Fever From my bed, a window full of sky. The air washed with light. A flight of stairs down to bath, bread. A banister to ease the way. My husband brings me tea, a cold cloth for my forehead. Time unravels the pale hours. Now it is morning. Now noon. I am seven. I am five. Dolls jumbled on shelves, faces white, lean into one another. The fever breaks slowly. The thermometer is shaken down. My father rises from the cot where he has been lying beside me these long years. He is just shadow and light. I could stand up right now, push off and fly out of this…

Jackpot Under the ancient oak, little gold coins— glowing islands funneled through leaves— tumble jackpot at my feet. These dollops of light—flimsy as a wish slipping through fingers— nevertheless hold encroaching heaviness at bay. And even when darkness sometimes submerges the bright archipelago, the islands are not consumed but somehow escape and resurface shimmering elsewhere. William Holden It was the hour, I’m sure— at least partly— one of the wee ones, shadows thick as sludge, light wrapped, or maybe rapt, in smokey gauze. So when I first saw him—soft fingerpainting in black and white, sitting shirtless on a table edge, doughy flesh surfacing from black ink, enigmatic answer from a…

Driving Through the Cascade Mountains, January Highway 5, dense predawn fog, hours of headlights reflecting gauzy, moisture-heavy air, intermittent rain showers– wet pavement, slick hilly curves, hairpin corners–the occasional mercy of a straightaway, eyes stinging from the car’s blasting defrost, and terrified even to blink—then emerging from a curve into sunshine: the road ahead suddenly visible, landscape splashed in light, towering mountain slopes, centuries-old fir and pine— above, resplendent blue of the sky. Kristine Rae Anderson is a Pushcart-nominated poet and author of the chapbook Field of Everlasting. Her poems have recently appeared in SALT, Literary Mama, Science Write Now, and elsewhere. She has received Tomales Bay and Fishtrap fellowships…

Making My Peace with Kansas Oh mean muddy breadbasket, dead endof the Chisolm Trail, homeland of troglodytesand old sunburned farmers—I can’t/won’tforgive you for making a barrens of thisteenaged girl, for leveling her with yourrumors and plough winds, but finallyafter what feels like a thousand years, I canloosen my grip, feel my fingers once more. I fold you up like a dead man’s clothes, thenlift you near one last time to smellcorn stalk, Flint Hills after rain, pondrot, grandma’s gooseberry jam. Notmad (now), not sad, I let you go becausethis handful of words I’ve rubbed togetherfinally weighs more than all your sunflowersand silos and wind-ghosted plains. Dianne Nelson Oberhansly‘s work has…

Mrs. Self Destruct I want to run until the veins slitherOut of my body, blue highwaysAcross continents, the ones I once droveWith the approximation of freedom. I want to eat every eucalyptus branchUntil splinters push out of my pores.My skin, unfurling like the paper bark,White and thin and nothing at all. I want my lungs to emptyInto sonic boom. Shocks ripple,Rip the atoms, smash every light.Leave my rage boxed up in the void. I want my body to crumpleLike a crocheted blanket given to a child,Found frayed on the floor,Used for the last time. Holly Fine is a poet residing in Los Angeles, California. She grew up in Riverside, CA,…

Opening to Your Dark Eye The electricity buzzed out,extinguishing the dinner party;my mother sighed over table elbows,hurried dinners, and napkins tossedaside on plates dribbled with gravy—resuscitating an Emily Post adage:“Etiquette is the science of living.”She died. What did it matter? I divorced embossed stationeryand sold the Steuben candlesticks,each teardrop base entrappingthe shape of a Hershey kiss—like a bell that would never ringin chilly air (glass in its molten stateresembles the final design, a momentfrozen from process, said the maker). The movers shattered my collectionof blue Haviland porcelain,and I caved to dining with the dimmerturned down and thought spelunking,caught in the tale of your eye blindedby the errant swing of a…

A Short Walk on a Hot Morning Long pile of pipes,    where exactly will you be laid?        Where will you bring water            from this narrow well? * Burnt log fallen across the wash,    you are a bridge over missing water,        illuminated shore to shore            by little lampposts of poison oak. * Eucalyptus, reaching your gray-green    shaggy hand into summer sky,        what is it you hope to grasp? * Little pond in the creek bed,    you are a sea for yellowjackets        to circle in their…

Last night’s storm tore the star-shaped leaves from the maple, and the persimmon tree, already stripped of fruit, was left in a puddle of damp leaves. Sunset speared the bare limbs with shafts of orange light, which were there, then vanished. Beads of water hang from the leaves of the climbing fig, and a chickadee closes its beak over the heavy drops as if they were seeds. It’s mid-October, and the season’s last dahlias are small but ferocious. The nights will soon get even colder. The branches that I pruned from the white camellia weeks ago are in bloom. The withered limbs have somehow pushed out small, urgent blossoms from…

Make a Fuss (My Mom Tells Me Again) with lips that thunderafter me      vocal cords that wake the dead in every womanless room where speaking       is like eating dryer sheets she demands of me louderagain but         L  O  U  D  E  R sing againstsilence             let confidence ring: a barbed tongue       chattering       for release I become mouthy                     my wordsshards from a shook-up soda can                    spitting and exploding                  …

Guide from Beyond How will I visit you? How about I come to dinner, like we used to do, and drink too much wine. You will spend the day chopping, chopping, chopping, sharpening the knife, curling your knuckles back behind the blade, dicing onions, crying, oils sputtering, picking out stems from cilantro leaves, washing grit from glassware, placing polished silver at each named seat around the table. Here are her linens, you will say, as a puff of steam coughs from my old Rowenta. You will clip fresh marigolds into the chipped vase and not bother to trim the shaggy leaves. As usual, I’m running a little late. It won’t…