A Magazine of Many Arts

Avra Margariti

Cauldron alchemy of sizzling wormwood
heart-sparks glowing like sixth magnitude stars
which is to say not bright at all
salt sulfur mercury
the yin yang and beyond
blood drawn from meaty bottom lip
the missing ingredient
 
Grandma Spider instructs
I fill a bowl with boiled goat milk and
drop three of her raisin-black grandchildren
into the viscous liquid.
The spiders gurgle as Grandma watches
from her webbed throne.
Now, she says. With scalded fingertips I fish them out.
They walk across my workbench, arachnid-bent legs
weeping white across the swirling woodgrain
spinnerets spitting brittle silk soaked in milk.
The spiders crumble and die and I cry, I cry
but Grandma Spider shouts, The spell, girl. Focus on the spell.
Soon enough, the drenched threads weave
a shape on the table, the lost
last ingredient. Grandma Spider nods, perched high
in all her ancient glory.
I gather the gossamer flower embroidery onto my palm
swallowing it down whole.

Rebecca Bennet

"When did you stop looking at the moonlight?"
He asks from behind the cash register of a family store 
remembering a shadow of us 
in formation on the field 
echoing the same howls of our fathers 

He's looking at a body no longer lithe and hairless
sees I've copied my father's yawns instead
and knows that howling is meant for 
girls with bleached incisors
with makeup as sharp as a claw

I don't say there are other blood calls now
new places that make my heart thrum
people who make my insides itch
I don't tell him that
he's still howling but hasn't shifted

By Jordan Kurella

Choose words like thread
Only the brightest will do
The boldest are too brittle
Too weathered for the force of his storm
 
Weave words, cast away suitors
Wait for your love to return
Work long at this tapestry
& then cover yourself in its conversation
 
Each night, pick it apart
Search for the thread
(the skein?) of where you went wrong
 
As it was you (always)
You who went wrong
 
Then return
Rescue your work in the morning
Say "I love you" over the telephone
Over morning coffee
With a brush of the hand on his back
Over the shuttle
Over the wake of his ship
 
Your suitors still flood you with gifts
So many hearts in so many colors 
Three different gifs of showering confetti
An old photo of a girl on a skateboard, yes, Killing It
 
"This is you," they say
"This is meant for you," they say
So you weave them in
And you breathe them out
Another shuttle across the threads
Another tick in the loom
 
But no, this is not you
You wait for the one you love to return
Tapestry unwoven, picked apart
Conversation managed: wrongs righted, rights wronged
 
These threads were broken against his chest
Tested, over and over, with devotion
He is ready to be met
Take your words to his thunder
 
Say, "I love you," again
Do not flinch as his maelstrom rises up
And swallows your truth whole

Ursula Whitcher

Sue's grandkid asks, "Will it be hard for you, learning a different language?"
and Sue says, "Honey, Fargo is America," but you say, "Oh, I've done it before."
The new boxes were Sue's black Amazon arrows, that navy apron
like an eared robot and the books go in, The Bread Bible,
the Greek Bible, the free Koran from the booth at the fair.
You have liquor boxes from the last move, the housing crash;
you kept the Bacardi ones, because you felt
some kinship with the bat. Linens in those, mostly, and clothes
that mostly fit. "It's been ten years," Sue says. "You don't seem
to have aged a day." You smile and pat your hair. You've bleached
the roots, of course. Dot-com boxes next, Pets.com,
FreeTShirts4Ever. You wrap the Far Side coffee mug
in tissue, and the teacup with roses
you say was your grandmother's.
Liquor boxes again, and you're packing the vases
you never managed to break. The tape crinkles and tears. You miss
the old, heavy Scotch-brand stuff. You miss the twine,
the crates, the boxes for each hat, your steamer trunk
with its heavy latch. "Do they speak English in Alaska?"
another child asked, once. Before that, "Is it hard
to learn American?" You miss the straw you stuffed
around the teapot, the Book of Common Prayer, all that time
you spent at graveyards, leaving roses, with their stems
wrapped in green ribbon, back when you still thought
you'd end there, packed under stone and grass.

Claire Smith

Summertime - Persephone strides
through parklands
blazing sun ripens flesh.
 
She picks a pomegranate
rips it in half with fingernails,
sucks out sour seeds
licks acid aftertaste –
juice dribbles round her lips.
 
She meets him fishing the lake:
torn combats, faded
rugby shirt, baseball cap.
 
He knows how to talk sweet  
through a transparent film
of roll-up cigarette smoke
to the young Goddess. 
 
~
 
Autumn – he romances Persephone:
bags of fruit bonbons, pear cider,
A posy of sycamore helicopters
he rests on her head,
crowns his queen.  
 
He makes her laugh
with his game of ducks ‘n’ drakes.
No stones thrown –
he uses conkers to skim across the water.
 
Her heart reeled 
along with carp, roach, perch.
Her mouth hooked   
as he kisses her –
this odd mortal.
 
~
 
Christmas – he invites Persephone
down to his basement.
Furnished from strangers’ skips:
water-stained couch,
mattress torn, cooker red with rust.
 
She stares at the ceiling,
Persephone and him coupled – ends.
He rocks her body:
clammy, breathless, worn out. 
Puzzled; she wonders is this all mortals do?
 
Pluto’s waiting in the Underworld
for his Persephone to reappear.
 
Her lesson is learned –
The earth a place too cold, tiresome, flawed.
Return to Pluto’s Underworld she would...