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BODEGA DUNES
by Jeanine Stevens At the end of June, a small girl constructs Stonehenge out of driftwood, then buries her parents. Two boys plant adult-size shovels in the sand, an American gothic stark on the horizon. Most doze under bright quilts. Sound doesn't carry— any disagreements broken by rushing surf, picked up by wind, dropped next to someone's Sunday Chronicle, brie, and beer. I join in their sleeping on this far coast— this wanting platform cantilevered out at the end of the world. We are unconscious, drifting in watery dreams. Then relieved and happy when Dads finally wake, help children hoist bird, flower, and flag kites in a blue Pacific sky. |
Dolgellau Wales by Brent Wiggans |
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OPEN WINDOWS
by Louis Daniel Brodsky An exhilarating chill fills my cabin, this early morning. The outdoors took its cue, last evening, When I invited it in, to sleep with me. It was a simple sign we'd arranged between us. If I felt so inclined, I'd leave all my windows open, Which I did, before climbing into dreams. Now, the kitchen-porch thermometer reads fifty-six. The sun's up; the sky's blue; The lake, flowing perpendicularly to the shore, is rippled. I can tell this is going to be another scintillating day, Though my icy bones and goose-pimpled flesh, Shivering visibly, have yet to warm to the prospect. Sipping steaming decaf, from a double-thick mug, I recall how, in my Wisconsin-summering youth, I'd spend two months at the boys' camp, Where I and my mates, in our uninsulated cabins, With only canvas tarps covering the screened windows, Would have called last evening a "three-blanket night." Perhaps I still crave these frigid wake-up visitations Because they reconnect me with another me, Relocate both of us in the flow of life. Maybe this is why, when I'm here and the air is nippy, I leave all the windows open, go to bed, Hoping the cold will hold me close, under the covers. |
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ON READING THAT A CARP CAN BREAK A MAN'S NOSE
by Robert Wooten On behalf of all carp, I believe. What if all fish speak with one voice, and anyone of them could say what any other of them would? Then, the carp, for instance, that I dragged out of the shallows of Lake Gaston after dropping a rock on its head, in my state of ignorance, to get a look, decide if it's edible, etcetera— what can I say in defense? I was only 17— replies through an article that I read, that a carp, when leaping, can break a man's nose. |
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