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Spring 2008
VanBuren's picks:
Antonia Clark
Brad Johnson
Dale McLain
Roger Pfingston
Richard Rippon
John Anderson
Cristina Baptista
Cynthia Brackett-Vincent
Michael Brownstein
Nuala Ní Chonchúir
Alison Eastley
Brent Fisk
David Fraser
Krikor der Hohannesian
Amy MacLennan
Lisa Markowitz
Damon McLaughlin
Micki Myers
Roger Pfingston
Heather Schimel
Rachel Stewart
Lafayette Wattles
Matt Alberhasky
Margaret Fieland
Robert Johnson
Willie Smith
Alex Nodopaka
Jennifer VanBuren
Jai Britton
Patrick Carrington
Download is still free.
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Amy MacLennan
Spring 2008
Red
"few red flowers have survived in the natural world"
- Designer’s Guide to Color
I want fields fired with reds,
blistering hillsides crimson in June,
wilting to wine come July.
Reds in the hothouse—pots spilling scarlet,
fever slash against green.
No timid pinks please, no paled corals
or flood of yellows that flower so well in the wild.
Not even the poppy flames enough for me.
Cherry and ruby should chafe the soil,
carmine blaze to sky.
Give me heat in my blossoms,
I’ll have them burn as we breathe.
Driving Down from Vernon
Through country stitched long with lakes,
a snaking of water settled and smooth,
we take the curves of bays,
and your eyes, other shimmers, fixed
to the road as we cross from Canada
to the slow drop down
among scattered peaks,
in our truck the miles easy, and we drive
drive, stopping for gas,
a stretch in the legs, lunches in diners,
tuna melt specials, one night in a smoky motel —
and always we see snow, some crest far off
dusted white and we south, south
pushing through thick trees
and thin populations, different light but still
the same sky, we flash by, yellow the truck,
insects smashed to the glass,
and the road, any road, forgets our weight,
we press to make it back, two days from our start,
almost there, almost.
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Amy MacLennan has been published or has poems forthcoming in River Styx, Hayden's Ferry Review, Linebreak, Cimarron Review, Rattle, Wisconsin Review, Folio and South Dakota Review.
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