MaraJean Hagen-Spath

graveyard

window half cracked—
a weekend I spend attempting
to glue frozen branches
to eyelids

with tongue
I coerce buds to
believe I am the sun

you pull a scab off my knee
place it next to the icing on a plate of pastries…

That night is realistically Bernhard saying

it’s better to die having made the journey we’ve been longing for than to be stifled by our longing
it’s better to die having made the journey we’ve been longing for than to be stifled by our longing

quiet word-ghosts kiss my skin
you put your hand on their shoulders before
you enter me in the cemetery

            …the dead cheer us to completion
   the dead look with disdain
upon my abandoned sock

their dirt-bound souls
wiggle glass fingers
arranging shards

into the old skeleton
of lights-off museum

where I was
slumped on brown
carpet, surrounded by

this nested teeth of lost flesh.

I’m running late; my car drives away without me
my mouth, covered in
toothpaste, my body
full of holes

I wait
poke neck out 
half cracked window—
slam it down
again & again

the rhythm of blood
returning to trees

 

 

MaraJean Hagen-Spath is editor and poetry curator for Motif Magazine out of Providence, Rhode Island. She has a bachelor's degree in Philosophy and English from the University of Rhode Island. She serves as a reader for the literary journal Ocean State Review, and her poetry has been published in Ether(Bound) and SolidaRIty Magazine

Christie Taylor

Peach Pit

I imagine a pulse in this peach pit – a rosy, red heart still
beating after skin incisions. Pulp, the color of sunsets
 
holds on tight like flesh after surgeons crack open
ribs repairing the left descending artery.
 
Stitches mend the widow maker. The suture
of a peach runs from blossom end to stem.
 
Inside the pit, a beat of life. Outside,
grooves course like rivers cutting into the Earth.

 

 

Christie Taylor lives on Maryland's Eastern Shore after 40+ years owning an art gallery in North Carolina. She explores line and form as a visual artist and poet. Selected poems have appeared in Dorothy Parker’s Ashes, orangepeel literary magazine; the tide rises, the tide falls: an oceanic literary magazine; and Milk and Cake Press, Dead of Winter III Anthology. She loves romping through fields with her dogs.

Christian Ward

Self Portrait As A Plush Toy

Like a baked potato that's been scooped out,
stuffed, reheated, and scooped out again,
your body has turned into a plush toy
consigned to the bargain bin. The smug 
sky has taken a seat as the mittens 
of your hands has made showering impossible.
The coffee is a screaming mole; the cereal 
is a hive of angry wasps. The toaster 
is a bear trap waiting for you to slip up.
The cactus is a judge giving a pitiful look.
You'd return to the office, but know the jokes:
“He looks like a piñata that smashed itself!”
“Where's Doctor Frankenstein when you need him?”
“And how much were you reduced by?” 
The inbox is another pair of scissors. No cards
or flowers to stitch your back. Cancer turned you 
into a plush toy not even a dog would want.
You wait to be scooped out, stuffed, tested, 
scooped out again, and restitched until you 
are sold on Etsy. A one-off, kaleidoscopic and beautiful.

 


Christian Ward is a UK-based poet, with recent work in Southword, Ragaire, Okay Donkey, and Roi Faineant. Two collections available on Amazon and elsewhere: "Intermission" and "Zoo"