For an Orchard Suicide
Anthony G. Amsterdam
Yours was not the world’s end.
You thought it was, but when you’d built
your gallows of an apple tree,
a gold and onyx bee
buzzed about your dead hand
languidly.
Before the migrant workers came,
the tree had seen
snows, rains, rains,
rivulets of silt
and blooms.
Until a hump-backed beggar woman, all alone beneath a crescent moon,
plucked you down still green
and took you home and
fed a healthy infant your ripe milk.
Model Home
Eve Linn
A glacial hive
all passages frozen
surfaces slick corners
sharp a door a peephole a glass
fisheye faces looked at me
we were the Shape-Me-Family
Father Mother Big Sister little sister
Father outside on the painted grass Mother in the tub
with no water
Ode to The House Dress
Maria Sebastian
And so even the children of hard-to-like mothers
find secret comfort in house dresses
reminiscent of those Mom wore to lean out
her warning-window for dinner reminders
the polyester kind never show signs
of opening pickle jars or beer bottles
lace trim frames housework as joyful
from cupboards to carpets to catnaps
few can tell when I pair one with heels
and wear it to work where students
may not recognize a house dress
until projected like a pop-culture skylight
peeking into kitchens of sitcom sweeties
and no matter our feminist findings
we miss our hovering TV honeys
who always fixed us a bite to eat
or a one-liner ready-to-serve hot or cold
ghetto-gowns glow in city courtyards
lean over laundry lines by Chinese tea houses
in floral patterns of long-gone gardens
grouped by color and hanging wall to wall
in Salvation Armies across America
house dresses wait like surrogate mothers
waving flags of forgiveness for everyone