Susan Alexander, “Corona”

Susan Alexander is a Canadian poet and writer living in British Columbia on Nexwlélexm/Bowen Island, the traditional and unceded territory of the Squamish people. Susan’s work has appeared in anthologies and literary magazines throughout Canada, the US, and the UK. She is the author of two collections of poems, Nothing You Can Carry, 2020, and The Dance Floor Tilts, 2017, from Thistledown Press. Her suite of poems called Vigil won the 2019 Mitchell Prize for Faith and Poetry, while some of her other work has received the Vancouver Writers Fest and Short Grain Awards.

Corona

after “A Wreath” – George Herbert

This poem is a virus—I pass it to you. —Dayna Kidd Patterson

A novel virus is the proffered verse to me passed
Which I pass thumb-licked to you, who know all my lapses,
My hacking, feverish lapses, how this mind will sleep
A sleep in isolation be it weeks or months, the time needed.
A tethered time wherein I may die, not live:
For isn’t living lips and kiss, hands interlaced,
A granted interface that curls each into each.
Each held belief, loose. Let me miss that you might live
So shall I live and love to see you past these days
Of passing bells and hand-wash songs and newsfeeds
Who feed us doubt and data, more fear, less faith.
So in faith my poor verse offered may a virus contain.

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Susan Alexander, “Quiet”

Susan Alexander is a Canadian poet and writer living in British Columbia on Nexwlélexm/Bowen Island, the traditional and unceded territory of the Squamish people. Susan’s work has appeared in anthologies and literary magazines throughout Canada, the US, and the UK. She is the author of two collections of poems, Nothing You Can Carry, 2020, and The Dance Floor Tilts, 2017, from Thistledown Press. Her suite of poems called Vigil won the 2019 Mitchell Prize for Faith and Poetry, while some of her other work has received the Vancouver Writers Fest and Short Grain Awards.

Quiet

I carry
a pouch full of silence.

It’s made of raw silk
and lined with brocade.

I pull tight
green ribbons
to keep the quiet inside.

When the restaurant staff
cranks up the beat

when the next table brays
at the waiter’s slight jest

I think how I might
loosen the ribbons
and watch

vociferous faces soften
in candlelight

their last uttered sounds
drifting
like apple blossoms

onto plates and water goblets,
caught
in astonished palms.

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Jared Carter, a double dactyl

Jared Carter’s most recent book of poems, The Land Itself, is from Monongahela Books in Morgantown, West Virginia. He lives in Indiana.

Higgledy piggledy,
Cassidy Hutchinson,
Fearing the Proud Boys were
Gaining on Pence,

Said to Mark Meadows, your
Neotransactional
Procrastination’s a
Hanging offense!

 

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Paul Smith, “Cantilever”

Paul Smith is a civil engineer who has worked in the construction racket for many years. He has traveled all over the place and met lots of people. Some have enriched his life. Others made him wish he or they were all dead. He likes writing poetry and fiction. He also likes Newcastle Brown Ale. If you see him, buy him one. His poetry and fiction have been published in Clementine Unbound, Missouri Review, Literary Orphans, and other lit mags.

Cantilever

The cantilever stretches its neck out
past where no one has been
where no one should be
till its chin touches the horizon
cloudy and
in the middle of nowhere
the trusses and load-bearing structures
look on
aghast
until now snug in their anatomy
approved by the Board
certified and stamped
but today one of them
one of them
contradicts
all they thought
they were taught
in Elements of Structural Analysis

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