Winter 2013: Poetry
Playboys
by Andrea Hollander
My first was the one I spotted in the basement storage closet stacked with the Newsweeks and Good Housekeepings behind the tower of empty shoe boxes my parents saved in case one of the birds died or my brother wanted a garage for his toy cars or I a bed for a doll. I found my second, the morning I was sent to fetch an empty coffee mug from the nightstand on my father’s side of their bed. The woman on the cover resembled my sixth grade teacher dressed in only a lacy, white camisole and lacy, white underpants, her navel exposed, a pair of long, black fishnets almost all the way up her thighs. I stood beside their bed and turned from one glossy woman to the next until I came to the centerfold, which I opened slowly, wanting to take in what was hidden but wanting to take it one careful moment at a time, the way I opened birthday presents, not thinking at first of my father at all, my mouth agape at her complete, uncomplicated nakedness, then startled enough to wonder what he wanted with these women when he had my mother, and later, when she shouted up from the kitchen, I worried if I should tell her and if I did what she would do about it.
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Enjoy the richness: thirteen poets, nineteen poems, and a diversity of style and craft. |
Three memoirists share their emotional truths in these slices-of-life. |
Our featured artist, as well as painters and photographers, provide colorful visions that will leave you seeing the world in new ways. |
Three emerging writers share talent and creativity far beyond their years. |
Learn more about the contributors who make us proud of our Winter 2013 edition. |