Erica Reid

Weatherman

The biggest mistake a beginner can make

is to collect the wrong things. Rain, clouds,

sun, sure. But weather is a texture that lays

across our days. The way we cough in the haze

of summer wildfires. The laundry that is never

hung to dry before the storm. Not only a warmth

but the smell of the melt. The taste of a mist.

How my sinuses act on a morning like this.

Folks assume you need a bunch of specific tools

for this job, but for the most part I find

simple household items work best. I catch rain

in a bent thimble my wife was throwing out.

I use a measuring tape, same as you’d get

at Home Depot, to scrape the clouds—

the tape reaches tall, then packs up neat.

I sift through snow using an old fitted sheet.

It’s difficult at first, but you learn over time.

Now the line of slim vials on my dining room wall

tells a story of each freeze and thaw, of the depth

of every fog. I’ve gathered the hiss of sleet,

the texture of wind, the crack of the bough when

the lightning split. The exact shimmer of dew

at the day’s first light. The umami of night.

Erica Reid is the author of Ghost Man on Second, winner of the Donald Justice Poetry Prize (Autumn House Press, 2024). Erica’s poems appear in Rattle, Cherry Tree, Colorado Review, and more. ericareidpoet.com

Ellen Sander

Repair

for Claire Millikin Raymond

A hole in the red cashmere stretches,

more fray, the strands’ surrender.

One flaw in the entire jumper. A puka.

Let to grow, it’ll eat the whole thing. And

if noticed, what?  Shame?  Sloth?

The needle is curved, wide slit for floss.

In and out, a weave, stitches a bit off-kilter

but every turn tighter until the last

in/under, two loops and a skinny knot.

Colors merge, the stitches pinch,

a barely perceptible dimpled

wrinklet in time, imperfect

evidence of how I can’t let go of damage.

With so much wrong, it helps to mend

even something small, in a world so mean

that ravel and unravel mean the same.

A native New Yorker, Ellen Sander came to Belfast, Maine from Bolinas and L.A.  by way of Beijing, and was the Poet Laureate of Belfast in 2013 and 2014. In the first pack of writers in the 1960s to invent and establish rock journalism, she's the author of Trips: Rock Life in the Sixties, a widely cited chronicle/memoir of those times recently reissued in an augmented edition by Dover Publications. Her most recent poetry book is Aquifer, published by Red Bird Chapbooks.  Hawthorne, A House In Bolinas, a poetic memoir, is published by Finishing Line Press.

Dawn Potter

Maine

heres what its like

you wait all day for ringo & eric to show up with their beater truck to

plow you out so you can go get that pregnancy stick for the baby you

hope is swelling only in your fears but

the snow is snowing like theres a snow factory grinding out

a million pounds of snow an hour & under the drifts the

car looks like two hippos asleep in a white

tent & jeff the guy who may or may not have knocked you up

is clanking around in the woodshed supposedly getting more wood

for the stove but probably getting stoned

& on the radio the tinny voice of weatherman jack advises

hold your horses folks this is shaping up to be a big one & every

time snow slides off the metal roof the old dog

wakes up with a snort & starts barking & the baby you may or may

not be growing gives a lurch that is definitely not real but could also

be an omen & all around the cabin the fir

trees the white pines the tamaracks loom like messages from god

you should of learned something by now say the god trees we gave

you every chance & the snow keeps snowing

& you hear a fat squirrel chewing up fiberglass inside a wall &

your heart skips in your chest just a little skip like the way

a baby lets out a tiny cry while its still asleep

the way a baby might cry if it was real if you was its mother tucking

it into a basket tucking in the blanket all around slinging

the basket over your arm then the two of you

taking your chance

Dawn Potter is the author or editor of ten books of prose and poetry—most recently the poetry collection Calendar. A finalist for the National Poetry Series, she has also won a Maine Literary Award for nonfiction and has received grants and fellowships from the Elizabeth George Foundation, the Writer's Center, and the Maine Arts Commission. Her poems and essays have appeared in the Beloit Poetry Journal, the Sewanee Review, the Threepenny Review, the Times Literary Supplement, and many other journals. After teaching at the Frost Place for more than a decade, she now leads poetry programs at Monson Arts. She lives in Portland, Maine. Facebook. Instagram. Bluesky.