c o n v e r g e n c e:
an online journal of poetry & art


EDITOR'S CHOICE: cynthia linville's

Laura Martin B-Side by Allyson Seconds

WEEKENDS, EARLY RISER By Laura Martin Brave the flight out of your warm, disheveled nest— the sun is just beginning to lift its chin over the mountains you cannot see from here, the unbearable chatter of daylight is still just a whisper, and it doesn’t smell like city yet. If we go now we can sneak the first footprints across frosty lawns turn cartwheels on lonesome sidewalks leave love letters in empty mailboxes before the newspaper hits the porch before the cats have found their way back home from night-prowling. THE BODY IS A SOUL SUITCASE By Laura Martin He buried the cat sat us down on the couch explained—briefly—God’s will, etc. bowed head closed eyes recited the Lord’s Prayer asked if we had questions (we had none) told us to leave that part of the back yard alone Don’t play back there then, forbade crying deemed it selfish to want the dead back— to coax them out of no more pain no more hardship no more worries "Someday," he said "we will all be so lucky." GREEN CORDUROY LA-Z-BOY ROCKERS By Laura Martin Nicotine-stained wet-dog musty corduroy ribbed arms worn down to bare thread and black, shiny flattened stain where elbows go (will rub the paint right off the wall if you lean too far back) supermarket tabloids piled high on the floor nearby— The National Enquirer, Weekly World News, The Star, The Sun, The Globe, People Magazine trashcan piled high nearby spilling into the beige plastic bowl full of black springy bristly wire curlers and pink and white plastic hairpins, a bright orange margarine tub full of cigarette butts floating in water sits on the endtable midst Avon books, empty prescription bottles, TUMS wrappers, a clutter of bills to pay, writing tablets, BIC® pens an overflowing ashtray, 1/2 empty packs of Marlboro (golden label, soft pack) TV blaring nighttime game shows the dog is underneath it all chewing on a curler— Dad spreads his mechanical pencil set out on his lap and constructs his dream house againagainagain on gridpaper, mom has been sitting there for hours mirror in one hand tweezers in the other mouth tightly pursed to one side obsessively picking at the hair that grows out of the mole on the side of her face. Laura Martin Laura Martin is a freelance writer/photographer/graphic designer whose features, essays, stories and images have appeared in such publications as Sacramento, Solano, and Via magazines, the San Jose Mercury News, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Susurrus, Tule Review, Late Peaches: Poems by Sacramento Poets, and Medusa's Kitchen. Last year, she was the grand prize recipient of the Second Annual Pat Schneider Poetry Contest and was nominated in 2012 for a Pushcart Prize for poetry. As an Amherst Writers and Artists affiliate, Laura leads private writing workshops in the Sacramento area.

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