This week the weather is miserably cold in Chicago. Schools and businesses are closed. Anyone who can hibernate is hibernating. I am happy to feature photographs by a new contributor: Kevin Nance. If you recognize his name, it may be because you read his reviews in the Chicago Tribune, or his contributions to Poets & Writers and other publications. That's how I knew him. But then through posts on FB and Linked-in, I saw his photographs and admired them. Now I follow … [Read more...]
Laura Rodley “Given”
Given I was given these two hands, these two feet; I was given them without asking and they are mine. With my feet on your body I do walk on frozen ground where coyotes step, fishers, raccoons, and quail. With my breath I inhale your sweet liquor, the cold snap of four degrees; how my lungs crave your air inside me, its green perfume, though now your body is slick with ice, hard with frost, tasting green though I must cover … [Read more...]
New poem by Laura Rodley
Fresh From the Vine My father stood on his hands to dive off the diving board, all six foot four inches of him suspended in air, curling his fingers around the hard edge of the gritty grey board, and dove off. He never missed but one of the last times I saw him do this when I was 10 or 11, his ring cut into his finger from the weight of him standing on his hands. Down he dove with a sliced finger and his ring had to be cut off and he needed stitches. … [Read more...]
Laura Rodley “Coyotes”
Coyotes Coyotes leave deep paw prints in new snow, traipsing east to west in search of the sun, so many miles before the dawn when they curl and sleep buried by snow and leaves. There are buck tracks too, a line alongside the coyote, each walking the same path as me, but not hunting each other just on the move while I search for sleep and wish for the lightness of breathing freezing cold air minus seven below, wearing my … [Read more...]