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Summer 2007
Caroline Albert
Donna Dixon
Shara Faskowitz
Adrian Heathcote
Stephen Mead
Michelle Morgan
Spring 2007
Featured Artist:Jennifer Balkan
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Renate Wildermuth
Transplant
The ferry slits the river open like a razor against a wrist.
But the frothy wake is sutured up with foam.
Water can't abide a messy seam.
The eddies and disruptions heal themselves smooth,
to forget you passed this way.
Your absence is a fresh cut that hasn't yet begun to hurt.
Loss prickles against my skin, like blood springing suddenly
to the cliff's edge of a wound to prove to me
I live.
Big Bang
Married ten years, and I am still surprised
each night by your reappearance.
Like the earth towards the sun,
I turn from the sink to greet you and be warmed.
You bend to me briefly, then turn to other things.
(I am not the only planet in your universe)
I turn back to the sink
cursing you for short days
and for short money,
'til my anger draws you in
"What's wrong?" you ask.
Secure in your orbit,
I say nothing,
but send a dish flying across the kitchen
to prove that I can defy gravity.
Trying
I feel you.
The barest suggestion of flutter
just behind my belly-button.
A breath about to be taken.
Like a reckless race car driver,
I take your life from zero to 60
in less than a second.
You.
Kicking at my abdomen.
Following a soccer ball
down a rough field
through a stadium.
Then coaching my grandchildren
through their own games.
But you don't have to be a soccer player.
I want you to know that.
You could be anything.
I believe in you.
You could be anything at all.
The test is negative.
I read the Doctor's face like
a bottle cap in a million dollar
giveaway scheme: Sorry, try again.
But I felt something.
I point at you
my finger straight as a magic wand
as if I could make you come true.
He shrugs. Indigestion? Cramps?
Could be anything.
You could be anything at all.
Renate writes for Adirondack Life Magazine, The Albany Times Union, The Chronicle of Glens Falls, and is a commentator for North Country Public Radio.
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