a gallery opens, / a mural of trees rust and russet
Carotenoid
Book Review: Candescent, by Linda Parsons
This is no self-pitying record of defeat, but a book of rebirth and restoration, a fact suggested by several poems’ titles: “O Forgiveness,” “Therapy Dog,” “The Art of Meditation,” “Battered Victory,” “Stand Up,” “As I Meditate,” “Learning to Glide,” and “Inner Work.” It is a book of candescent triumph.
Lessons about Light
I want to lasso the sun and drag it down / to my deathbed. A lament become / a lantern.
Book Review: In Bloom, by Esteban Rodriguez
Rodríguez looks and looks again at childhood, family, religion, and the Colonias of South Texas. Amidst the unincorporated residential areas along the US/Mexico border, these poems take root, rise up, and open their mouths to speak about what is found there.
The 200 Pagan Students of St. Cassian of Imola
And what did they write with their iron styli, / what complaints carve into his scholar skin
Believe
Seven schools in twelve years— / my childhood shifted pillar to post.
Book Review: We Are Meant to Carry Water, by Tina Carlson, Stella Reed, and Katherine DiBella Seluja
There is no way to separate a book published by 3: A Taos Press from its evocative layout. In this case, Carlson, Reed, and Dibella Seluja’s poetry collection, We Are Meant to Carry Water, takes for its cover image a sculpture by Lene Kilde, “The Nutmeg Princess,” part of The Molinere Underwater Sculpture Park near Grenada.
Sheltering In
When this is over, your hair / will be to your waist and the curls / may be gone, the way they stretch / even now into loose waves I want / to bury my eyes into
Count
Maybe the doctor thought thus when she ordered / the cesarean, cutting in before Nature could bare / her jagged red-tinged teeth.
Psaltery & Lyre 