Four Poems by Four Authors
judi goldberg • leslie hoffman • Dixie Lewis • Lynn Millar
from Refractions
PenHouseInk, Volume 4
ISBN 1-931002-54-1
PenHouseInk Press, 2006
Click here for a prose excerpt by Barry Wynn.
judi goldberg
harvest drawing
on our graying porch I pace across the page, nearby
he rocks forward&back in his chair; hay is drying
in windrows in a field edged with Queen Anne’s Lace,
bales dot the bluff; ravens forage
dew settles, sated red winged blackbirds roost, coyotes
join badger for the hunt
in the twilight
a man and a woman sit side by side on a gray porch
(page 40)
leslie hoffman
Casa La Paceña
house of the woman
Church bells chime seventh hour
First light shines on Benito Juarez
Columbian coffee on balcony
Yachts sail on Bahia de La Paz
Taxis park along the Malecon
Vendors gather in town square
Young man collects useable trash
Federales drive by in unmarked car
Ruperto arrives with machete to kill ratones
Scent of freshly squeezed orange juice
Fish frying in tempura batter
Miguel arrives to breakfast with Arlaine
gecko pauses on ceiling
(page 2)
Dixie Lewis
Snowflower
the snow is a memory while passing thunderheads cast
shadows on eruptions of gray, and the browns and greens
that lay beneath
smells of cedar, dried sweat, and the spongy earth from the
meadow linger then drift past me to where Shooting Stars
and Lupine grow
I fracture the earth with my thick juicy stalk and fine
saw-tooth curled leaves pushing aside pine needles, bits of
bark and spruce cones
the color of blood mixed with sunset I pursue daylight
searching for the sun
brilliant, loved, deformed, hated
people build little rock fences around me
others kick me
distantly they walk past
the color of their blood
(page 50)
Lynn Millar
My Path is Green
I tease thin, seeded grasses
with my hands outstretched;
runway dandelions guide me
to a yellow horizon.
The low walls of my green path
papered with blond grasses,
palest blue flax, and
fading yellow lotus
yield to the Siren plea
from the ocean.
At cliff top, my horizon is
another tone than in May
when bright lotus crept.
My exhale matches rhythm
with the ocean’s breath, until
fog reveals the waves.
The way now blue,
my inhale unassisted
rises in scattered whitecaps.
Then this sea in
graceful massive volume falls.
(page 5)