AS WINTER CAME
by Nathaniel Lotze
Artwork by the author

 

As winter came our faces narrowed.
The cold front that began after Thanksgiving
ploughed your shoulder blades inward.

Like you were trying to shield yourself from some great emptiness.
Or keep it contained.

Now when we talk our conversations are skeletons–
only the most basic words articulated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

COLD TRANSLATION
by Ronnie Sirmans
Artwork by Chris Neil Conner

Eskimos have more words for snow in their language than any other people,
I learned back in school. I should’ve known better, since an adopted Eskimo
girl was in my fourth-grade class and when I asked her all the ways that her
people said snow, she simply said, “Snow.” I waited. She stuck her tongue out
and walked away. “Veluzivarian,” I yelled back, making up a word for snow,
but she kept on walking. I have often seen snow for myself: dusting, flurry,
graupel, blizzard, ice, so many cold words no matter which language warms us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

POEM
by Steven Forbes Martinez
Artwork by Jane-Rebeccca Cannarella

pine needles poke sharp ‘round pine cones
and I twist one off its slim sticky branches
give it to her, say, Here, I picked a flower,
It’s made of wood, and should last longer

 

 

 

 

 

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Nathaniel Lotze is a writer, musician, and photographer living in Columbus, Ohio. Last spring he graduated from Kenyon College, where he studied English. His work has previously appeared in Persimmons.

Ronnie Sirmans lives and works in metro Atlanta. His poetry has appeared in The South Carolina Review and Gargoyle.

Chris Neil Conner is based in Hilo, Hawaii. View his artwork at http://chrisneilconner.blogspot.com.

Steven Forbes Martinez lives in Southern California with a cat named Jezebel. Between dark short stories and sci-fi novellas, he has been known to punch out a poem or two to act as a palate cleanser.

 

 

 

 

 

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