Remains
by Ernest Hilbert
The stag will leap in moonlight at neap-tide;
Specters snake the garden paths those nights,
And wraiths are glimpsed loitering on ground
Where gallows stood in the pasture above the sea.
The castle, once easily defended from all sides,
Resides high in crags, walled from the world.
All within is ruin. The keep crumbles.
The chapel, a later appendage, is half gone
Down the mountain’s face. The cistern’s dried.
No chronicle survives, but the place is rumored
To have been named for a purple flower
Or two (none agreed which one it should be).
Many heirs were slain, generations lost,
Whole villages wasted and crops put to torch,
Infants impaled on spits; even a queen
Burned alive before her great mirror,
Screeching flames lighting every cold stone
Of the chamber, waving in corners
Like sunlight on the bottom of a lagoon.
The blackened circle can still be seen
On flagstones. Visitors aim their phones
Until they find it and snap the image.
Yet these are not the ghosts they claim to see.
Those who haunt these halls and frozen hills
Are not scions of the anemic family
That gradually stabbed itself out of existence.
They are really only half-happy souls
Of those who visited once, tourists, who,
On deathbeds back home, gave last thoughts
To a summer day they came to the heights,
Vacation hours that seemed to last so long,
A vivid moment of allotted time
To travel out of the tiny circuits
In which they survived as well as they could.
By day, wearing the fashions of their time,
Ghosts feed on saxifrage like bees, and evenings
Roam the rooms, or nestle before cold hearths.
It’s not that they prefer the wet dark.
That’s just how they’re most easily seen.
They’re happiest when they ride the rays
On sunny days that dry them till they’re unseen,
Owning endless thoughts of escape to a place
That was only a prison or a graveyard
To others so unlike them, so long ago.
Union Lake
by Ernest Hilbert
The iron from the soil and acids from
Cedars have colored the water and leave
A fatty ochre sheen on you that dries
Into a thousand henna cataracts
Pouring into canals all down your spine.
After so much water, the wind is cold.
The afternoon is nearly gone, but darker than
It ought to be at this hour. Those who basked
Along the pine-scrub sand have gone. The boats
Have all been taken in. You leave the lake
And drive through forests to an empty house.
Once home, a shower steams, and earth and lake
Come off, a million silica, with all
The life that thrives in lakes, too small to see.
Once dried, you stretch on sheets, and stare at the ceiling.
You’re never washed of all that you’ve been in.
You haven’t left the lake behind. You float
Alone there still, long after any sane
Swimmer would have left. Surviving light
Seeps away until the sky is drained,
The gloomy water growing wide, dim shores
And looming trees dissolving in the dusk.
The smell of summer lingers all around.
You feel a swipe of eel along the leg, a bump
Of cedar bough that floats, soaked thick, below
The quiet surface, more, below you, murk
Astir, a universe that loves the dark
And bears you up as if you had no weight.
Who Jumped in the Water
by Carla Sarett
I woke up thinking of a poem I had written,
but forgotten. All I could recall was
it was a poem of great sadness, about
a man who jumped into the water.
No, not a man, but a boy on a summer morning
when the water was clear and fast moving
when the water was cool and delicious
when the birdsong was sweet and inviting
waking long before his mother and father
so he could be alone with the birdsong
naked in the creek they called a river,
cool and delicious in the heat of August,
when the air was still and hushed,
when no one could see where he was.
The swim would be his secret,
he would swim for hours and hours,
until his limbs lost power, and
the water's current felt like sleep.
And he felt the bed of the river,
heard birdsong above the stillness,
above the fast-flowing river,
where other boys had jumped.
I know I will never write that poem.
I will keep it with me like the secret
of the man who jumped
into the water.
They Told Me to Forget My Name
by Carla Sarett
do not ask
I can tell
no one it
sounded like
cemetery crickets
in late August
after midnight
dying with
laughter at that
line was it
Vinyl Hampton,
not Lionel Hampton
in a movie
named for a
city it's not
even close
Up My Sleeve
by Joan Mazza
you’ll find my watch— proof
I don’t have a smart phone.
See my freckled arm with tags
of aging. Look further to discover
a hankie edged in lace, an ace of any suit,
along with two crows flying,
harassing a hawk with one fish
in its beak. Oh, yes. They’re in there.
You’ll have to squint a bit to discern
within the folds of tweed the map
to treasure. Inside my sleeve
and with your hands’ warmth,
the stone egg will hatch a pterodactyl
who’ll lead you soaring toward
gold stars inside the cave
at the mountain’s first ridge,
sometimes called a rib.
When you look upon my loose
and shabby clothes, consider
what you don’t know—
the constellations in there.
And This is How the Muscles Work
by Angelo Letizia
My shoulder crumbled
Like balsa wood
As I washed it
With a soap trail
In a hot shower
The splinters scattered
And a musty smell rose
As if there was
A basement inside me
I tried to lean over
Fill it with tears
But I collapsed
And waited for the chains
The steel cables attached to my back
Hooked through the sun’s core
So I could rise with it
I have no choice but to stand now
As it burns yellow
In a cold season
Sometimes it’s the only way
When the kneecaps are broken
Or just refuse to bend
And when the radio doesn’t play
Finally the cables relax
As the moon rises
It doesn’t hold me up
Nothing does
At night
So I can sleep
Invasions
by Aaron Sandberg
Who was I to say
the vast silver disc
sliding its way
mile by mile
above the city
was an invasion
and not some lid
come to keep one
from rising up?
Curl
by Aaron Sandberg
In backs of backyards
amid our breaking news,
the world for now can spin
until the point where
centers cannot hold—
edges lifted and curled.
What are you doing,
I ask, looking up
from this poem:
I’m watching
you watch
the end of the world.