Recognize that handsome mustache? He’s the man that made your nightmares. He made black birds spooky. He put you in the pit. He placed you beneath the pendulum. The evidence of his ingeniousness still swings back and forth above you. The anxiety of his insanity still haunts you in the heart. His works can be compared “to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opium — the bitter lapse into everyday life — the hideous dropping of the veil.” — Brian Allen Carr

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i.

She is surrounded by leaves.

Lying beneath the canopy,

leaning in         to smell a single bud (still green)

brazen enough to burst through the tangled roses.

ii.

The family gathers

on the freshly mown lawn.

The man and the children wear green

shirts, green shoes, one grass-stained pair

of torn shorts.          Mother binds

herself in blue–same (color) family.

iii.

She cocoons in the iris bed.

Swallowed by its spiked headboard,

dried stamens turn to dust

in her hair.          Deep inside

there is no scent.  The air is dead,

making silence       not love.

The man     tugs a cord      resumes mowing.

iv.

The neighbor watching

from behind tattered curtains

is wrapped in olive cotton.

His camera ticks

like cicadas clicking ribs.

v.

She remembers it is grasshoppers

who rub   veinless wings    to sing.

Dinner refuses to cook itself.

She rises from the bush–

odd butterfly–

invites her family to sit, enjoy the salad.

_______________________________

Jill Wickham is a poet/artist/teacher in Upstate, NY, funding her writing habit by running a children’s art studio.  Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Crab Creek Review, Weave, Boxcar Poetry Review, and Pirene’s Fountain, among others.  She is a co-editor of the literary magazine, Ouroboros.

At late night we wander,
wading through untuned New Orleans air.

Breathe bourbon and cuss
softly, shoulders hooked and eyes
darting,

careful not to stare
into the phantom lenses that film us.

Slick haunt, we know the stars
are on earth tonight, our clan
the center of everything that ever
existed.

Hair in our face, we saunter
low-slung up dark avenues, black
glasses obscuring our vision of the moon.

__________________________________________

Nathan Scott is a 23-year-old graduate student in New Orleans. His twitter is twitter.com/nathansavin.

The March Equinox occurred on March 20, 2010. The sun shone directly on the equator and nearly all of planet Earth had an equal amount of day and night. The word equinox comes from the Latin and means ‘equal night’. The equinoxes occur in March and September and the Spring equinox is called the Vernal equinox.  A way to use that word according to the dictionary would be “vernal migratory movements”. As wordsmiths, we consider that one helluva gorgeous phrase. Right now, birders and ornithology buffs across the country are tracking the migration of Ruby-Throated hummingbirds. These birds not only sport a dashing red stripe on their neck, but they are also attracted to items that are red and will swoop down to investigate ruby-red movement as needed.

– Lori Huskey

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To Be Immortal

Leaves are returning to the trees. Promise is in the air. But, just like a good legacy, the heavy clouds and biting chill of winter aren’t going away without a fight. Nabakov’s legacy remains secured in stone, even as The Origin of Laura is slammed by critics. Kevin Frazier thinks the book’s format was Dmitri Nabakov’s duty as a literary executor. Poet Derek Walcott sees his burgeoning legacy fly as high as a flock of White Egrets. David Foster Wallace achieved great heights and endured massive lows. David Lipsky writes about visiting him on the last leg of his Infinite Jest book tour. Jane Austen conquered the literary world the same way many other famous authors have: posthumously. And finally, few sportswriters have much of a legacy, probably because they are more concerned with the “soft life.” Deadspin has the Harper’s scoop from 1968. Spring is here again, tender age in bloom… – Andrew Geer