Today’s Topic: Poetry
Editors note: We had two poetry submissions and zero fiction submissions; so we made a last minute change to our Paddlers Always Write topic this issue. Be sure to check out the topics for next year in the lower right of this page.
Dropping Rocks, Dropping Shells
by Hutch Brown
She calls me to her. She says, Give me your hand. My palm
opens before me like she opens for me. In my palm she lays
a shell the more beautiful because it is from her
hand to mine. Together we stare and draw in each other’s
breath between the fall and
rise of waves and the sounds they make when they go in
and out like they do. Of course
it is beautiful, it’s a shell my
love chose. She leaves it in my hand and moves on her
hair blowing her head bowed. I take courage from the sea
and the way it runs and comes back despite itself, leaving some
collecting others. My pockets full of her shells and
her
rocks she bends again to the beach. Love, I say, what do you
want me to do with all
these ? I don’t know do I keep them or just look ? She
smiles at my maleness, always co-
llecting, counting, keeping track. They’re yours to do with
what you like. Chuck them or bury them. I just want to
show you what they look like. Later I watch her bend and
put
from her hand a rock like all the others. When she moved
on I stepped and bent closer.
I saw a place for this one nature herself would overlook.
Maine Table
by Hutch Brown
His brow carries the creases
of a cardboard box warped
by wind and rain and swept
to the road side. He sucks
his menthol, on his face the lines
severe in serious fold, writhe
as a mouthful of smoke hangs
for a beat, like smoke hung in
front of a mouth before it’s drug
back to its own in subtle sudden
need and then
“Life is the same all over,” he
says and finds his is nothing other.
“It just beats you down
you make money and it goes
it beats you down and you
never catch up.” I sit in
silence, nod.
His forehead winces quick guard
against smoke in the eye or when
clarity is sharp like sunlight through
the glass and all the ants come and go.
Exhaled breath another day gone down.
Lower River
by Cecil Gray
The white
sun of august, eclectic,
glints across many
small waves
before me; each
single sun spot burning
itself into my
heart. they are pure,
almost holy, and I
give them all to
you, for soon they
will leap from their
brief window to follow
the cusping tiger lily
on its sudden
road to fall
where memories wait
quietly in
the hollow lull
of season.
