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Winter 2008

Poetry

Dean Brink
Alan Catlin
Jim Doss
Darrell Epp
Taylor Graham
Ken Gurney
Michelle Lerner
Michele Lesko
Lynn Lifshin
M
Corey Mesler
Mitchell Metz
Bryan Mitschell
Maurice Oliver
Patty Paine
Jayne Pupek
Nic Sebastian
Shawn Sorensen
Lynn Strongin
Christy Tomecek

Flash Fiction

David Jordan
Richard Rippon
Jack Swenson

Featured Artist

Don Snell

Congratulations
2007 Pushcart Nominees:

Editors:

Jennifer VanBuren
Jai Britton
Patrick Carrington
Alex Nodopaka

Michele Lesko

Winter 2008

My First Love and My Last

The leaves beneath our feet let out a good snap,
when crushed. He thrust his hand into mine and
I stepped out of his truck. Mistakes were made.
We might have gone on a walk. Jet planes tilted.
 
Could you see me splayed beneath him, under that
autumn sky, planes stuffed with peeping Toms? Hail
Mary full of grace in circles, on a loop, perpetual mono-
logue behind my teeth after he forced me to open up.
 
 –a habit worn in times of stress. He needed to bury his
beaten heart inside me. I needed to walk across the water
there at the end of my booted foot, where my jeans hugged
only one slim ankle. After that first date I hid from green
 
Fords. But he always found me. We were in love
all through winter and spring and summer and the fall
that came with its letters of acceptance. Unwrapped
I left for school, where he posed as a sentinel outside
 
every one of my classes. Professor Heaney whispered
news of a better life inside an ivory tower. In no time
that learned man’s knuckles knocked against my cheek
bone. I resisted his love laid bare by entering him
 
first with the blade of a knife. It was a statement my blue-
eyed Irishman could not debate. I had learned to learn from
what others regret. I live now
with my last love. Years of trial and error. This man is equal
 
to my densely packed curriculum vitae. Son of an extreme
feminist, he knows subtlety, intimately. He will not hit me
over the head or pull my hair or make me carry the heavy
burdens. He hobbles me with the black and blue bouquets
 
that sprout beneath my dark roots. Now I know only this:
I would not like me if I met my pink carnation eyes.

Michele Lesko’s poems and short stories have been published in various journals a few of which are Tiferet: A Journal of Spiritual Literature, The Pedestal Magazine, Storyglossia, Lily Literary Review & Literary Mama. A graduate of Fairleigh Dickinson University's MFA program, she is also a Creative Non-Fiction editor for The Broome Review.