Cape Hedge, September

Eyes closed, floating face to sun

beyond the roiling breakers, I banter

with my sister who drifts belly down

on her boogieboard, both of us enthralled

by the green swells, minnow-glittering

clarity, and forgetting

the stealthy, whipsawing

undercurrents, predation masked

by sparkle and sway, and so we fail

to mark the dwindling shore,

mistake drift for drive, chance

for choice until she says, almost lazily:

oh no, rip current, swim, parallel.

We thrash in opposite directions.

She, off with an explosive kick, while

I strike a rattled rhythm, flash back

to salt-scathed signs: At Your Own Risk;

Be Shark Smart, which kindles stinging

recollections of other grave errors:

Stoli shots at the frat house

and the missing weeks after,

the sudden braking on black ice

in Vermont, my untrustworthy Mazda’s

near hurtle to oblivion

with sister, friends, skis, and the endless

falling and falling. And I call up smaller,

less consequential shames: splattered

yolk on charcoal skirt before keynote,

shin burned just short of shred

on a forbidden Harley’s tailpipe.

The old survivals comfort, buoy

me to shore where I finally crawl

onto warm sand. But no sister.

I stand, shout to her ebbing silhouette.

She waves from her boogieboard.

For a moment, bewildered, I think

I hear the ricocheting ghost of her laugh

as she spins ever further, waving,

and waving, how we always do, always

have, almost-but-never drowning.

Mary Beth Hines is the author of “Winter at a Summer House” (Kelsay, 2021). Her writing is widely published. A recent poem placed first in Naugatuck River Review’s 2025 contest and new work appears, or is forthcoming in South Florida Poetry Journal, SWWIM, Whale Road Review, and elsewhere. Connect with her at https://www.marybethhines.com

A Tree is an Example

...a tree is an example of the fourth dimension in nature ...

a diagram of the familiar which we are as yet unable to read.

– Ouspensky

A stone is a window opening into itself

extravagant with atoms and dark matter.

A glove by the side of the tracks says:

help forthcoming. Ladder leaning in air?

symbol for lovers as yet undone. Birdsong

a link to a kiss, to a city, a single black sock.

The ocean is a machine for viewing time,

a way of recalling a scorned lover

deep disappointment spreading tidal

under the skin, brow to shoulder, spine

to child, stray glances, smashed windshield.

The fragrance of a lover’s hair

a concordance of shadow, city, and tear

a network of radio, kite string, longing

a diagram of violence as it travels from

battalion to grandson, milkweed seed

to cease fire, motionless in

oceans of air.

A tree is a diagram of possible outcomes, swerves and

evasions, mapping paths we’ll never see,

a way to scry leave-taking maybe, divine

vanishing, laughter, collision,

watch stillness branch into hours, years,

imagine how slowness would taste on our tongues.

Originally from Long Island, Christopher Volpe is an artist, writer, and teacher working and living in New Hampshire. His paintings are represented by galleries regionally and by Georges Berges Gallery in New York City. He writes regularly about art and artists online and off.

Fatherland, Etc.

Fury was the weather

in our house. It blistered

the bread and mottled

the cheese with mold,

but we ate and ate

till my mother and father

rounded on each other

— his salary, her weight,

ringing the changes

of resentment all the way

back to their weekend-pass wedding,

when his mother wore black.

The silverware jumped

when he hammered his

fist on the table.

My father was free

with his hands, when it

came to me: punches,

a kick in the ass

if his son was lazy,

stupid, or a poor

listener. So much

needed to be set right:

a Brillo pad rusting

in a puddle of pink,

talking on the phone

when dinner was on

the table, forgetting

to carry the garbage

to the curb or rake up

the dogshit in the yard.

He fished deep into fall,

wearing his GI poncho,

blacks, bluefish, stripers,

fluke, flounder. I

spaded bones and

viscera into

the roses, sleet

rattling the windows.

I don’t know why

he hit me that time,

something I did

or didn’t do fast enough:

He clocked me so hard

on the side of the head

it made my ears ring

and I sat down

on the floor. My mother

was up in his face:

“Do you want to send him

to the hospital again?”

A light-washed yellow room,

my throat burning

worse than when I ate

chilis on a cousin’s dare.

But that was to have

my tonsils out.

My mother

took me by bus.

I think that’s when

I first wanted to kill

my father, or the first

time I let myself

think it. Something

dark and viscous

filled the sudden spaces

between my kidneys

and liver, between

my heart and lungs,

like oily downwind

smoke from a refinery.

Aaron Fischer’s poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, American Journal of Poetry, Five Points, Hudson Review, and elsewhere. He won the 2020 Prime Number Magazine poetry contest, 2023 Connecticut poetry prize, 2023 Naugatuck River Review poetry prize, and the Maria W. Faust sonnet contest. He was nominated for a 2024 and 2025 Pushcart Prize.