Pinpricks of Light
Poetry by Shari Caplan, Carlie Hoffman & Kimberly Ann Southwick
Shari Caplan
Under winter’s poised boot,
a field leaping with insects.
A fence keeps horses shy of us.
The white one pities my persistence,
but does not deign to nuzzle.
*
The man who fixed a camo throne
ten feet up in the sycamore talked
exclusively to you, while we sipped
syrupy wine and pretended to like it.
The upturned rowboat by the house
would hold us, were it warmer,
and not punctured.
CARLIE HOFFMAN
The orchard rinses white with tiny bones
until there is nothing left but a wish
to drag out mice curled deep in the tunnels
and string them from a Sycamore.
Tonight the young empty themselves
in a football field, behind bleachers—
their beautiful hands, ribs glossed by
stadium light, then, slowly, as if still…
In the middle of the night my sisters dig out
the pale birds graphed along the waterside
and fix them to a willow.
Relax, they say, it only gets worse.
Last season’s nests collapse
beneath our palms, as we kneel for the angel
who bargained his way to Anchorage, exploded
the moment he landed, and became a gull
rounding the wharf like a conjurer.
Kimberl y Ann Southwick
they cut the screen into boxed parts sometimes like / now a small rectangle of alpine skiing / as if I care about that / appears / I do care about Alexia Paganini even though, Johnny tells me, / her triple toe triple toe is the easiest triple combination we’ll see — / Tara points out switching what country you skate for is difficult / I mistype company for country, that’s late capitalism for you / I still can’t help but wonder why someone would do that / would / represent her dad’s home country instead of where she lives / is it a political decision a business decision both other / Johnny seems to think it’s about / creating a skating legacy / how the people of Switzerland feel about it / I want to know that
