Puckerbrush Review

WINTER / SPRING 2008

P. 122 - 126

Three poems

Wally Swist

Snow Geese

Their honking and trumpeting
precede them through the canopy

of leafless trees and pine branches.

I look up to see their white feathers—Oh!

and the roundness of their heavy bodies,
triumphant in air. I see the wedge spread

over the woods—Oh!—and watch them
streaming slowly, one after another,

against the clouds. Before the bugles (Oh)
of their voices fade, I stand in the rain

where the white snow of their cries fall
in the silence of their passing.

What Remains

He is surprised every time he notices
he leans one of his elbows on the dining room table
with his raised hand slightly tilted back,

fingers curled, the thumb resting over them –

in which she displays her demure elegance with ease;
or when she tells him that

driving to work in the morning, when she makes
a sighting, she says Hawk, just the way he does.

The Fire

He gathers cordwood into his arms,
lays each piece on the grates

in the hearth, two across and two over,
sets balled newsprint with a match,

and the wood and paper blaze up
in a whoosh of brightness.

He first watches the blue flames,

then the white, those lights they see

when they are together,
the incandescent tongues that burst

above his head when he speaks to her
about what they share is sacred.

He considers what light and warmth are,

that the glow of the fire doesn’t compare

to what shines in her face, that rose
beneath the surface of her skin.

When he banks up burning embers
with the long-handled shovel, then uses

the iron tongs to gather the fallen
ingots of wood back onto the grates,

he leans into the fire, and hears her voice

when he was above her, praying for her

silently, with her hands on his back,
how she told him, I can feel the heat.

In Chechnya
Monako Tanaki

Shot twice in the elevator,
once in the head,
the Russian reporter is dead
at forty-eight.

Once in the head,
so hard to forget
at forty-eight.
For a long time I stared at her photograph,

so hard to forget
I wouldn’t want to be a journalist.
For a long time I stared at her photograph,
her kind, serious eyes.

I wouldn’t want to be a journalist.
She knew some things about terror,
her kind, serious eyes,
reporting on Chechnya.

She knew some things about terror,
but the story is missing.
Reporting on Chechnya
in the danger game,

but the story is missing
and there are no witnesses
in the danger game
where truth carries into the next world

and there are no witnesses,
shot twice in the elevator
where truth carries into the next world.
The Russian reporter is dead.

Two Poems
Estha Weiner

Let’s Talk Wiscasset

Tide’s out.

Seagull took m’clam.

Maine Coast Special’s

blowin’ its horn.

Hulk of The Hesper’s

finally gone.

Usual traffic jam over

the Sheepscot Bridge.

Line for Red’s Eat’s

blockin’ the street.

Long wait

for a blueberry shake.

Wild Blueberries

All year I am deprived
of them, forced, if I choose
to swallow something called “true blues.”
those silicone-injected lessons
in the evil of euphemism,
until mid-August Maine,
when wild blueberries appear
and so do I,
at every road-side stand;
like some displaced urban bear,
I lay in supplies
for my city lair,
where snow, when it appears,
stays white for only an hour.