevitable.
Frequent and Deadly
By Chris Dungey
Then, in a week of unstable
air above our region, the Weather
Channel (we finally got cable) warned:
Frequent and deadly lightning,
Just in time, because I had planned
to climb an aluminum ladder
into the broad silver maple
just to carve out a view
of new neighbors, constellations
in some future August sky.
*
Even the guy with the bucket
truck I hired to take down
the pointless antenna tower,
phoned to cancel. But Dad
always used to say “Keep going.
It’s just growling, not barking yet.”
I reached above my head
with a bow-saw as leaves turned up
their pale palms for mercy.
I thought: I might as well
be standing tall like Dad in
the middle of a parched fairway
waving a three-wood,
teasing God.
Tremulous
By John Grey
A study in Hermeneutics and predestination –
in other words, advanced stages of myself,
a cusp of life and death –
excuse me if I don’t scream.
Suddenly a phone call from out of the blue,
before truth and method get here,
a voice says, everything’s happened –
so friends are thinned out down the years.
Cross my o’s, dot my t’s,
forgiveness proves to be a wrong number.
I’m still not clear on how life happened.
I detect a certain lack of urgency.
It is she, says the voice.
My ear’s in mothballs.
No mother either.
And, of course, no baby.
Folks gather in bright tropical garb.
Rings like smoke signals rise from cigarettes.
They are calm as if I never happened.
Sorry, they seem to be saying. We can’t hear.
I stare into the fog of death,
a kind of sleep that I’m not happy about.
That’s just me.
What can I say.
I am huddled in rot of my own body.
Memories can’t bear these oblivious distances,
Wrong number? Forgiveness?
Any moment now, you’ll wake the baby in me
The Deep End
By Audrey Campbell
Yours
by Michael Moreth
The Knife
By JD Clapp
In the glow of a neon Alaskan Ale sign, under a taxidermied moose vacantly watching the drunks, Harper took his knife from his belt and rested it on the bar top by his whisky. Despite the ache in his gnarled fingers, he enjoyed its familiar heft as he gripped the scales. He took a sip of his third whisky.
He revisited the night over five decades ago, when he traded for that knife in a similar coastal town. He remembered the older man, an indigenous artisan he had never met before, had sat next to him, and struck up a conversation. The man told Harper he had forged the knife from tool steel, then used it for several years. He asked to see Harper’s new Buck knife. Harper still remembered their exact exchange:
“Want to trade?” the man asked.
“This is a brand-new Buck knife, why would I trade you for that old thing?”
“My knife has stories, your Buck knife does not,” the man said.
“What kinda stories?”
“I stuck a man who tried to shoot me in a bar fight with it. I finished off a bull moose with it…”
“Those are some big stories, partner,” Harper said.
Several drinks and yarns later they made the trade; Harper never regretted making it.
He looked down and considered the knife carefully—something he hadn’t done in years. With a full tang butcher blade, the point and front spine were just thin enough for fileting salmon, but heavy enough to process big game. Just before the handle, the spine was scarred from lifting beer caps and throwing sparks off a ferrocerium rod. He fingered the choil, then the knife’s naturally textured moose antler skins. It was practical, and good looking. Harper noticed the wear— – the blade now one-sixteenth of an inch smaller than the day it was pounded into life from fire and steel. Harper kept it razor sharp, each pass over the honing stone taking a little of its vitality. But it still has life ahead of it.
Harper drained his glass and motioned the barkeep, Tommy, over.
“Hittin’ it hard tonight, Harper. You all good?”
“Yup. All good. Just a long week, that’s all.”
Tommy poured another Dickle double, neat.
Harper looked down at the knife that had spent countless days strapped to his belt searching for moose, bear, and deer, always capable of the butchering and skinning tasks ahead. It had been his companion on the river’s edge, an extension of him, together making quick work fileting limits of heavy salmon and delicate river trout alike. The knife had bounced thousands of miles on his truck’s dash and rolled with the swell on the chart table of his fishing boat’s pilot house. The knife had stories…Harper’s stories, the man’s stories.
Harper downed his whisky. He spun the knife on the bar top in a lazy arch. It has at least another story in it.
He picked the knife up and eased it back in the oiled, time molded, patinaed leather sheath. He fished two twenties from his front pocket and left them on the bar under his whisky glass, empty save the residual legs, and the angel’s portion coating the bottom. He wrapped his knuckles on the bar and nodded at Tommy. Then, he walked out into the chill night.
Harper stopped next to his truck and lit a Camel. He leaned on against the old Silverado and looked back at the bar, then across to the small marina. He could make out the radar unit on his pilot house. He looked across the reach of the harbor at the lights on the Hendrick’s boy’s camp. He blew smoke and whisky breath into the cold night.
Enjoying the cold, he gazed up to the single streetlight and watched the snow fall in its conical glow—– God’s showerhead. He finished the smoke.
A year without treatment…maybe three with. No more guiding. No fishing. Lots of rest. And the treatment will make you sick before you get well…….
Harper climbed in the truck and set the knife on the dashboard in its place between the windshield and the defrost vent. He lit another Camel with his dented Zippo and his mind came clear.
Another season worth of stories…
He started his truck, then drove home over the frozen dirt trail. With each rut and bump, his knife bounced in its place, ready for whatever came next.