Issue 3.2

Beyond the Apple Tree With the feebly munched Honeycrisp in hand, I trailed the paw prints in the snow a second time. I noted the hesitation of my boot prints around the abrupt cough of cardinal red phlegm, then followed the rush to the backyard woods. Past the boulder, just before the creek that freezes every year, I laid to rest, beside the whimpering red fox, his last meal. Then, left.

Red *after Anne Sexton, for Emma* Your love is red. No, not the red of lips. Not like a rose when it bleeds, either. Red like the thin plastic bag the record store next door puts six-dollar Sibelius records in when I buy them for you last minute, before we meet up in the courtyard outside your work where I will show you the last poem I wrote when I stayed by the sea. You said you tend to think of sliding doors when near the ocean. I said I tend to think of butterflies. “We are saying the same thing,” you say. “Thank you for the record.”

Let Me Live Alone Beside This Lake Let me live alone beside this lake to pass my time in peace and never think of money. Give me good red wine to drink, and only things of beauty will I make. Let me be awakened by the sun each morning as it peeks in through the pines, and may I, on my canvas or in lines composed, redeem the day till evening's done. Let me in this cottage be complete, enraptured by the lark and whippoorwill, the loon and mourning dove. Let all be still; no earthly song could ever sound so sweet.

From a Distant Country A man arrived from a distant country to appear in my dreams. His face was a heap of leaves; his body was a mountain of mud; he walked like a fortified forest, arms flailing, feet staggering. He said my life expired the day I was born and I lived on borrowed days. I refused to pay interest to him while he waited for me to return it. Each day I continue to live without interest is like a thick nail piercing his palms. How must I pay interest, when I did not know him? There was a blitz behind him, an unfolding of white papers, a scroll and a screen through the leaves, like a television in a garden. I saw in his face a film of all the days I went out and returned with a crushed face; my eyes were black and red, my body was a sinking sack of sand. Each day, my face is a bombed field, I grind my teeth like a dark street. A smile and a heart of gratitude are the interest I need. I decided to clean up my winter mess and become someone new, someone prepared to render my interest, each passing day, every fleeting second.