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      The sisters of stone wend their way in a line one after another the sisters of stone walk across the hollow lake quieten their legs on the dry drowned bridge listening they prayer their fingertips around the cupped whim stones that hold neither...

      Proposal Oh yes, I can still rise with the best of them, sink with the worst. I can play my violin outside your door as easily as spit on your roses. How would you like your jazz? Perfectly syncopated or horribly atonal? I got the sun in the...

      Arpeggio I lie awake. Night presses down my eyes. A blackbird’s song scythes through the gloom, its silver corkscrew ripple reminding me the days are longer now.     Susan Castillo Street is Harriet Beecher Stowe Professor Emerita,...

      The Fisherman King A man who lived alone worked in the city. One day, as he left the building, he heard a kkss underfoot. He looked down. He’d stepped on a crisp.. He sniffed. Cheese and onion. He ignored it and walked on. As he left the coffee...

      Pink Legs I want to be a bird she says Which one? I don’t know A small one With a strong voice One that likes to sing on summer afternoons Long nostalgic notes No, a single long nostalgic note, like sweeeeeeeeeeee That ends in a question...

      Getting Away with It In the hardware store you tuck a chainsaw under your shirt and walk out grinning like a grill. In the pharmacy you glom handfuls of expensive pills and pocket them. In the bookstore you stand and read a book right through and...

      The Gamekeeper’s Son Unfortunately, Julian, you’ve missed the First World War. His history teacher, Mr. Perks, owlish, gentle, self-contained, welcomes him back from his illness. The boy’s attention has to leap from Sarajevo to the armistice. But...

      Climbing the Cage We climb the wire, one leg over the flash of a ‘Hazard’ sign, hide nothing but mums’ words: ‘If police get you, don’t call us.’ Portakabin opens with a chisel. The scatter of drill-bits by the on- switch, squeals of laughter,...

    Pleasant Valley Sunday She’s a breeze beyond my white fence pastel-colored kite tailing behind, a blur of pinks & peaches & as she & her mom pass: we wave like neighbors who don’t know each other’s names. This little girl is six, maybe seven,...

      The Anniversary Every February I remember. I have it marked in my diary and sometimes I take annual leave but that’s not to say I don’t remember at other times - like when a song comes on or I’m buying magazines in the Co op and I’m back in that...

      The single woman’s toolbox It began with a claw hammer, for removing lingering doubt and to bludgeon home the point that Yes, I know my own mind and No is my final answer. I don’t need to ask a friend. The pliers came soon after, along with the...

    When the Saints Came We waited for them to heal us. Took them gifts of honey, a rabbit-skin bag. Showed them how to till and plant crops with foresight. How to sweeten bitter leaves by boiling. We helped them quarry rock, carve the blocks, stack them fit...

      A Chapel in the Woods There is a chapel in the woods. We should have been married there. The vines and the growth overcoming the building Except for the doors that would open to welcome us. There is a cabin in the woods. We should have lived there...

      'Once Upon a May Day Morning, a Father Takes His Three Daughters on a Greenline Bus Deep Into the Green Rolling Countryside of Kent.' He packs a picnic, hard boiled eggs with the shell still on to protect them, tomatoes, crisps, ham sandwiches....

      Basic Anthropology You liked to break trees, one dry branch at a time, and test your full weight against the centuries inside. When the tree was gone, you longed for witnesses to understand your regret. You liked to burn books in a random sequence...

      Eight hundred and four full moons I do not – cannot – quite recall How many full moons I actually have or haven’t seen, How many I have missed, So intent on the business of this world, Its instants and circumstances. Put it like this: I only...