fine poetry to turn your world around
My Mother’s Superstitions (Bleigiessen) by Claudia Reder We were educated and superstitious, adoring black cats, uneasy about walking under ladders, yet climbing the rickety flight of steps to hear our tea leaves read. On New Year’s Eve platters adorned with marzipan pigs and Linzer torte, we’d spoon small amounts of melted lead into a bowl […]
The Boat-maker’s Art by Shaheen Dil I. I watched the boat as it was built— the shine of wood, the decadent lines of it, hand-polished surfaces gleaming, sleek, tempting, half-done and up on trestles, looking for all the world as if it wanted to leap into the water, sails unfurled, bow springing above the waves, […]
Under a White Moon by Annette Sisson A daughter, now eighty-two, spends a decade grubbing in dirt, unburying the transplanted roots of her life. She returns to this place, searches for roses— Granada War Relocation Center, rocky, once covered with chain-link, barbed wire, seven thousand Japanese-Americans fenced away like nightshade. After Pearl Harbor, her mother […]
Before You Fall by Anastasia Walker imagine: 2k skyward, 30 molten stories sirens smoke & uniform frenzy below, but in your crow’s nest buffeted by the cleansing blue the skyline so clear so choose to fly beautiful, you before you fall Origin Stories – Before You Fall Like most lyric poems, this piece had its […]
