Bedding Icarus by Lauren Pope
Silk ripples form over our mattress.
Uncalculated white caps,
caused by the impact of your naked body.
Arching the bridge of your back,
grounded in metatarsal and blade, you curl quickly
little mollusk.
But then you unravel, open up,
like a sheet parachuting the wind,
or the form of a man flinging himself off a cliff’s edge
and you catch my wrist,
pulling me down with you.
Mother's Heart by Brett Bromley
Entombed silence;
A mothers loving embrace;
Deep within the earth, held fast
Dark, so dark, mother?
I remember another time,
Warm within suspended shelter.
Dim-light, stretching to feel mother,
The steady thump thumping of her heart
And then the light, blinding;
Cold hands reaching, grabbing,
Mother's heart, warm comfort,
Wrapped in loving embrace.
It's dark here, cool and restful,
I haven't heard her heart in years.
Not since that day, the hospital.
I cried; Mother looked so peaceful.
Returning now;
Earths womb opening to receive me,
Flesh to bone, Bone becomes dust.
A tree grows strong in the ashes.
Red Rocking Chair by Michael Lee Johnson
A red rocking chair
abandoned in a field
of freshly cut clover,
rocks back and forth-
squeaks each time
the wind pushes
at its back,
then,
retreats.
Nonna by Enzo Marra
I'm sure
I heard you,
Witnessed your movements
From a distance,
Felt your presence,
Even though,
You are now
On foreign ground,
In foreign ground
To be specific.
Your weighty image
Redolent of a childhood,
Picked through
With holes,
Photographic memoirs,
Token access
Into the theoretical,
Only experienced via
Woollen fair haired snaps.
Empty houses,
Don't thump
And clatter,
So readily,
And you did
Sleep up there,
Before my sister
Took up residence,
Similar stature,
But very much alive.
You are a saxophone, solo by Phil Soliman
Three steps in and already
I like your shapeless hair,
And your furred belly,
Where your music boils
Your arms
Are trunks, downy and
Your stubble sparks
Red lights.
I can’t sit down.
You open your eyes filled with
Bright water blue glass and
Your fingers are moving too fast and
Your lungs are breathing, two, vast and
You scream frantic through the articulate brass –
I can’t look away.
Tip your world
Upside down and
Your spit slips out
Of that pale golden horn,
Hammered with flowers
Before you were born.
I can’t stand up.
Your sisters laugh,
You smile silent and
Blow my brains out.
Your brothers laugh and
My wide eyed traps
Wait for you to fall in.