POETRY
 

Homecoming by Jamie Ambrose
Apart from the dust,
things are more or less
just as she left them...

Indian Summer Garden Party by Joan Blessing
Hats Optional.
Once, hats were not optional,
especially for church: a bobby-pinned hanky
better than bareheaded...

Dancing At the Grey Eagle by Peg Duthie
Brought back south, no job within sight,
I borrow my partner's car and a thousand
from our joint account, driving east
to tug at a couple of antique dreams...

Baked Apples at Miss Mary Bobo's by Peg Duthie
Just apples. Just sugar. Just butter. Just whiskey.
But the way they slowly circled the table
again and again, as sweet and as soft...

Expectation by Nancy Gauquier
It's the trap
that the hunters set
for tigers,
a hole dug deep...

Resting State by Christine Hamm
The sun sloshes through the sky,
shadows seep across the carpet
and the coiled sheets, back up the
wall to that crack that appeared
a year ago on Christmas...

Breaking From the White Line by Arlene Ang
Hatted under the Beetle's roof,
Grandfather is immune to flipped birds.
I never disturbed his pipe smoke when
he hit 20 mph in the fast lane...

Biology Lessons by Joan Blessing
Sophomores are agog this Monday morning
over Elvis on Ed Sullivan last night.
Sister Margaret shakes her parched white headpiece,
flaps her forearms, shoos The Pelvis from the room...

Soap by Arlene Ang
It was the lye I feared most,
my own watery reaction
to his denials about women
who dropped the line
after my unsuspecting hello...