Emma Atkins – Small Freedom

Emma Atkins
Small Freedom

‘Have you got her?’
‘No, do you have her?’
I was fumbling with catching the errant, rolling water bottle.
Mikey was sliding the car seat back into place.

                                        She was running.
                                                                                 Zigzagging down the forest path.
Wind in her hair and hair in her mouth.
                                                                                 Full-speed ahead. Giggling like a wild thing.
Hyena set free from the trap of baby reigns.
                                                                                 Lightning in a yellow parker.

We’re running, too, sprinting after that joyful menace.
Mikey catches her hood, tugs her to a stop in Wiley Coyote fashion
and they both double over, panting for breath.

She’s laughing, joy of freedom in her lungs,
showing off the new snaggle-tooth that’s poking through her gums.
We’re sighing in relief–overcome by thoughts of what could have been.

                                                                                                    Down a way is a fast-flowing stream.

Bryan R. Monte – Education

Bryan R. Monte
Education

When I was nine, my grandmother
took me to High Street to show me
the pitted, cream-coloured, sandstone cladding
high above the door of a former bank building
where, for decades, the metal lettering had read:
First German Bank
which, overnight in 1917, when she was 27,
was changed to First : : : : : : Bank.

Schiller, Germania, and Bismarck Streets
became Whittier, Stuart, and Lansing,
and the Central German School
the Fourth Street School.
German books were burnt
in a bonfire on Broad Street,
guarded by the Columbus Reserve
just down from Ohio State,
which cancelled its German classes
and fired its German professors.

Standing with me on High Street in 1967
she pointed hesitantly
towards that doorway
and whispered in my ear
as if someone was still watching,
as if someone was still listening.

Jane Blanchard – Afterward

Jane Blanchard
Afterward

               according to Hilaire Belloc

A briar grows from Tristan’s grave,
Embeds itself in Iseult’s own.
Cut back by some assertive knave,
A briar grows from Tristan’s grave
Toward what it cannot help but crave.
No lover wants to lie alone.
Re-cut, what grows from Tristan’s grave
Embeds itself in Iseult’s own.

Joan Byrne – First Scan

Joan Byrne
First scan
 
There you are—at 12-weeks’ gestation—
relaxing in a gossamer hammock afloat
a sandy-coloured lagoon. Tahiti of the womb.
 
Though small as the palm of my hand,
amazingly, you have a face! A nose,
high forehead, a scribble of lips.
I impute a smile. I have fallen for you.
 
Months will pass, and winter with it,
before you emerge to breathe
new life into an old world. Welcome,
I will say, I am your mother’s mother.
I am thrilled to meet you!

Kevin Grauke – Documentation

Kevin Grauke
Documentation
 
My son asks his wife to take his picture
with me, something he’s never asked for
before when he’s come home for a visit.
 
He has plenty of us together, but only as part
of those family portraits meant to document
significant events—graduations, marriages . . .
 
Aunts and uncles are always present, as are
odd cousins. But this backyard photo is to be
only us. He puts his arm around my shoulder
 
and pulls me tight. He’s so strong now.
I can feel him smiling, waiting for his wife
to capture us for all time. I smile, too,
 
but my mouth, it breaks a little.
Have I reached that age already,
when next time is always in some doubt?
 
For the very first time, I see the darkness.
Its smoke dims the light of the sun a bit.
I see my son, too—in the future, older.
 
Looking at this memory, at me smiling
next to him here, he’s comforted now
that I’m gone. He did well as a son.
 
He’ll know this. I’ll have told him
many times. I hold my smile, ignoring
the shape gathering itself just above
 
his wife’s head as she centers us. I’m glad
you took this
, my son will say. Just look
at you two!
she’ll add. Indeed, just look at us.
 
We must look so happy. Big smiles,
she says now, smiling, too, showing us
how to do it. My son pulls me closer still.
 
I smile bigger, though my cheeks ache
and quiver. Soon, this will be over,
but right now, this is it, everything.

Carl Palmer – Lessons in Lego

Carl Palmer
Lessons in Lego

…and this yellow one is his equipment belt. It goes here between these two blue pieces. He’s a good guy. The bad guys wear red and shoot red laser beams from their saber sword. They don’t really kill people though, it’s not real life. They’re just toys, Papa.

No, I’ll be doing this part. Your job will be to put the pieces in piles of the same color so I can find them better. Sometimes it takes me longer to look by myself.
You’re a good helper, Papa.

We already did that page, we’re right here. It’s the robot hover capsule. I already know how it goes together by myself, see. While I finish this one you can put the wheels on the Transport tanker and then we are done. They go on like this, Papa.

Yes! High Five! We did it, good job. It looks just like the picture on the box.
Thanks, Papa. I love you. Let’s go show Dad.

One six-year-old
Plus one sixty year old
Equals two six-year-olds

Sharon Whitehill – Granddaughter at 24

Sharon Whitehill
Granddaughter at 24

Long silver-blue hair azure-tipped,
one side shaved high.

Nose-ring in profile
against a dark window.

Piercings—ears, underlip, navel—
fewer than I had feared, though a black snake

with a Sanskrit-like swirl is inked on one wrist,
petals tattooed on her shoulders

beneath the cascade of her still-heavy hair.
White skin plumped with youth

sets off peach-blush pink lips,
(deliberately paled with concealer)

which speak certainties
equally plump.

Marcus Slingsby – Before Him

Marcus Slingsby
Before Him

He took in shoes to repair as a second job
long before the words ‘fast’ and ‘fashion’
existed.

He blew up bridges in North Africa
before drones could do it alone.

He delivered bicycles on Christmas Eve
before the internet took Santa away.

I, I travelled the world
before the pen lost out to the phone.

My eldest, sixteen
before him, not our dreams,
but his own.

Mantz Yorke – Snapshots of Renewal

Mantz Yorke
Snapshots of Renewal

A fallen pine
rotting
nourishing saplings.

Clinging on
a stem of grass,
six-spot burnets
in flagrante.

Silk in the rice bag,
holes in the plastic,
moths in the kitchen.

Robin Helweg-Larsen – Out Of Many…

Robin Helweg-Larsen
Out Of Many…

Two hundred million sperm
in one ejaculation;
and we are standing firm
and spouting with elation,
though but a single germ
survives to incarnation.

And much in nature throws
vast clouds into the ocean,
where myriad embryos
become a magic potion
consumed by all that goes
with food its only notion;

yet one or two survive
to adulthood and, later,
will make the species thrive
and serve up like a waiter
new young crowds that arrive
like cargo crammed on freighter.

This is how nature lives;
we should not think it foolish
eight billion of us gives
but forty fierce and mulish
posthuman narratives,
godlike as much as ghoulish.