If the Body's a Text
by Madie McCarren

If the body's a text,
in what form would I be written?
With a life that was so
beautiful as mine,
where would you find
the words of a woman
who lived each day
as if it were her last?
Now it is
her last days.
Would I be a newspaper
left between the seats
of the early morning train?
or a book, bought from the discount rack
in efforts to fill an empty bookshelf?
Would this text be transcribed
in a song, my story survived
by music?
If nothing at all, I leave my life
as a few diaries, written on cheap
notebook paper, spirally bound.
Those who want to read these pages
can only chose to do so
and I hope that when they're finished
they leave a mark on my text
in the form of a coffee stain,
a name of ownership on the front cover,
or a telephone message quickly jotted down
so that their story can be
part of my text and my text
can eventually be part of theirs.

-

The Backstretch
by Vin Manta

I hate the backstretch
I can deal with the first fifty
The third one hundred isn't even that bad
Even the final stretch doesn't compare to the backstretch
It eats at you-

Looking down that long strip of dyed rubber
You begin to feel week
Your lungs begin to simmer
Slowly rising a biting burn
Where each breath is a battle

That's when I get in my head
When that nagging voice say
"You're too tired; you're weak"
I try so hard to block it,
But it insists on making itself heard

They say, oh you just cruise her
They say, The next hundred meters is where the grind begins

I say no

It's the anticipation that gets me
I can run through the pain when it hits me
But I just can't wait for it.

-

These Hands
by Rebecca Fisher

Your hands touched where my hands touch

I can still feel your presence
The pressure of your fingers,
The warmth of your hands

I trace the fingers standing tall
Our hands-the same size

I rap my knuckles against this stone where yours were once

Do you hear?
I am speaking to you

You who traced your hands here

I wonder if we would have liked the same music
If your music would have been the wind through the trees
While mine is the sweet hum of a violin
Or the hard notes of the piano

I put my palm against yours

Now my fingers want to type out a message
on this laptop!
Aren't we the same?
Both writing our feelings-
Expressing our thoughts-

Mine through this poem
Yours through the tracings of your hand

I wonder what you meant when you drew your hands up on this wall
What is it you express in the lines of your hands?
What did you wish to convey

Or maybe it was just an assignment given by a teacher
Like this poem

-

Every Winter Morning
by Sierra Lanfranco

I know a boy
who counts clouds in the sky
every winter morning

I don't have a reason
for telling you this

(I have never woken
myself up and seen
his morning ritual)

other than to tell you
that I always imagined the sight
of his ruddy cheeks in the icy wind
beautiful.
But today I can think of nothing
but the icy wind
in the early morning darkness instead, and
I want to give that boy
a flashlight
and a scarf to cover his face
and tell him he can trust

millions of twisted fibers, only woven together

-

Ziploc
by Margaret Silbaugh

The plastic container is airtight
Which means nothing can get in.

Can people be airtight?
Can nothing get in?

I am not airtight.
I'm not

-

Merwin
by Scott Bown

little phrases strung like
beads in a necklace to
form your stunted stanzas while
a metaphor placed among
multitudes of fellows to
tell the story even you are
unsure of
death and nature like
a line of headstones on a lawn
mesh in your lines
your words unlikely couples confuse
and excite me as
reading is like looking at a complex
piece in a gallery filled with only
myself
you expand language with
the deft wrist of a chef
chopping and sweeping
painting with tastes
but
I am always left wondering
how?

-

Spinning
by Elliot Williams

I am staggered by
The sudden loss of equilibrium and
Regaining of a childhood
That was too slippery to hold
As I learned to stand up.

A heavy realization that spinning
Is all we know how to do.
It's just that as we grow older,
It becomes less fun.
It becomes less free.

Still, we must turn
And turn again.
And when we cease to turn
Is when we feel the tremor the most,
And everything spins around us instead.

And those that stand on the side
Of the rink,
Those that watch their friends and loved
Ones do corkscrews on all the rides
At the amusement park, saying,
"No, go ahead, really. Have fun,
I'm fine waiting here,"
They secretly wish they were also
Losing their balance and
Spinning
Forever.

-