2009 (Volume 21)

 

One of our themes in this issue centers around relationships — dissolving, strained, betrayed, lost and sometimes regained.

 

In Michael Schmeltzer's "A Subtle Collapse" a relationship is collapsing like ice cubes melting. "I ask her to pay attention to the exact moment / ice becomes water." In "Fastening Myself to You," Laurie Johns' speaker uses the metaphor of a fabric to describe the end of a relationship. "Somewhere between our threading and my unraveling is a tapestry of words loosening."

 

Russ Franklin's "Confluence," also about endings, shows how two men, fishing buddies, will part "after the last beers we drink together." In Elizabeth Onusko's "Cuttings" — the speaker faces loss in the intimate relationship with her husband because she doesn't want to get pregnant again and decides to do something about it.

 

"Listening to the Corn Grow" by Dar Hurni deals with grief for his father. "Hunger roars in my gut since your death." The speaker transforms the imperfections in his father into beauty and mystery, and grief becomes a "harvest" that will transform death into life.