Fennel Fronds and Other Currency

~Charlotte Smith Hamrick

We should use lilies as currency,
carry them in pouches 
on our backs, their ruffled petals 

surrounding our heads 
in crowns of pink and purple.
We could trade their happy faces 

for asparagus and translucent 
green onions for a spring salad,
or for dresses made of spider webs 

and fennel fronds.
Lilies bloomed round 
my grandfather’s house,

his hands securing them 
to stakes also secured my place 
in life. His love of the earth 

was a pattern 
for my own gardening
bliss, the care for his flowers 

a currency spent on love,
yielding growth, beauty,
and memories with unending value.

dry

~Terry Dawson

the consolation of lizards:
their utter dryness
fallen leaves breaking
into brief applause with their every
sudden movement

the sound itself:
assurance the world,
scales & all,
still moves--
edging between Texas'
summer and fall

some remain absolutely
still now & then
to take stock before pumping
up crimson dewlaps;
others adjust their color
to soak up the sun

the soft rustle of one
unseen: enough
to cradle in me an arid calm
deep in the gullet
till down, down
all the way down

“dry” previously appeared in the after, Dawson (Poet’s Choice, 2022)

Photo by Willian Justen de Vasconcellos on Unsplash

Come, read to me some poem,
     Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
     And banish the thoughts of day.

~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Dance

~Sarah Joy Thompson

only you touch 
me beyond touch
wherein you come into
my breastbone 
and your hands cradle
my softness
from the base
of my heart
to the apex

and when our fingers
intertwine there is breath
moving everywhere inside
and when our chests hug
my chakras blaze all green
and rainbow
and when our backs
fall to the earth
you direct my attention
to the warm places
in me, once filled with cold

Hibernal Solstice

~Laurence Musgrove

for Kim

This winter morning, we agreed
that dogs are excellent gurus,
like Clementine here spread out
lazy on a big fuzzy blanket
next to me on this old couch
where we take a Saturday nap,
me in my school hoodie pulled up
and she with thicker fur every day.
And I love so much to hear her snore
which I think means she feels safe,
unlike the wild dream I just had
where I was driving against traffic
on a dark highway with no lanes
which I think means I feel safer
spread out here with no place to go
next to the only one I call with a kiss.

Sycamore Dreams

~Sandi Stromberg

Country music two-steps around a worn
leather couch.  Flickers of yellow and orange
rise from smoldering logs.  And my pen glides
across the lined page, gathering thoughts.
Outside, drizzle fogs the air.  Ice crystals
drop from leaf tips onto the redwood deck,
tinkling as clear and crystalline
as a triangle.

                                                   All is so right
with my world, I would stop time in the middle
of this moment, snuggle into an endless
winter.  But when the flames fall
into their embers, and the ice crystals melt,
my blood rushes on.

                                                   I anticipate--
the way the sycamore dreams of spring buds
or the stag, drinking at the creek, aspires
to more points on his antlers.  The way
I hold my breath, a mother watching
my sons' lives unfold, step by step.

“Sycamore Dreams” first appeared as “Wimberley Winter” in Texas Poetry Calendar 2019.

Pick Me Up

~Mike Luster

I asked myself out today 
Took me for a drive to town. 
It was a bit of a dream date 
To the gourmet grocery, 
A bookstore rattle about, 
An espresso in a coffee shop, 
A riffle through the thrift store 
Before buying me a pint 
And a bite of something to eat 
Chatting with the waitress 
But knowing full well 
It was me taking me home.

image credits: l-r & thanks to Maarten van den Heuvel, Danie Franco , and Photo by Maarten van den Heuvel on Unsplash

Abuelita

~Rachel Aguirre

The kitchen is filled with fists of blue luz.
Her puckered hands flatten and fold masa
into empanadas. The others doze,
furled in freshly laundered sabanas
that smell like her—talcum and overripe
apples. Her caderas roll to the low
cumbia she croons under her breath while
oil kisses pastry with a hiss. Those
thick-lidded nietos, yernos, and hijas
sniff their way to the table. ¡Buenos
días! ¡Buenos días! Empanadas
zip off plates till chatter slows and guts groan.
Someone turns on a salsa. Someone tugs
her from the stove. Everybody dances.

Abuelita first appeared in Soft Union no. 4, May 2023

I write to remind you
what you already know
in the very fish bones of your sea—
of the invisible, the indestructible.

~Jennie Meyer

Love Letter

~Jennie Meyer

You who are always so empty
always trying so hard to fill up—
I watch you rise every morning,
a hollow pail, before your beach walk.

I write to remind you
what you already know
in the very fish bones of your sea—
of the invisible, the indestructible.

Even if you make mistakes,
even the ones you call the killer whales,
even if you can’t save the world
or even one tidal pool,
even as you open your mouth to speak 
like a great clam rising to the beach,
and then fear it was all wrong.

Everything has symmetry in its own place.
You pass a mangled lobster trap all mash and angles— 
rust, rope, blue fishing line entwined,
wet sand mounded within—
a wrenching, a sculpting.

You pull your hood tight against 
the stinging gusts, 
yet you keep on walking 
in your own way, bag in hand,
scouring down the shoreline for trash.

Look! The ocean falls 
and rises up to you, unbidden.
Spray leaps off crests in breathless
attempts to fly!

There’s a shadow on the underside
of the barrel of a wave,
always chasing the shining curve
one pace ahead.

And there’s a moment before 
the wave breaks where it taffies
into aquamarine, alive with light inside,
like you— a translucent liquid shell—
then falls into crawling crumbles of froth, 
a skittering, clambering chaos.

Oh, my love, my dove-white dissolution,
my thundering shadow, my eternal
illuminated whorl!

Photo by Sebastian Frederik Jacobsen on Unsplash

Glory Be to Grocery Store Flowers

~Sandi Stromberg

All hail the beauty of blooms in the midst of lettuce,
lemons, tomatoes. Call up alstroemerias for a bouquet
of magenta, ivory, amber petals delicate as orchids,
paper-thin as bougainvillea, assembled near
the deli counter.

Every vase an open mouth, a harbor for their glory,
despite the shopping carts, the growing lines.

Call up long-enduring carnations, the bright pinks
of starburst lilies. A house filled with their pungency.

Or my husband’s favorite deep-blue iris,
as painted by Van Gogh with bright yellow hearts.

All hail Kroger’s botanic cathedrals.
May they be blessed with fecundity.

All hail the overnight flights
that bring them blossoms,
seven dollars for seven stems.