Moving Day
We shield our children from the truth as much as we can, tell them we’re moving because the new home will be so much better
Driftwood
You say you won’t miss him when he’s gone and yet, you know it isn’t true. When he leaves the day will sift through your hands like only so much sand
Trimming Texas Cacti
The words no longer carried any meaning: "I am sorry for your loss." So rehearsed and animatronic- Like the pitch of a very bored salesman
Rust Never Sleeps
by Annie Neugebauer The tractor sleeps in yellowed fields of hay, deprived of rightful color, tires flat, and isolated there is where he’ll stay, for oxidizing orange has wrapped his back
Nights in Texas
by Annie Neugebauer Trying to catch the lull between August heat and the far side of gloaming, I tug weed after weed
Melon
by Gregory Luce January in Washington: Moving through my workplace I catch a scent of watermelon
(Mexican man)
by Corey Hutchins I walked by him with a light air of disdain as a mask for my unfashionable curiosity and pity. A heart-wrenchingly beautiful Mexican man, a boy whose skin the sun craved to seduce with its embracing heat, Was crouched in front of the coffee shop, picking up with working hands pieces of plastic and wire. Everyone walked past him without a second glance, if they had given him a first. The manager sternly instructed him to use the bathroom quickly because they were closing when he finally raised himself and stumbled in. But I secretly loved his chestnut skin as I quietly sipped my coffee And wished I hadn’t looked at him like I had before for the sake of my friend’s judgment. Corey Hutchins recently completed her master’s degree in Renaissance literature from the University of Edinburgh and is living and working in Plano, Texas, as volunteer coordinator for the North Texas Food Bank. Her poetry has been published by Windmill, Shinshi, and a handful of stones. About this poem, she says, "I live in Texas, and this particular piece was inspired by the ambivalent relationship a lot of people around here have with the growing Hispanic population. This is someone's first shameful realization of her own hidden racism."
Mornings at the Pond
by Tammy L. Beevers I watch him each morning, this blue heron statuesque in his indigo feather suit. He crouches, legs folded precisely waiting. and watching as fish flirt with the water’s edge and death. The heron strikes, his beak instantly a skewer, his neck elongated, beautiful as an orchid stem. Startled by sound, he stretches his wings, soars, then dives and disappears into the dense green. Tammy L. Beevers hails from Seneca Falls, New York, but says she's really a born-again Texan who's called Central Texas home for over 30 years. Her poem "Aspen" has been chosen as one of 10 winning poems for San Antonio's Via Metropolitan Transit's “Poetry on the Move” contest during National Poetry Month 2011, and “Texas Panhandle Slow Drive” appears in 2011 Texas Poetry Calendar.
Mimosa
by Gregory Luce "I remember the way the mimosa tree buttered the shade Outside the basement bedroom, soaked in its yellow bristles." - Charles Wright I too remember mimosas two of them in my grandparents’ yard the pink bottle-brush blossoms helicoptering down the almost-not-there scent trailing and how I had to sweep them off the driveway or scrape them when the rain glued them down to the concrete how hateful the labor and how much would I give to do it again now as my grandfather finishes mowing the lawn after dinner and starts the sprinklers and we go inside for one last iced tea cicadas burring the evening air. Gregory Luce was born in Texas and still resides below the Mason-Dixon line in Washington, D.C., where he works as production specialist for the National Geographic Society. He is the author of two chapbooks, "Signs of Small Grace" and "Drinking Weather." His poems have appeared in Kansas Quarterly, Cimarron Review, Innisfree Poetry Review, If, Northern Virginia Review, Juke Jar, Praxilla, Little Patuxent Review, Buffalo Creek Review and in the anthology, "Living in Storms." To find out more, visit his blog or follow him on Twitter @dctexpoet.