Sixfold Poetry Winter 2014

By Sixfold

Sixfold is an all-writer-voted journal. All writers who upload their manuscripts vote to select the highest-voted $1000 prize-winning manuscripts and all the short stories and poetry published in each issue.
In Sixfold Poetry Winter 2014:
Debbra Palmer | Bake Sale & other poems
Ann V. DeVilbiss | Far Away | Like a Mirror & other poems
Michael Fleming | On the Bus & other poems
Harold Schumacher | Dying To Say It & other poems
Heather Erin Herbert | Georgia’s Advent & other poems
Sharron Singleton | Sonnet for Small Rip-Rap & other poems
Bryce Emley | College Beer & other poems
Harry Bauld | On a Napkin & other poems
George Mathon | Do You See Me Waving? & other poems
Mariana Weisler | Soft Soap and Wishful Thinking & other poems
Michael Kramer | Nighthawks | Kaua’i & other poems
Jill Murphy | Migration & other poems
Cassandra Sanborn | Remnants & other poems
Kendall Grant | Winter Love Note & other poems
Donna French McArdle | White Blossoms at Night & other poems
Tom Freeman | On Foot | Joliet | Illinois & other poems
George Longenecker | Nest & other poems
Kimberly Sailor | The Bitter Daughter & other poems
Rebecca Irene | Woodpecker & other poems
Savannah Grant | And Not As Shame & other poems
Michael Hugh Lythgoe | Titian Left No Paper Trail & other poems
Martin Conte | We’re Not There & other poems
A. Sgroi | Sore Soles & other poems
Miguel Coronado | Body-Poem & other poems
Franklin Zawacki | Experience Before Memory & other poems
Tracy Pitts | Stroke & other poems
Rachel A. Girty | Collapse & other poems
Ryan Flores | Language Without Lies & other poems
Margie Curcio | Gravity & other poems
Stephanie L. Harper | Painted Chickens & other poems
Nicholas Petrone | Running Out of Space & other poems
Danielle C. Robinson | A Taste of Family Business & other poems
Meghan Kemp-Gee | A Rhyme Scheme & other poems
Tania Brown | On Weeknights & other poems
James Ph. Kotsybar | Unmeasured & other poems
Matthew Scampoli | Paddle Ball & other poems
Jamie Ross | Not Exactly & other poems
Contributor Notes

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sixfold
• Release date: Mar 18, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310492877

Sixfold

Sixfold is an all-writer-voted short-story and poetry journal. All writers who submit their manuscripts vote to select the highest-voted $1000 prize-winning manuscripts and all the short stories and poetry published in each issue.

Book preview

Sixfold Poetry Winter 2014

by Sixfold

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2015 Sixfold and The Authors

www.sixfold.org

Sixfold is a completely writer-voted journal. The writers who upload their manuscripts vote to select the prize-winning manuscripts and the short stories and poetry published in each issue. All participating writers’ equally weighted votes act as the editor, instead of the usual editorial decision-making organization of one or a few judges, editors, or select editorial board.

Published quarterly in January, April, July, and October, each issue is free to read online and downloadable as PDF and e-book. Paperback book available at production cost including shipping.

Cover image: Anna Atkins (British, 1799 - 1871) and Anne Dixon (British, 1799 - 1877)
Adiantum Capillus Veneris., 1853, Cyanotype
25.4 x 20 cm (10 x 7 7/8 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

License Notes

Copyright 2015 Sixfold and The Authors. This issue may be reproduced, copied, and distributed for noncommercial purposes, provided both Sixfold and the Author of any excerpt of this issue are acknowledged. Thank you for your support.

Sixfold

Garrett Doherty, Publisher

[e-mail]

www.sixfold.org

[phone]

Sixfold Poetry Winter 2014

Debbra Palmer | Bake Sale & other poems

Ann V. DeVilbiss | Far Away | Like a Mirror & other poems

Michael Fleming | On the Bus & other poems

Harold Schumacher | Dying To Say It & other poems

Heather Erin Herbert | Georgia’s Advent & other poems

Sharron Singleton | Sonnet for Small Rip-Rap & other poems

Bryce Emley | College Beer & other poems

Harry Bauld | On a Napkin & other poems

George Mathon | Do You See Me Waving? & other poems

Mariana Weisler | Soft Soap and Wishful Thinking & other poems

Michael Kramer | Nighthawks | Kaua’i & other poems

Jill Murphy | Migration & other poems

Cassandra Sanborn | Remnants & other poems

Kendall Grant | Winter Love Note & other poems

Donna French McArdle | White Blossoms at Night & other poems

Tom Freeman | On Foot | Joliet | Illinois & other poems

George Longenecker | Nest & other poems

Kimberly Sailor | The Bitter Daughter & other poems

Rebecca Irene | Woodpecker & other poems

Savannah Grant | And Not As Shame & other poems

Michael Hugh Lythgoe | Titian Left No Paper Trail & other poems

Martin Conte | We’re Not There & other poems

A. Sgroi | Sore Soles & other poems

Miguel Coronado | Body-Poem & other poems

Franklin Zawacki | Experience Before Memory & other poems

Tracy Pitts | Stroke & other poems

Rachel A. Girty | Collapse & other poems

Ryan Flores | Language Without Lies & other poems

Margie Curcio | Gravity & other poems

Stephanie L. Harper | Painted Chickens & other poems

Nicholas Petrone | Running Out of Space & other poems

Danielle C. Robinson | A Taste of Family Business & other poems

Meghan Kemp-Gee | A Rhyme Scheme & other poems

Tania Brown | On Weeknights & other poems

James Ph. Kotsybar | Unmeasured & other poems

Matthew Scampoli | Paddle Ball & other poems

Jamie Ross | Not Exactly & other poems

Contributor Notes

Debbra Palmer

Bake Sale

Don’t eat the wrapper.

Nobody doesn’t know this.

So when my mother ate the cupcake

paper and all, in one shoved-in bite and hissed

"don’t you say a word,"

all the way home

from the Ockley Green Middle School bake sale

I thought about the paper in her stomach.

What if anyone saw her?

What would they say? Like my best friend’s mother

who taught us how to count to ten in Cherokee

and caught my father’s eye. I thought

it was because he liked her slacks

or because she worked part-time at Sears,

but my mother said it was because

she was petite and had a stick

up her ass. What would she say?

I carried my cupcake in both hands, its top

a coiled green snake with gold sprinkles.

To want anything so much, to devour it like that,

must be deadly.

In The Week Before Her Death My Mother Hallucinates in Email:

I was thirsty. I walked to the yard shed

where the women were selling water. I had

no money. I was so glad

to see the only friend I had at church.

I held out my hands and she filled them

with sweet, cool water.

I was followed by a priest. She said

she could see my unhappiness.

I told her everything

right there in the yard

it poured like white words, gushed

from my mouth like a river of tumors.

The priest said, "Come with me, my dear."

I said the only thing I know

in Japanese, the word for pocket,

poketto

and pulled from my own, a note

and unfolded it.

"Just love them," it read.

Two great white Pyrenees came to tell me

all of the beautiful things in dying.

When I asked them to walk me there,

they stood at my side and waited. This is why

I’m afraid to close my eyes.

Breasts

The first time I kissed a woman’s breasts

I understood

men

how they root and paw

how they knead and pull

to prove they’re really here

how they suck a bruise

around the nipple

how they get completely lost

in between

how they smash and grab

apologize and hang on anyway

or, how they hold two birds so gently

they can only feel them

when they let go.

Late Bloomer

"Mama had a baby and its head popped off."

The severed head of the dandelion

drops from my guillotine thumb

the yellow burst of weed

held under my chin

"Do you like butter?"

A little blonde girl whose parents are deaf

opens her mouth. "Talk like your parents," I insist,

shoving in a cud of grass.

She cries without sound—so hard

that the daisy chain crown

shakes from her head.

I just want her to speak with her hands.

I Love Parasites

I love parasites for their barbs and hooks

for their many names & forms:

Tapeworm, Poinsettia, Blood Fluke,

Twin, Mother, Jehovah’s Witness.

I love them for their shameless

savagery & nerve.

I love fetuses—also parasites

who live off the mother’s body.

Then, as nature dictates,

the mother becomes the parasite,

depositing into her offspring

her tumors, hair & teeth.

I love my twin brother who stays

alive siphoning off my blood

& laughing about it from his lovely

teratoma mouth.

I love the Jehovah’s Witness ladies

who feed off my politeness.

I love to invite them in.

We take turns holding my mother’s upper denture

like a poison leaf. I love passing around

the bag that was my mother’s prosthetic breast,

the silicone pellets hissing inside.

I love the cup of my mother’s hair

the gray curls like smoke. Before we burned her body,

she asked me if I would wear her bones

around my neck.

I already wear them,

couldn’t take them off

if I wanted to.

Ann V. DeVilbiss

Far Away, Like a Mirror

I’ve gone out walking

to see if I can meet myself

on sleeping streets

muffled with snow.

A rabbit is standing stock-still

in the center of the road,

as if refusing to move

will keep him safe.

I wonder if the rabbit is me

and how I can prove it.

At night the snow

holds the sky captive.

The rabbit sleeps curled up,

deep under the ground,

under the layers of trapped sky,

under the real sky,

which is orange like an echo,

which seems far away, like a mirror.

I go back home and try

to stay up all night.

I want to watch the snow let loose

the dawn, freeing the sky. I want to

see the light cast over the rabbit,

see it change him,

but I fall asleep again,

wake fur matted, confused.

I keep seeking new things

on all the same cold roads.

I need to know

which way to run.

I don’t know

where to run to.

Seasonal

We go west in the mornings, east

in the evenings. We know the sun

only by its heat and shadows;

we are home only when it’s dark.

The world seems full

of monsters. The grass is

uneven, sharpened by frost.

A man spits on my porch,

tells me I can’t park

in front of my house because

that’s his spot, always has been.

The stains on his teeth are older than I am.

A few weeks later he is arrested for fraud,

having let his mother’s body rot

in his house for months while he

collected her social security checks.

Once he is gone,

the house stays vacant

because of the smell, and I

park wherever I want.

Crows line the eaves

like undertakers, bray

like donkeys, begin

to outnumber us.

The world is too big

for safety, but here

in our house,

there is reason for joy.

Still, sorrow comes back,

pulled to me like

water to the moon.

Down for the Count

When the thunder rumbles

I know he is looking for me

and I count

one, two, three, four

between the flash and roar.

The row of American flags

across the street looks

downtrodden and a little afraid.

I stick close to the eaves.

Before the storm the yard

was full of strange birds,

pelicans and hummingbirds

arriving in the wrong season.

He rolls his thunder tongue

through the clouds like

a snake in amber grasses.

One, two, three, and I am