AYXESKA

by M.F. Nagel

In  a
Place
Of
Gold and ice
A Place of men

Ayxeska

Men that know
The madness of mountains
Mountains
That know
The madness of men.

Ayxeska

White
In
Wintered ravened night

A Silvered city

Aurora painted
Northborn
A starry Shaman
Jewel-breathed.
And
Rivers.

Rivers.
Giver of salmon
That
Wait for the  fishermen.

Full-bellied bears
Sleepwalking
In
Their
full-bellied dreams.

Dreams
Of moose
And men and mountains

Of  salmonberries.
Dreams
In the
Dens  of winter.

In a
Place
Of gold and ice

Ayxeska.

maybe i was.

by Heather Brager

I thought I'd know your voice
a quality for the radio
back when you fucked girls
you didn’t know in their
dirty upstairs apartments
a few hours before dawn
I wanted to be those girls
but you know I will never be

you told me that we are
the sum of all parts
every choice is our brand
the broken glass on my rug
your hands on my ass
pulling my hair
your car parked down the street
just waiting for me to leave

I recall your profile
as you quickly turned
a short intake of breath
your eyes were mine
I thought I could curl up
inside of your chest
as we stood in my kitchen
waiting for the stew to boil

Varanasi Divers

by Deborah Bayer

Beautiful young bodies
diving from the high bridge,
you know no fear
of heights, of deep water.
With magnets in hand
you vanish into the belly
of Ganga Ma in search of coins
flung by pilgrims speeding
over the holiest of rivers.

It’s a living.
It’s your life on this warm
day on the cusp of spring.
I long to lean over the edge
of the wide touring boat
rowed by two silent men,
put rupees in your
dark wet palms
but we are too far apart.

Along the Ghats, Sadhus,
bone thin naked men
with dreadlocks and beards,
covered with sacred ash,
sit cross-legged,
fingers interlaced, eyes closed.
Some are saints,
some are not.
Who can know at a glance
which man traverses
an inner universe
where galaxies are
beyond counting.
Who can know what
any of us will find
if hunger
springs us off the edge.

Visiting Crete

by Brian Wake

Above our bed a salamander, motionless for hours,
is waiting for its prey. To even blink, it knows,
an eyelid would betray its whereabouts and add,
perhaps, another hungry day to when it feeds.

Throughout the night we, half-asleep in candlelight,
keep watch for any twitch or instant of an uncoiled tongue
flicked out to whip a careless insect in. But nothing moves
and only swaying shadows stalk the bedroom wall.

Although we watch and worry that some dropping
of its guard might cause a sudden plunge, or time spent
hanging there unglue its toes, we hesitate. Like it we wait.
Our salamander does not move.

And could it wonder whether we, like it, are there
to prove that patience has its own reward and, waiting
in the candlelight, afford to hope that blinking eyelids
might betray its hiding place, and not as predator
but as our prey.