You see a pile of logs, a bend
in the river, driftwood to collect.
I look for human limbs
in the branches.
You admire the view
from the Second Street bridge.
I calculate how far the drop is,
if it would hurt, and what happens
when, halfway down, a person
changes her mind.
At the beach you collect sea
shells, search for shark teeth,
and I wonder if I swam out
’til I was too tired to swim back,
would it be like going to sleep?

_________________________

Sonja de Vries is a filmmaker and poet living on a farm outside Louisville, Kentucky. She graduated from Spalding’s MFA program and hopes to teach poetry and creative writing in the near future.

There's No Fooling in Washington

April fools day is no joke. It’s light and it’s heavy. It’s often forgotten, which makes it all the more memorable. But today, there’s no fooling around. Take a peek into Brad Watson’s poetic world, which is shaped by the tumultuous South. In one of the more intriguing stories we’ve come across lately, Mosab Hassan Yousef left Hamas, even though he may have been their best recruit. In light of the Moscow bombings, The Huffington Post has some prophetic books that foretold of this violence. Doesn’t it feel like it is time for a tea break? Well, you can thank a Scotsman for stealing the brew and bringing it to the Western world. And while you’re sipping, peruse Margaret Atwood’s twittersphere. It’s tea of an entirely different flavor. We’re not fooling. — Andrew Geer