Deer in the Orange Grove Often, down here in the city,the first sign of fireis a dry breeze sweeping the hills beforethe lights fizzle out.Everyone reaches for flashlights in the dark,wanders out to see what’scausing the fuss. Once, in my neighborhood,we walked barefootdown the street, pausing at the thin lip of redthat lined the mountain’ssleepy silhouette like the last shred of nightsky’s rind, peelingaway from us. I saw their shadows first.All the orchard’s treeswrithing in light. Then I heard the hooves:the quietest stampede,leaving dimples in the dirt. And the sound—the sound like the ripeweight of a thousand oranges falling at onceto the soft groundin little thuds. Jacob Herrera Spears is…

Juney, It’s You Greening like a luster colour. Red and bluebirds flying to the heavensall done up. The cumulus so nimble it collects to cauliflower— cotton-masses just like batting—prestoas I write a tiny spider walks my wrist. In someone’s culturespiders crossing bodies must mean luck. Rain, a sudden windfall, the cherry tree is fruiting. Hard green baublesstill the squirrels, vying with the starlings, come to feast.Juney, it has to be you—I couldn’t do this. Or ring like Canterbury bells, or smell as deeplysweet as spring syringa, or hang my head like Lilyof the valley crooning the garden nymphs, the dulcet parasol mushrooms. Again, I’ve planted digitalis—hopefully she takes.The light is…

Chalk My snail thoughts smooth across the slate, white residue of theory on my fingers. Why is the word inkling, when only chalk is capable of hints? The problem I propose you solve dissolves beneath the eraser, its felt indifference. The sound of my lessons— arrhythmic castanets. Somewhere a man who hasn’t been to school mixes with his hands a bucket of slurry, pours it in the mold, brass and honeycombed with tubes— each a piece of chalk, a cocoon. Are you confused? Let me draw a diagram. Here is the phytoplankton, its skeleton ball of CaCO3. And on this timeline here it dies 100 million years ago, sinks, sediment…

Bird Watching What can I say? Finally I have lived a bit more and loved more too, but still I cannot grant myself the happiness of moving in, of shared weekday breakfasts, of a shared watching of birds in their perilous hoppings from branch to branch, those plastic orange berries they seem to adore, but I have yet to name–the birds or the berries. To name something is to love it, I have thought that many times, especially those Floridian creatures: Anhinga, Ibis, Spoonbill… how can I help but sing them out each time I see them? I want to hold those swamp days, if not in my hands, at…

Speak to Me Go ahead, talk to that pile of gravel.They have a language. The dead birdIn the road? Those wrecked feathers can speak up too.The wind whistles in the oak,And the oak shrugs its mighty shoulders.I could put an ear to the groundAnd listen to rumbling complaints below. It’s come to this. My few friends are deadOr others ready to set sail into the flamesOf two-for-one crematorium. Family? They’re quietAs my landline. My cat hasn’t much to say. Like me,It repeats itself with a meow to my mild bark.My wife, a seamstress, speaks to meThrough the snips of her scissors in cloth—Look, a new shirt for me! Is laughter…

Disaster Fat No way not to pack the extra pounds back on. Grief dictated we swallow copious sugar, flour, cream—comfort foods passed daily our direction. Confounding, but hardly brutal, our bad luck, compared to others, the pounded world. Look how safe we stayed! Wrapped in an obesity of kindness. Delivered in corpulent forms: in puddings, steaks, posh lamps and stuffed pleather chairs. In hand-stitched quilts flush with every succulent color, shrouding the scorch, the insurance claim burn. Flung to our doorstep? Not bombs but bags of donated clothes. Each friend, each heavenly body making the scars of all that blazed fade from our lot’s smoked history. Forests may be gorgeous,…

White Smoke My wife and I have always celebrated the interregnumbetween popes with a carnival after three days of mourningfor the dead pope, more if we loved his Roman numerals or his face, then days of action without censure, no fearof ex cathedra pronouncements about Mary or sin,and we’d pray for a long conclave with gridlock perhaps of one hundred days, and we’d beginto sin ourselves with no papal eyes on us, offeringpersonal heirlooms to each other for a price— a form of secular simony—or we’d pull back on our donationsto foodbanks, spending on our own forms of gluttonywith pasta at its base, we’d drink our red Sangiovese in a…

Introduced by Guest Editor George Yatchisin Tender and tough, brittle and bruising, the poems of Elizabeth Erbeznik snag on the hope and horror of home like a fishing line caught on tin cans afloat in Sacramento’s American River. While Erbeznik writes “belonging is denied/with official language,” her clear-eyed witness makes beauty bloom with unsentimental poetics. She can even pull off a sestina that wisely demystifies the California dream while still making us ache for that failure. Tule Fog I can’t loosen my grip and thoughts wander, are lost in a rental car blur of hot air and wipers. Sacramento is home but I had to leave before I could want…

After Thirty Years Together Sherpas lift us onto their backsand carry us down the mountain path. We made the long climb to the summit,strained to see through clouds of confusion. From time to time, the sun slid outand shone on a wind-swept lake. Now, the spring paths are rutted mud.Not many years remain. Fog still clouds our eyes,our spirits of separate natures. We ride on generous shouldersthat know our faults, swept togetherlike catkins on a thawing stream. Daniel Thomas’s third book, River of Light, is forthcoming from Shanti Arts. His previous books are Leaving the Base Camp at Dawn and Deep Pockets. He has published poems in many journals, including…

Trouble The summer she was twelvea stray terrier started tagging alongon all her adventures—raiding a neighbor’sstrawberry patch, hiking past the timberline,skinny dipping with her brother and his friendsin the cold little creek. She named the dog Trouble,and pretty soon, when the people saw the mischievous,long-legged girl on the cusp her shining, dog at heel,they would say, uh oh, Double Trouble. ~~~ The day her father drove up to take them downthe tall mountain, she begged and cried, promisedsun and moon, galaxies of perfect obedience, butnonetheless they drove away, back to Santa Fe,junior high, dull routine, leaving Trouble behindin his usual place on the porch. ~~~ After that, the girl started…