Trail dust

Leaving Maricopa

Driving to Tucson, I-10
tires could melt at any second,
gluing the car to the asphalt.
Around me, the dead are rising
from across the oranges, browns, purples, desert.
Zuni chiefs, from their cliff-side pueblos,
curse this foreigner cruising through their home,
top down and sweating like hell.
Dead cowboys, lost travelers,
Tom Mix, white as a ghost and his
double decapitation.
They vanish at the city limits,
falling back into their dust and sand.

by William Brent Wright

 "Prairie Magic" by Colleen Burner

In the attic

When I got home from work and found only my mother, she told me that my father had turned into a sparrow and had joined the others making a mess in the attic’s drafts and rafters. She had caught him in a plastic basket and was keeping him trapped there, fluttering and frantic, with a large leather-bound atlas to cover the top. The poor thing bore no resemblance to my father, but I fixed my mother a cup of chamomile tea and put her to bed early, my hand resting on her dear, troubled head until she fell asleep. Then I took the basket up to the attic and switched the bird out for the right one. My mother’s eyesight had never been good.

by Kara McKeever

 

Slide 5, by Leanna Sparks

Words and image

              "And Lo, I Forgot What I Came Up Here For"

by Colleen Burner**

Mind

Tiantong Rujing, amid the tumultuous clacking
of a bamboo forest during a thunderstorm:
“Ten thousand hands, clapping
for this spectacle staged by the gods!”

The diva, Mme Brillant, in the resounding applause
of a standing audience after her solo:
“As fickle as temperamental gods—
and their clapping the only assurance!”

by Stephen E. Childress 


**More of Colleen Burner's hand-made collages can be seen at http://www.frenchforgluing.com or http://www.frenchforgluing.tumblr.com Prints of these babies are available for sale through an online shop: http://society6.com/FrenchForGluing.