Volume 8, Number 1

Ghosts of 1952

by Ed Skoog

The man presents himself to the police
and pushes a gun in a grease-stained bag
across the desk, the grease from hot dogs
he’d bought his kidnapped lover at midnight
along with a bottle of milk, all this after
he’d led her by elbow out of the hotel
all this after shooting a man in the way
a man who would never exactly become
my grandfather, except in news clippings
and some other hard to unemploy fantasy
following my own selfish star or river.

Love talked the murderer back into civilization
its dawn and dawn evens its shadows out
even a half-century later as I drive
my country mind through the city
past police stations, police cars, bike cops
jealous of my grandfather for having a sin
so heavy to unburden, so easy to articulate
like waking up a ladder, or folding a curtain.

I Dream I Am The Girl Toward Whom Columbus Rushes

by Mary Szybist

that I am the one, by hand and tongue
picking the seeds from a star fruit

its waxy skin cool on my fingers—

the one on the shore in the dawn
brushing the bangs from my forehead

brushing the languid flies—

everyone still in their hammocks
the iguanas asleep, the wild parrots beginning to stir

I am the one on the island’s edge

intertwined with the seaweed, the yellow-gold pulp
of my fruit, the shore studded

with half-shells, brainless sea-stars

I am the girl beyond the tide pools
stepping through slippery eelgrass, stepping

over pieces of skull worn to hives—

I am there as the high palms
sway, the white sails

widen—I dream it as I have no right to

dream it, as my moment——
like a girl on a float in a parade, a crown

of roses spilling red

and yellow petals on my
shoulders, at my feet, as the gold

fruit sweetens my tongue, as the

green iguanas unfasten
their dreams, I dream

I am the girl the wind holds, the languid flies sting

the girl on the shore in the dawn, the one
watching the ships

making their motionless way