MIRROR by Brenda Yamen |
| AROUND MY WORLD
by Michael Lee Johnson I'm a thin, tall, black lady living in a small pink cottage my body barely fits inside the frame, and I'm sitting on my buttocks with my knees bent and my head scrapes the inside wall at the crease where the roof starts leaning in on one side against my brain. A red flower pot balances on my kneecap and gracious black stems and black flower leafs sprout skyward through the chimney top ascending into blue winter sky like Jack the Bean Stalk. Small words are written in black all over my pink walls, inside and out, and I can't remember any of them or how they join together right to left. Around my world of pink and black are blue skies with snow frames around all four edges. My pink palm of my hand holds my chin up; I'm cramped up inside of myself and the black framed window near my eyes keeps most of the blues and sunshine out. |
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RUDOLF SERKIN'S HANDS
by Jane Blue Like birds, like big fat birds, like pheasants. Awkward, unbelievable, hunched. Grabbing octaves, double octaves, easily. Crescendo to diminuendo, in the wink of an eye. A bird's eye, pivoting. Birds lit on the keys and stirred them. Even there under the balcony, each note rang true. Beethoven. Beethoven's hands exactly as he in his deafness heard: agitato, con brio and then pianissimo and then sforzando; his hands were dragons singing; his hands laughed, like water tumbling over rocks. His powder puff hands, his cannon ball hands, his bowling ball hands, skimming the alley suddenly from a whisper to a loud glissando. A soft trill. His hands the hands of a magician. There in the dark in San Francisco. His old hands like sausages, magic sausages. His old wrinkled hands blazing, like his eyes. |
JENNER by Myles Boisen |
| MOON SLEEP
by Michael Lee Johnson I stick my hand out toward the sea, roll out my palm. I offer a plank, a trail for you. Follow out into the water and the salty stars. When you stretch out and give your heart to the final moment of the glass night sky, draw me in— sketch my face on the edge of our moon— sad and lonely over ages of celestial moon sleep and dust. |
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