Sixfold Poetry Summer 2014
by Sixfold
Copyright 2014 Sixfold and The Authors
www.sixfold.org
Sixfold is a completely writer-voted journal. The writers who upload their manuscripts vote to select the prize-winning manuscripts and the short stories and poetry published in each issue. All participating writers’ equally weighted votes act as the editor, instead of the usual editorial decision-making organization of one or a few judges, editors, or select editorial board.
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License Notes
Copyright 2014 Sixfold and The Authors. This issue may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided both Sixfold and the Author of any excerpt of this issue is acknowledged. Thank you for your support.
Sixfold
Garrett Doherty, Publisher
[email protected] www.sixfold.org
(203) 491-0242
Sixfold Poetry Summer 2014
Anne Rankin-Kotchek | Letter to the World from a Dying Woman & other poems
Sara Graybeal | Ghetto City & other poems
Tee Iseminger | Construction & other poems
Lisa Beth Fulgham | After They Sold the Cows... & other poems
Mary Mills | The Practical Knowledge of Women & other poems
Monika Cassel | Waldschatten, Muttersprache & other poems
Michael Fleming | To a Fighter & other poems
Daniel Stewart | January & other poems
John Glowney | Cigarettes & other poems
Hannah Callahan | The Ptarmigan Suite & other poems
Lee Kisling | How the Music Came to My Father & other poems
Jose A. Alcantara | Finding the God Particle & other poems
David A. Bart | Veteran’s Park & other poems
Greg Grummer | War Reportage & other poems
Rande Mack | rat & other poems
J. K. Kitchen | Anger Kills Himself & other poems
Jim Pascual Agustin | The Man Who Wished He Was Lego & other poems
Jessica M. Lockhart | Scylla of the Alabama & other poems
James P. Leveque | Three Films of Jean Painlevé & other poems
Kelsey Charles | Autobiography & other poems
Therese L. Broderick | Polly & other poems
Lane Falcon | Touch & other poems
Ricky Ray | The Bird & other poems
Phoebe Reeves | Every Petal & other poems
David Livingstone Fore | Eternity is a very long time... & other poems
Tim Hawkins | Northern Idyll & other poems
Abigail F. Taylor | On the Pillow Where You Lie & other poems
Joey DeSantis | Baby Names & other poems
Cameron Price | Every Morning & other poems
David Walker | Sestina for Housesitting & other poems
Helen R. Peterson | Ablaut & other poems
Contributor Notes
Anne Rankin-Kotchek
Letter to the World from a Dying Woman
for Ron Garson
Approaching 44, I just feel it’s over.
I lie in a kind of permanent autumn:
my bones talking back,
shoulders curled in a parenthesis ’round my heart,
& any remaining veins of hope tangled in despair.
Don’t ask me how I got here—
I can’t make you understand
something you don’t want to know.
But like the sky I have a story to tell:
wisdom I might have passed on to a daughter
if only she had arrived,
things I would have said to myself
if only I had listened.
Now, I see it clearly: there are many ways to die—
some of them don’t even involve death.
You might come to know this later.
Or you can listen to me now,
before your song is up & while my urgency to speak
succeeds my tendency to descend.
The thing is, somewhere to the left of your spine,
your soul is waiting to tell you
everything you need to know.
Stuff like this:
the best way to deal with regret is to
do what you want in the first place.
And, where it is necessary,
do not give up or give in.
But also, where it is necessary,
give up & give in.
The road less traveled isn’t always on the map,
but seek it without waver,
like a dog pursues his home.
If you wait too long for the green light,
you’ll spend your life stuck in traffic. Go ahead.
Mix apples & oranges:
the world needs more fruit salad.
At least once a year, check out the way
pinks collide with orange in the sunrise.
Remember not to give your heart
to someone you don’t trust with your head.
If you grow the little voice inside of you
(add plenty of music & moonlight), it will
take you where you need to go.
Your skin also has a voice, so listen.
In fact, let your body do the talking.
Swim in the air & dance in the water.
Don’t forget to try an ocean on for size:
no matter who you are it will be a good fit.
Be sure to bring enough air. Your lungs
were meant to be filled & emptied, just like your days.
Tend to a living thing as though you’re being graded on it.
And get to know the earth on a first-name basis.
But don’t take the rain personally.
Life is very, very, very unfair.
Sex & doughnuts can help,
but they’re not a permanent cure.
Most of all, find love
in the answer, the question, & the pause in between.
And when you step outside
the lines drawn by all of your others (even you),
treat yourself like the bliss-bound, spring-leaning
creature you were always meant to be.
Then come back to tell me all about it,
before my song is up & while my urgency to speak
succeeds my tendency to descend.
In the Wake of My Father’s Orbit
for Marty Rankin
He was a brilliant star, but
he was damaged too.
He gave off an entirely different
sort of light, and we were transfixed,
forsaken as the contrails of his angels.
I see him standing in the corner of our kitchen,
the distracted mathematician mumbling numbers
(never realizing that we were growing
and multiplying in space and time).
And then the sudden flash of anger, stunning
in its own way:
such potential for pain and shadow.
Everything about it was distorted:
the way we looked up to him—though
we had no choice, held under nature’s sway—
and how it mattered to us so the way he shone,
how his brilliance glittered off of us
and splintered us in a thousand ways.
On Sundays the six of us knelt beside him on the pew,
our palms pressed together, fingers pointed upwards
like candles reaching for a flame.
With every “Amen” came the shame:
we would always disappoint him.
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But his light was a prism
we could not turn away from,
even when we knew
it would grow us crooked,
break us into dark shards.
More Than Candy
Night. Feels later than darkness.
Way past a child’s bedtime.
We have no bedtime.
My younger brother and I climb
out his bedroom window
opening into the summer air,
buoyant as dreams.
Big plans.
We fly off the garage roof,
jumping to the ground and roll.
Old pros.
Sometimes others tag along.
Tonight we’re on our own.
Two tadpoles.
Our parents, unaware as always,
sit inside with Johnny Carson.
They never laugh.
It’s the other side of the house.
More like the other side of the moon.
We smile, bikes ready
to carry us anywhere.
As far as we dare,
Brian says with his eyes.
We sail under the stars, shooting
for 7-11 like it has all the answers.
Pedaling in our high-tops,
we wade through fireflies
with the flurry of superheroes.
We are the great escapers.
Inside the store, the choices
never fail to dazzle.
We own the aisles, but we know
it isn’t about the sweets.
We choose our favorites
and head back into the dark.
I turn to my brother
as he unwraps a Reese’s.
I love him more than candy.
The Journey
for Margaret Elizabeth Regina
But after a while the road seems to drive you.
And that’s okay, if you like
mile markers and weigh stations
that measure nothing of importance
the whine of your tires on pavement
endless potholes and truck stops
speed bumps and rumble strips
the white lines and orange cones
highways that leave you low
exit ramps that steer you nowhere
faded billboards and tires blown
signs to places you’ll never go
and if you want your steering wheel
to serve as the compass of your life.
But you know me.
If there’s a sky above
then that’s my path to the sea.
And I’d rather be
musing with a mountain,
wondering what the crows know,
making plans with the firs and pine,
knowing I can take my time,
and not let my travels
be decreed by the speed limit
but by how fast—or slow—
my heart wants to go.
The Only Prayer
I can’t do the big prayers:
don’t know the Rosary,
won’t crumple my torso over my knees on the floor—
arms outstretched with audacity.
You won’t find me facing Mecca, or
orchestrating the Amidah,
or waiting for the wafer silently hunched over the pew.
I have no idea how to bow
(or to whom)
and may submit that flailing on the floor in foreign tongues
or slipping notes in the Wailing Wall
will almost certainly ensure one’s heavenly requests
remain unanswered.
Sometimes, getting up in the morning is
the only prayer I know,
the best I can offer
to whatever deity
may or may not be
waiting for me to tumble humbly out of bed.
Sara Graybeal
Ghetto City
My students have created a board game
Out of cardboard, tape, and staples.
Ghetto City, they call it.
A numbered path leads to a 3D hut
With a restless stick figure in the window.
The goal: reach jail and bail your brother out
Before getting shot.
We play the day John’s brother gets booked
And the day Kareem’s uncle comes home.
We play the day of the middle school shooting,
Two kids with guns, none of my students,
Nobody hurt. We play as if these things
Make the game all right, safe still,
Hypothetical.
When funders visit, we hide Ghetto City
Under a red sheet in the back of the class.
My students cross their arms, discuss the impact
Of arts enrichment on their lives.
When we play, I am usually the first to get shot.
My students love the way that this makes sense,
And all the ways it doesn’t. When I suggest
A new game, they are disappointed in me.
It doesn’t work that way, they say.
General Store Café
All day, jazz. At a blue table, Masquerade dancer painted on top
One hand cradling a jug of wine & a white clown face
Glittery scarf, arched eyebrows, dotted eyes
On the walls stained glass, green & gold
Bounce light every which way, winding
Wind chimes, shelves painted lilac, housing
Cloth dolls, home-made post cards, wreaths
Disheveled over rims of chairs, a bookcase of local books
That we don’t want to read
But will pretend to
When forced
To, when there is no one else to share our table
So much jazz: oil paintings of farm animals
Pig snouts blowing kisses
Herons psychedelic lime green & pink
A sack labeled Product of Colombia, 70 Kilos—
To which twenty-first century soul
Did this old thing appear artistic?
Rabbit wind vanes, painted wood critters
A forest goddess cloaked in hand-stamped robes
Carly’s Grab ‘Em By the Cowtail mocha
A plaque stating Love me, love my dog
& butterflies swinging from the ceiling.
A woman walks in, eyes wide, lost stare
Her sweatshirt spelling United We Stand
Can I get a coffee, she says, trips
Over the frayed rug, bumps
Into the boom box, plastered with
Bumper stickers & rainbow flags
The radio stutters, shifts from jazz
To Christmas tunes
Jingle bells jingle bells, faces fall flat around the café
What is this CVS music? This gas station music?
What is this music that turns my mocha bitter?
That spins the butterflies idly, that nauseates
The herons in pink-green waves, that reminds me
I am spending twelve dollars & eighty-six cents
On my organic fair trade in-season spinach quesadilla
Music that sounds like my grandmother’s house where she
Stuffed my stocking, read from the Bible
I do not visit Grandma now
She cringes at my unshaved legs
This music, these fucking lullabies
That make me want to snap shut my laptop
Step outside, reach my fingers to the sky &
Hold the world close; no
Not the café—
Hold the world close; recall that
These are two different things
I am a citizen of both &
One is begging
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Eat your spinach quesadilla for the right reasons &
Switch the station now & then, if only for a second because
Just jazz can get to be too much.
Did You Hear That, Just Now?
Zimmerman not guilty.
Trayvon Martin dead.
In South Philadelphia,
Silent streets: a sleepy fig tree,
Bony cats stalking their prey.
Is rising up too much to ask
On a July night like this one,
Wearing rage on our bodies
As we do on our Facebook pages?
Are we all so weary, so unsurprised
That a march is unattainable,
That the fury of our solitary brains,
Our fingers whipping across the keys
Are the most we can offer up
In the name of solidarity?
If it were the sixties, millions would have marched.
If it were the nineties, streets would have burned.
But it is 2013. The numbers ring apocalyptic.
Sidewalks are bare. Windows so dark
It seems all souls have departed.
I am Trayvon Martin
We are Trayvon Martin
The cries, once smothered by sirens,
Forced entries and the clink of handcuffs
Around the smooth wrists of brothers and sons
Stand no chance against this silence.
Boarded windows splinter open.
Potholes yawn. They will swallow
These cries by morning.
These homes, vacated of hope,
Will soon be yoga studios and
Montessori schools. And finally,
The fight—the few voices still
Murmuring over candlelight
In buildings slated for demolition
By winter—will drift to places still
Worth fighting for. I cannot tell
Whether or not they will be missed.
Tee Iseminger
Construction
They sold the empty lot next door last month,
the one with the tree, the tree my daughter
climbed all of those mercilessly long, stagnant
summers, made her teenage cradle in, read her
borrowed books. The tree whose limbs overgrew
the property line and rubbed against our lives until
we no longer remembered that it wasn’t our tree, and we,
or maybe it was only I who came to depend
on the sympathy of its freckled shade on our breakfast
table, the table where my husband and I sat suspended
each morning in forbearance, in our own early fall, these
seasons of not saying, of not knowing what else we might
possibly say, and so grateful for the scratching of branches.
It came down more quietly than any of us expected; one
day we simply noticed that we had poured our orange juice