Farewell
editor's note
Goodbyes
Life is very different now for many people in the city of Christchurch and will be for some time. We live in a state of constant vigilance, we learn to distinguish the rumble of an earthquake from the rumble of a truck passing, we assess any building that we enter for risk, and some of us fall into a state of nervous collapse at the merest quiver of the earth beneath us. Farewell, peace of mind.
poetry
Day 188
I'm sorry that I don't always see you when I look at your daughter.
Sometimes I have to make a point of it.
Notes for Moving Day
Sometimes I have to make a point of it.
Our hands once
upon the walls
Bench
upon the walls
He spent weekend daylight hours
at his workbench with a pencil stub
and an oil-stained rag always within reach.
the nurse hung up the phone; restraints
at his workbench with a pencil stub
and an oil-stained rag always within reach.
until then chemical imbalance simply hid
a multitude of unforgiven sins
Goodbye
a multitude of unforgiven sins
I heard you say goodbye
in a dream
Her Story
in a dream
My mother wields horror
stories the way some
emergency-room doctors
could do after their shift.
stories the way some
emergency-room doctors
could do after their shift.
fiction
Salt Stain
At first I missed corners. Dust rolls round in ever-increasing balls until they snag on a table leg or encounter a drip from a spray-soaked window. Salt creeps in crystalline spirals. Cobwebs are precarious, anchored across arcs, but a cobweb here must be as tough as the nets the fishermen fix along the shore.
Hades Landing
How does he know from which piece of land he sprung when all markers, all monuments to the life he felt in his blood, have been erased? The whole town gone, rubbed clean from the earth, leaving only grooves, broken bricks and the heartbreak of a rusted playground.
1941
In those days, growing up in finger waves, powdered sugar in the hand for good luck, I dreamed of leg-o-mutton sleeves and viscose linings.
The Fig Tree
Flinging her hair off her damp neck and over the back of the chair, she gazed into the dappled sky of leaves. Though there was no privacy in their shotgun house for that kind of indulgence, she yearned to throw herself across her bed and sob uncontrollably.
To Love An Abstraction
Waking, the remnants of dreams fade into the backs of my eyelids and then dissipate altogether. I open my eyes and realize that today is the first day in two weeks that I haven’t automatically rolled over to touch the space where Dean used to sleep. Outside, birds chirp.
Making Change
While I was in Italy, I wrote a lot of poems, and I was getting better at it and liking it. But ever since I came back, and especially while standing there all mad at the register, I didn’t feel I could ever write another poem, unless it was about Sadie the sourpuss slipping and sliding on a bunch of loose cans of corn in the supermarket and everyone all around her having a good laugh while she tries to get up amongst them.
The Weight of Emptiness
He tried to imagine what Emma looked like now. Perhaps she had cut her hair and wore a bob. He doubted she had wrinkles, but allowed his memory to conjure her young face and etch in faint lines where he thought it necessary. He also doubted that she had gained weight, and knew that if she had it wouldn’t matter.
Like Leaves in Autumn
It began slowly. She had always had trouble remembering people's names, for instance, that was nothing new. She would be at a party, be introduced to five or six people, and then instantly, like a stage magician's trick, the names that had been there only a second ago would vanish. She had become good at little deceptions to overcome this disability.
Cast-offs
I had my first conversation with her on a winter’s evening at the back door of the basement soup kitchen on Allen Street where I volunteer twice a week. Before then I had known her by sight as one of the old homeless ladies; she had curly gray hair and a red scarf with a snowflake pattern that she wore in all seasons.
nonfiction
Edith
A few years ago, I bought my current car – Edith – from my dad. The price was $1.25. This was a fun continuance of tradition because he'd bought an early car from his uncle for $1 (I added the 25 cents for inflation). This sort of low-stakes transaction seemed old-fashioned to me – like walking uphill to school or having a malt – and so I was glad to take part.
Dominion
He was surprisingly honest about losing, admitting he only won two games in Dominion out of the “hundreds of times” (which was actually sixteen since I kept a tally) and Fluxx was split down the middle since we didn’t really keep track. He failed to accurately portray much else, like our feelings or usual conversations, or my real personality.
reviews
What’s This, Bombardier? by Ryan Flaherty
It’s almost impossible to believe that What’s This, Bombardier? is Ryan Flaherty’s debut collection. Having previously published two chapbooks, Novas and Live, From the Delay, Flaherty is a winner of the Lena-Miles Wever Todd Poetry Prize and the recipient of the 2010 PEN/New England Discovery Award for Poetry.