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CROSSING THE COSUMNES
by Taylor Graham In cutoffs and worn-out hiking boots that couldn't be ruined by wading, I crossed the river — was it The Middle Fork, as you said, or all three forks together, joined for their run under the 49er highway, to the flatlands, the delta, the sea? I love water springing from meadows far upcountry to make its way — creating its way as it goes, with every winter storm and late-season snowmelt — undammed. Just upstream is where adventurers drown, in the gorge below deadman's-curve on the road to town. This river's undammed but not untouched. You've chased away dredgers who'd steal your gold. A gift from God, you say. Gift of the river. I waded across the current, not to get to the other side, a better spot for panning. Just to feel moving, living water against bare legs; to be a brief cause of eddy in its flow to sea. So I'd remember the Cosumnes, so it might remember me. |
ENTANGLED by Brent Wiggans |
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LAUNDRY
by Allan Johnston Day breaks — a few yellow window panes against a cool grey morning — chill of air, cols and chimneys of buildings hiding the crack of the vanished horizon. Once the eye could see for miles into the lake, a limpid flatness of plains stretched beyond trees the other way against gunpowder sky. In a century will this city still be dying as it is now, slowly leaking from the hot consumerist fete of its junk? The battery acid drip continues into a lake where spawn swim upside down, flesh laced with trace metals, toxins, the taste of our time. This is how we are measured: our lives are our work. The ghosts of ourselves we peel off in the immense air of sleep. Clothes wave the glory that was man. Discarded, they become painters' rags, furniture wipes, each with its smear of the relishes, stains from spills and so on. On one lone laundry line somewhere in the city one sleeve distendsa smear of blue ink, some atrocity against cleanliness, some hope as soiled as the human God. Form memoir, skin ghost, take us, shape us. Your rips and crannies tell us of our lives; histories of laundry spun in machines then strung in white flags in the cool morning air. |
INSIDE OUT by Fabrice B. Poussin |
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THIN SKIN
by Ann Privateer Bubbles cling to the sand bar Like candles on a cake The sea twists and rolls onto shore, whipping up more Froth, bear claw style. I am hot and frapped Sprinkled with custardy French cruller goodness An ample Snapple lover Canning my heat, waiting. |
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