I was half right

One kid is perfectly fine.

One kid is sick and cranky and scratchy.

And one more terrible April is almost over.

Drowning

I've been having this recurring nightmare.

It always starts in the middle. I'm flying one of those old airplanes, the kinds with the big propellers and double wings. (I have no idea what anything on an airplane is actually called.)

So I'm flying this airplane over a river, at twilight, there are no people, no houses, no civilization, nothing around, just hills and trees, but there's a bridge over the river.

And I lose control of the airplane and fall out, at which point everything happens in slow motion. I can almost fly, sometimes I make it temporarily back in the plane, sometimes I skim over the bridge, sometimes under it. But I always end up in the water, suffocating. At this point I always wake up, struggling to breathe.

(So what do you make of that one, dear om?)

And un unfinished draft of my own

“the anguish of a naked body is more terrible
to bear than God.”
---- James Wright

Beneath the empty dream
you open to desire. Not knowing
you still could, and not wanting
ever to again. But still it blooms
in your belly. You turn to the wall
as you undress, feel his hand reach
for you, feel the hesitation.
Feel him looking at your back, the ribs,
the vertebrae like a staircase his fingers climb
to your neck, grabbing your hair to turn
you around. Cry as he kisses down your throat,
kisses the hollows between the ribs, kisses
the concavity of your abdomen.
Close your eyes and remember it full
and round with your baby. Close your eyes
as he holds your hips, moves between your knees.
Close your eyes and picture another face.

The Birches

Sandra Beasley





These woods teem with runaway brides,
birches shedding their white veils.

It must be a dream -- you are here,
taller than me, walking far ahead,

arms swinging with momentum.
Ferns curl into fists at my touch.

Moss weeps glycerin. You lean your palm
to a bulging tree trunk and even from here,

I feel the throb of fungus under bark.
Black flies buzz my ear. In a downed oak

a sack of bagworms pulses, gestating,
blind to how their home has fallen.

I walk faster. I run. This isn’t my dream.
Now these woods rise with their dead,

birches tearing off their white shrouds --
hunting down those dumb lovers

who didn’t check their breaths before burial,
who mourned, who moved on.

The birches shake dirt from the dark roots
of their curls. They sob from spongy trunks,

How dare you leave me? You’re nowhere
to be seen, Tom. They speak for you.

Flamenco

Dean Young


Consider our mad loves:
J’s for B that he only knew after
she ripped out the hook. Smell rain
and whose name do you say? G and R
seem ok but A’s ripping the cover off
T’s book, the cashier asking if
he’d like a damage discount and who
doesn’t deserve a damage discount?
The heart itself apparently
can be eaten, singed on a bed
of baby greens. Half step, half step,
clap, throw the hive upon the lap.
A silver head floats in the corn.
At least M has his daughter.
A silver head floats at the portal.
Like a dried gourd, the rattle K makes.
The dream bread falls through the dream
hands. Two seconds it took you to do
what you did to me. Here’s a breast,
an eye. Here’s a necessity.
Flinchclatter dovespun sundrove
heartsprung and sometimes the wreckage
assumes recognizable shapes.
Sure it does. Touch this. Maybe
your father was right to hate me.
I was running as fast as I could.
Maybe faster.
Forever and forever and forever.