Summer 2016: Poetry

Didn’t We Touch Clouds?

by Eileen Pettycrew

Didn’t my father and I 
stand side by side 

on the red cotton picker
as he steered it through the rows?

We rode on the contraption 
high above the field 

as clatter thrummed my chest, 
drowned out my happy singing. 

The picker vacuumed the dry 
and open bolls, propelled 

cotton through dark channels 
into the metal basket on top, 

whose hinged jaws opened 
to dump its bounty 

into the trailer at field’s edge. 
We climbed into the trailer 

after each load, my father 
reaching into the basket 

to empty the last of the cotton, 
while I helped spread it out, 

and the day smelled of dirt
and twigs and sky. But 

my father remembers only 
a hard life hoisting 

hay bales, digging irrigation 
ditches, fixing the tractor 

that kept breaking down. 
His broken-down heart 

is a basket of regrets
that never empties. 

I break down my memory 
into its moving parts:

The valves and tubing 
of my father’s heart. 

A faint song rising 
from tender lungs. 

The silence 
of freshly picked cotton.

He and I touched clouds.
We held them in our hands.

Poetry A sampling of the powerful female creative force thriving in our region.		Prose Six women dazzle us with both their honesty and humor.		Artwork Four artists use layering and process as metaphors for life beyond art.		Contributors Meet the fabulous women behind the voices and visions of our ninth issue.

LETTER FROM THE MANAGING EDITOR POETRY         Isabel's Purse by Deborah Akers         refuge by Deborah Akers         Kiteboarder at Road's End by Cathy Cain         Caramel is Made at the Verge of Burning by Deborah Dombrowski         Controlled Burn by Linda Drach         Approaching Seventy by Carol Ellis         Zygote by Nancy Flynn         In Collision by Delia Garigan         My Mother's Hair by Leanne Grabel         Sheen by Leanne Grabel         Allegiance by Melanie Green         on my two thousand, seven hundred and fourth sabbath by Melanie Green         Sitting Shiva on My Birthday by Andrea Hollander         Laws of Physics by Andrea Hollander         I Want to Unfold by Tricia Knoll         My Stairway by Tricia Knoll         Fancy by Barbara LaMorticella         How to Know When You are Dreaming by Jone Rush MacCulloch         Didn't We Touch Clouds? by Eileen Pettycrew         Playlist by Suzanne Sigafoos         No Exit by Charlotte Udziela         Living Alone by Pat Phillips West         My Husband's Handwriting by Pat Phillips West PROSE         Let Me Explain by Carisa Miller         The Itching by Elizabeth Scott         Ben by Edee Lemonier         The Passenger by Alex Behr         Risk Takers by Ashley-Renee Cribbins         Cooking Lessons by Joanna Rose ART         Featured Art by Jeni Lee         I Never Promised You a Rose Garden #1 by Katherine Mead         I Never Promised You a Rose Garden #4 by Katherine Mead         I Never Promised You a Rose Garden #5 by Katherine Mead         Stasis by Sarah Laird         Candescence by Sarah Laird         Candescence (detail) by Sarah Laird         Homage to Comfort Women Throughout the World by Carolyn Campbell         The Beguiling Beauty of Life in Distress by Carolyn Campbell         Reflections of Transitioning by Carolyn Campbell CONTRIBUTORS