Backbone > Poetica

The chambers of summer open their mouths and invite the thick breath of whirling to emerge from the calendar’s small squares. No heat (ha!), joyful chanting, no fee. Clear the way for all skate rolling, rolling by.

—Franci

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leaves blush bashful red
cool air pinks brown-tinted cheeks
autumn rings the moon

Ronda Bishop

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Green and Blue

At the distant edge of the universe is the first green.

Blue is the color of our dreams, whether we remember or forget.

Unclaimed wishes on the moon lie like unripened fruit.
Take them in trust.

The blue tiles in my kitchen, just spots of blue-jay, but against the gray,
white and black, enough.

Call for the triple greens of ending
summer: limes, margarita edges,
and the hammock’s wide net.

Remember the water we drink, the air we breathe, the lake we swim.

—my own pencil sketch of geraniums with that brown-green of
geranium stems.
—my own nails, polished green, like the inside of sea shells.

Think about the blue of the summer we lived and the winter to come.

Mary Leonard

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Kitchen Verse

I don’t feel much like writing these days
I’d rather walk up to the bridge

And leave me behind my heavy ways
and sing my soul over the ridge

Christopher Porpora

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Ten Fond Farewells

I bid a fond farewell to drugstore colored hair (hello gray)
and eyebrow pencil used for lo these forty years
since a so-called friend plucked mine into oblivion.
And farewell to size ten or even twelve.
I wish I could eat anything, but okay—no more
sentient beings, tasty as you are.
And shall I eliminate foul language while I’m feeling pure?
Goodbye to the capacity to drink without consequences.
Goodbye to the desire to do so. So long
to controlling my children’s lives (did I ever?) and
worrying about the uncertainty of their karma.
I say so long to the trappings of lust and fame and fortune
(that never graced me anyway).
I give up thinking I’ll live forever, unnatural as that seems.

Oh well, there are more than ten—
Adios to hesitation. I spit you out of the exhaust pipe of my Harley
and leave you behind on the pavement, wondering where I’ve gone.
Good riddance to the false power of fearful thoughts, you are the
dust I sometimes wipe off of furniture. One more—
Goodbye regret. With you out of the picture, I truly love my life.
Adieu, adieu, auf wiedersehen.

Ann Hutton