Winter 2013: Poetry

A Father's Love

by Darlene Pagán

His white footprints through the house
from cement mixing like a ghost we’d failed
to trap our whole lives. The coffee rings

on the homework he was meant to sign.
The radios in every room set to the same
drones on WCFL, The Voice of Labor.

The snap unfold of the morning paper.
The whack to the back of the head
if you dared disturb him while he read.

The grandfather clock ticking every quarter
hour. The doors locking us out Saturdays
while he napped. His shouts as he burst out

of his chair during a fight, like the one
in 1976, when George Foreman knocked out
Ron Lyle in the fifth round in Las Vegas.

The slugfest he dealt the couch and chair
after as I giggled. His throwing me so
high in the air, the fan blades brushed

my hair, despite how he’s been saying
for years I’m too big for such things.

Poetry Enjoy the richness: thirteen poets, nineteen poems, and a diversity of style and craft.		Prose Three memoirists share their emotional truths in these slices-of-life.		Artwork Our featured artist, as well as painters and photographers, provide colorful visions that will leave you seeing the world in new ways.		Young Voices Three emerging writers share talent and creativity far beyond their years.		Contributors Learn more about the contributors who make us proud of our Winter 2013 edition.

LETTER FROM THE EDITORS POETRY         A Convention of Ordinary Astophysicists Attends by Jodie Marion         A Father's Love by Darlene Pagán         Before Going to Murder by the Book, We Stop at Zell's by Carol Frischmann         Decomposition by Pat Phillips West         Dream by Jodie Marion         Fishtail by Margaret Chula         From the 7th Floor of Doernbecher Children's Hospital by Larina Warnock         Inside the Basilica del Voto Nacional, Quito, Ecuador by Stella Jeng Guillory         Interview with My Mother by Cindy Williams Gutiérrez         Mail Call by Darlene Pagán         Midnight Choices by Kathryn Ridall         My First Butcher by Barbara Drake         On the Banks of the Indian River by Jodie Marion         Placental Abruption by Larina Warnock         Playboys by Andrea Hollander         Saturday Visitation by Kelly Running         The Blizzard of '78 by Darlene Pagán         The Hundred Names of Love by Annie Lighthart         The Old Life by Andrea Hollander PROSE         Bennett's Outing by Julia Clark Salmon         Whale by Lyssa Tall Anolik         Wisdom Tree by Julie Rogers ART         Man with Chicken by Anne John         Ancient Abstract by Anne John         Blowing Bubbles by Betty Joe Armstrong         Stormscape by Jean Harkin         Nick's Jays by Huon Quach         Diptych by Huon Quach YOUNG VOICES         Different by Emily Boring         Old Clock by Erin Blackburn         Drink by Julien Signorini CONTRIBUTORS