Manthipe Moila

Persimmon 

While waiting for friends in an alleyway 

you might make a detour and come upon 

a persimmon tree; it’s branches bare save 

for the unripe fruit, it’s floor carpeted with

leaves drying and dead.

You might remember Daegu, the first 

time you saw a persimmon: your co-

workers doling out pieces of the fruit, 

your befuddlement at why they were 

eating tomatoes like that. 

You might trace, with your eyes, what

seems like lines of decay that taper off into 

bursts of orange; you might think there is a 

sweetness at the heart of all that bruising; 

that there is a creature that made it through. 

*산 is a mountain I

With a line from Emily Dickinson’s “Rouge Gagne” or “‘Tis so much joy! ‘Tis so much joy!”  l  Bliss is but bliss, and breath but breath!

and when we search desperately for Bliss

and it comes to us as an alleyway that is 

paved green-grey, and slopes upward but 

tapers off at a slant; this bliss

which feints towards a dead-end and 

is really leading to true green, to breath:

a false sun which is a mountain which is but 

a friend holding space for us, for yet more breath 

*산, the Korean word for mountain pronounced ‘sun’

Manthipe Moila is a poet from Johannesburg, South Africa. She holds a BA Hons. in English Literature from Rhodes University. She has been published in New Contrast, Stirring and Kalahari Review. Her upcoming publications will appear in Tupelo Quarterly and Agbowó. She is currently based in Seoul, South Korea.

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Maureen Clark

Paradoxical Lucidity

                        for my father

in the future    we will say that you suffered Alzheimer’s    

although suffer is not the right word             

you stumbled                          you stuttered               you were submerged  

you lost your keys                   missed the exit                        forgot how to make change

could not lift your foot            over the threshold                   into the shower

forgot why you held a toothbrush                   what the soap was for 

every morning a new landscape         of foreign grasses to navigate

you stood crying at 3 am        in the pasture             

you sit beneath your oil painting        of ducks taking off in the sunset        

in that god-awful recliner                   your brushes barely dry         

and know nothing of yourself the artist          the jewelry maker

your marksmanship with a gun          and ask            are you the girl who brings the lunch

and I am          a lucid moment in a paradoxical world         

Maureen Clark is a retired assistant professor of the University of Utah, where she taught writing for 20 years. She was the president of Writers @ Work 1999-2001, and the director of the University Writing Center from 2010-2014. Her poems have appeared in Bellingham Review, Colorado Review, Alaska Review, The Southeast Review, and Gettysburg Review, among others. Her first book, This Insatiable August, is forthcoming from Signature Books in Spring 2024.

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Nancy Jean Hill

The Hawk

One morning, after eating bacon and eggs,

I saw a red-tailed hawk

swipe—such a blur—

a mourning dove

from underneath our feeder.

Carried it in her talons

to the highest branch

of the tallest tree

in our backyard.

I stood at the kitchen window,

my horrified, innocent self,

and called for my husband,

who is more intimate

with such scenes,

to stand beside me.

Holding hands, we watched

the blood and guts,

the dove’s distressingly slow demise,

the hawk’s meticulous satisfaction.

Geographic Atrophy

My husband and I fought

when he pointed out a spot

I missed while washing our new skillet.

I know this is hard for you to see, he said

and then suggested I let him

wash all things with black interiors.

My beautiful blue eyes have betrayed me.

I fear, when I go out in public,

 that I have hair on my face I can’t see.

Stains on the front of all my shirts.

Friends on the street are strangers.

Expressions on loved ones’ faces erased.

My retina specialist tells me

small atrophic lesions

in the macula of both eyes

want to spread, get bigger,

at a speed no one can predict,

the way separate clouds

 join to make bigger clouds

leaving only small cracks of blue.

Winter Solstice

Bundled up, I watch the man 

I am beginning to love

 celebrate with fire.

A woman sitting near me

in a low lawn chair rambles

about the rubble in her life,

her powerlessness to heed

the Lord’s Prayer,

to stay away from temptation,

the Adonis who beats peace out of her

not with his fist but with his way

of showing up in the middle of the night

with an insatiable desire to suck.

After I have listened to her

for a long while, I move

away, closer to the man

who continues to feed the fire.

The Champion’s Daughter

Father taught me to bump and run.

Pressed my wrists forward on the club,

told me to close the face, keep an open stance.

Ten or twenty yards from the pin,

this is your best shot, he said.

I felt awkward in an open stance—

off-balance—afraid if I moved

I would lose everything.

But Father was two-time club champ,

and I was his daughter.

The idea is to keep the ball low,

stay in control.

I felt out of control,

pubescent sweat

pooling in my arm pits.

But Father was two-time club champ,

and I was his daughter.

Swing it like a pendulum —

take it back and follow through.

I took the club back too far

came down too hard

left a flapping divot.

Don’t cock your wrists, honey.

Keep them good and stiff.

I mustered up guts,

topped the ball this time,

rolled it way past the pin.

You forgot the bump part.

Try it again.

Head down

and a bucket of balls,

I practiced.

Today I am the champion’s daughter.

Ask anyone.

Bumping and running

is the best part of my game.

How to Shed the Armor

after Jennifer Sweeney

Get rid of the Spanx.

Wear a frilly dress with confidence.

Stop fretting about the bulge.

Strip.

Lie naked in the dandelions,

pained with sensation.

Go back to being a virgin.

Feel the sorrow of losing.

Trudge through the forest

of uprooted trees.

Roll in poison ivy. 

Stop scratching.

Sink your teeth

into a moss-covered rock.

Let your jaw relax.

Taste the green.

Nancy Jean Hill is the author of two collections of poetry, Beryllium Diary (Pudding House, 2007, and rereleased by Igneus Press, 2015) and Unholy Ghost (Kelsay Books, 2016). Her poems have also appeared in several literary journals and anthologies.    She lives and writes in Exeter, NH and Readfield, ME.

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