2021 Summer

Diane Averill Diane has had three books published. Two were finalists for the Oregon Book Award. She taught English and …   For subscribers (Subscribe here!)   Or log in below:   Username or E-mail Password Remember Me     Forgot Password

In winter, it is always the end of day. A slate-gray sky leaves no imprint of the hour. From naked trees, the lament of…   For subscribers (Subscribe here!)   Or log in below:  

after Jim Moore 1 I have always wanted to write a poem that ends with rain, our water world’s replenishment a worry—…   For subscribers (Subscribe here!)   Or log in below:  

after Chia Dao and Mike O’Connor Crows have blended into night. Quiet falls like snow. Quiet fills the empty road. …   For subscribers (Subscribe here!)   Or log in below:  

August 1950, when I was going on seven, my father drove our ’49 Chevrolet down the curvy Columbia Gorge highway. Dick H…   For subscribers (Subscribe here!)   Or log in below:  

In 1946, not long home from that awful winter at the Bulge, discharged at Fort MacArthur, my father left L.A. behind in …   For subscribers (Subscribe here!)   Or log in below:  

Two workmen kneel in the late-day dust, air thick with cypress pollen, slant of sun, distant smoke from dinner fires in …   For subscribers (Subscribe here!)   Or log in below:  

Granite, Oregon, 1976 Even then, the hotel and saloon stood at an angle, their wrinkled skins eyeing visitors from b…   For subscribers (Subscribe here!)   Or log in below:  

Oregon high desert All day the lake heaves, the beast at the beginning of the world. All night I dream of catastroph…   For subscribers (Subscribe here!)   Or log in below:  

Like me, the Bantam is pessimistic, certain no one likes her, whole days spent brooding upon dirty straw. She is not la…   For subscribers (Subscribe here!)   Or log in below:  

and my husband sweep the ceiling with the broom. Parallel whooshes and sways mirror the swoops and dives. Under a blank…   For subscribers (Subscribe here!)   Or log in below:  

Words are loops of the avatar: take, for instance, the calico cat. Calico was the fabric of the pioneer woman who stoppe…   For subscribers (Subscribe here!)   Or log in below:  

The taste of huckleberries is the taste of thrush is the taste of bear The taste of huckleberries is the taste stirred …   For subscribers (Subscribe here!)   Or log in below:  

my head has blown off. It hovers — so briefly — just above the neck stub before crashing onto the gravel road. My righ…   For subscribers (Subscribe here!)   Or log in below:  

Gina, you can keep the green vases from the daffodils. My hyacinths have long since shriveled but tulips bloom in the be…   For subscribers (Subscribe here!)   Or log in below:  

for Pam Whenever my dad was asked what a friend died of, he said, he died of a Tuesday. Always a knuckle to the fun…   For subscribers (Subscribe here!)   Or log in below:  

Daughter, Across the abyss of your grief, The grand canyon of your loss And the bone fear you feel Falling at different …   For subscribers (Subscribe here!)   Or log in below:  

   feeling this sweet sensation of joy —Elizabeth Bishop When Michael sat with other kindergartners around a pile of cr…   For subscribers (Subscribe here!)   Or log in below:  

Thunder of running paws from yard through house and out would seem a joyous weather as we lie a while longer beneath th…   For subscribers (Subscribe here!)   Or log in below:  

One week before she died we watched the sun erased, our light, our warmth, even our shadows canceled, disappeared, thou…   For subscribers (Subscribe here!)   Or log in below:  

A young maiden once caught herself as a reflection in a gold-framed mirror and swam into her own blue eyes where she cou…   For subscribers (Subscribe here!)   Or log in below:  

We are the quiet ones, the hidden ones. We have much to say. We hide in the silent light on the undersides of leaves as …   For subscribers (Subscribe here!)   Or log in below:  

A woman in a window of the care home across the street clutches her yellow bathrobe to her throat and watches. Bird on a…   For subscribers (Subscribe here!)   Or log in below:  

I counted the crows on the lowest branch until they lifted away and left it stuttering. I watched till the branch stille…   For subscribers (Subscribe here!)   Or log in below:  

I’m up early wanting the house to myself so I can pretend I’m already living alone. Teabag in a mug I plan to keep, I s…   For subscribers (Subscribe here!)   Or log in below:  

When you no longer have parents, a purple sea star becomes your mother before the ocean spills a plume of foam to cover …   For subscribers (Subscribe here!)   Or log in below:  

My mother’s long white evening gloves, untouched in a drawer, waiting for hands as a labyrinth waits for a minotaur. Las…   For subscribers (Subscribe here!)   Or log in below:  

we learned the parts—petal, sepal, pistol, stamen— the role of pollen, wind, and bees. And my mother warn…   For subscribers (Subscribe here!)   Or log in below:  

In dusk-dissolving pines they wait, talons gripping hard-barked winter branches overhead. I pace my dog, pass beneath i…   For subscribers (Subscribe here!)   Or log in below: