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Spring 2008

Poetry

VanBuren's picks:

Antonia Clark
Brad Johnson
Dale McLain
Roger Pfingston
Richard Rippon

John Anderson
Cristina Baptista
Cynthia Brackett-Vincent
Michael Brownstein
Nuala Ní Chonchúir
Alison Eastley
Brent Fisk
David Fraser
Krikor der Hohannesian
Amy MacLennan
Lisa Markowitz
Damon McLaughlin
Micki Myers
Roger Pfingston
Heather Schimel
Rachel Stewart
Lafayette Wattles

Flash Fiction

On Debunking Modern Art

Alex Nodopaka

Pushcart Nominees

Editors

Jennifer VanBuren
Jai Britton
Patrick Carrington

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Holly Day

Letter to Emek

can you still see yourself
in your paintings? Or is it all
commissioned up-and-down strokes, automatic
order-filling, someone else's head

in your own
choosing your colors and you
are not the 16-year-old I barely got to know
do you ever


see me in these letters, these poems
scribbled on napkins before rushing to work
wadded up in my pockets found only
weeks later and I
did not write them and I don't know
who did



Fusion

it's some 15th century obsession
that can easily be explained away
but I can't shake the feeling, the strangest impression
that at some point, I turned into a bird


when I close my eyes I can feel
my feet leave the ground, just up on my toes
the wind pulls my body and tugs at my hair
and the wings almost rip themselves free from
my skin


but I think maybe I'm staying here
out of some guilt, obligations, I'm keeping
both feet firm on the ground
when the kids are all grown and my husband
is dead
just watch, I'm telling you—I can fly

Bio: Holly Day’s newest books, Music Theory for Dummies and Shakira will be in stores mid-2007. Her poetry, fiction, and nonfiction have most recently appeared in January, Philadelphia Poets, and California Quarterly. She currently works as a reporter and a writing instructor in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and lives with her two children and husband.