Plain Margins

Photographer - Tobi Brun

Plain Margins

Lenten rose closes its shutters like waves
of yellow bikes tipping one onto the next
by the bookstore, where he shifts his eyes
from you to the garbage—ignoring you
like landmines ready to trip him up along
the street of your face that, he thinks, falls
toward the low end of redbuds under sugar
maples, gazebo of cellar doors; neighbors
who don’t look at you or walk on your side
of the street—little topiaries before dogs
bark nonsense; cats of Saturday morning
cartoons, children walking fog-like, as baker
opens his Little Library by the park vines,
good morning only for morning glories—
admiration comes from bees, coneflowers,
for whom you would give away all your
garden for a margin you could call plain.

Jan Wiezorek writes from Michigan. His work appears, or is forthcoming, in The London Magazine, The Westchester Review, Lucky Jefferson, Loch Raven Review, Minetta Review, Talon Review, Modern Poetry Review, The Passionfruit Review, Sparks of Calliope, The Wise Owl, Poetry Center San José, and The Orchards Poetry Journal, among other journals. He taught writing at St. Augustine College, Chicago, and wrote the ebook Awesome Art Projects That Spark Super Writing (Scholastic, 2011). He posts at janwiezorek.substack.com.

Anonymous

Photographer - Tobi Brun

Anonymous

New Mexico—I know casa
of pecans, orchards dusting
mirage men traveling, helicopters
over pine mountains, sights
too complex to read, face of rocks
in a valley town, with a shed
as his home—and as he rises
from his cot, neat, beside rake,
hoe, blanket—he gives me no name,
to be anonymous, but extends his
chapped hand and a frame for photos,
twisted from cigarette packs, where I
keep a picture of my parents, the base
laced with twine, standing as artwork
—protected brown and crème in plastic
wrappers, tight as a hairline—and I
didn’t think to offer him payment
for his work, as we rarely do, we who
assume everything as entitlement—
so, now I hold the frame like his
fingertips are touching mine, with
all the anonymity of cellophane.

Jan Wiezorek writes from Michigan. His work appears, or is forthcoming, in The London Magazine, The Westchester Review, Lucky Jefferson, Loch Raven Review, Minetta Review, Talon Review, Modern Poetry Review, The Passionfruit Review, Sparks of Calliope, The Wise Owl, Poetry Center San José, and The Orchards Poetry Journal, among other journals. He taught writing at St. Augustine College, Chicago, and wrote the ebook Awesome Art Projects That Spark Super Writing (Scholastic, 2011). He posts at janwiezorek.substack.com.

Curl

Photographer - Tobi Brun

Curl

Our community sits with trees,
where we come to speak—
not knowing how to thicken
mossy fuzz so trees will listen;
but our words curl before them
as the shaking of girls’ heads,
all in luxurious order, while
we hold our breath—sharing
exhalation, not as object,
but as the coming inhalation:
a community hairy with roots,
leaves, stomata, where trees
make our words wave, bounce
—we cannot grasp perfect sheen
without their air—so, comb your
snarls among jacks and roots,
voluminous as poetry—sleek
as the tallest woods—beautiful
as chest hair parting beech trees.

Jan Wiezorek writes from Michigan. His work appears, or is forthcoming, in The London Magazine, The Westchester Review, Lucky Jefferson, Loch Raven Review, Minetta Review, Talon Review, Modern Poetry Review, The Passionfruit Review, Sparks of Calliope, The Wise Owl, Poetry Center San José, and The Orchards Poetry Journal, among other journals. He taught writing at St. Augustine College, Chicago, and wrote the ebook Awesome Art Projects That Spark Super Writing (Scholastic, 2011). He posts at janwiezorek.substack.com.

Vacation

Photographer - Tobi Brun

Vacation

Everyone wants to find a pink island

I alone seek the amber. In the sand

The seashells whisper: ‘Are you green or blue

Watching us bob on the foam? Is it true

The homes of the dead stay homes on the land?’

The mollusc-ghosts and the jeering sea strand

More than shells upon the shore. In the bland

Frothing waves, soap-rinsings, I see the hue

Everyone wants to find.

Isle of hiraeth in the palm of my hand,

Turn not your bitter neem-bark rose now. Stand

Firm in my fading memory. Your dew

And sulphur are alike dear on this new

Sea-leached ground lined with the pink seashell brand

Everyone wants to find.

Hibah Shabkhez is a writer of the half-yo literary tradition, an erratic language-learning enthusiast, and a happily eccentric blogger from Lahore, Pakistan. Her work has previously appeared in Pleiades, Miracle Monocle, Glassworks, Windsor Review, Moria, CommuterLit, and a number of other literary magazines. Studying life, languages, and literature from a comparative perspective across linguistic and cultural boundaries holds a particular fascination for her.

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/HibahShabkhez 

Twitter X: @hibahshabkhez

Insta: @shabkhez_hibah

Marinated In Sepia

Photographer - Tobi Brun

Marinated In Sepia

The memory of innocence nags me

like lost keys and catchy headlines half-read,

wrenches me back like taps and stoves left on.

Bring back a sturdy, leafless tree, it cries

with branches like claws turned upward to catch

yourself as you fall from the sky.

Marinated in sepia, the three

intertwined demons of pain, shame, and dread

rake across my heart and pierce my soul. Born

whole but sliced by the unknown, child-me tries

once more to gather stray how-tos and match

its wits against the world; and I -

I must watch it fail again.

Hibah Shabkhez is a writer of the half-yo literary tradition, an erratic language-learning enthusiast, and a happily eccentric blogger from Lahore, Pakistan. Her work has previously appeared in Pleiades, Miracle Monocle, Glassworks, Windsor Review, Moria, CommuterLit, and a number of other literary magazines. Studying life, languages, and literature from a comparative perspective across linguistic and cultural boundaries holds a particular fascination for her.

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/HibahShabkhez 

Twitter X: @hibahshabkhez

Insta: @shabkhez_hibah