I’m beginning to shuffle,
my older sister says in
our weekly long distance
phone call. Remember
how Mom always yelled
‘pick up your feet’
as we ran to get away
from her, and ‘stand up
straight’ each time she
caught us slouching?
We reminisce about how
straight our mother stood,
her back like a ramrod. We
remember her quick temper,
sweetened by a surprise dessert
after a day filled with scolding.
Neither of us speaks of
our mother’s own eventual
shuffling and slouching,
nor the silence she chose
when we visited, no longer
recognized; instead, we
agree on her quick-tempered
young self, her posture, her
scolding, her excellent pudding.
Martha Christina has published two collections: Staying Found (Fleur-de-lis Press) and Against Detachment (Pecan Grove Press). Her work appears in earlier issues of Red Eft Review, and recently in Star 82 Review, Crab Orchard Review, and Tiny Seed Journal. Born and raised in Indiana, she now lives in Bristol, Rhode Island.
Monday, February 19, 2024
Sunday, February 18, 2024
Waiting by Martha Christina
Small songbirds crowd
the feeders: finches, a pair
of Carolina wrens, a solitary
junco. Three squirrels join
them at the old stump, strewn
with wild bird seed. . .as if
they weren’t all wild.
The church clock four blocks
away strikes noon. “By noon,”
the surgeon said, “your mom
should be back in her room
and lucid.”
The birds abandon the hanging
feeder, leave it swinging in their
abrupt departure. A crow lands,
folds its dark wings, paces
among the spilled seeds.
Martha Christina has published two collections: Staying Found (Fleur-de-lis Press) and Against Detachment (Pecan Grove Press). Her work appears in earlier issues of Red Eft Review, and recently in Star 82 Review, Crab Orchard Review, and Tiny Seed Journal. Born and raised in Indiana, she now lives in Bristol, Rhode Island.
the feeders: finches, a pair
of Carolina wrens, a solitary
junco. Three squirrels join
them at the old stump, strewn
with wild bird seed. . .as if
they weren’t all wild.
The church clock four blocks
away strikes noon. “By noon,”
the surgeon said, “your mom
should be back in her room
and lucid.”
The birds abandon the hanging
feeder, leave it swinging in their
abrupt departure. A crow lands,
folds its dark wings, paces
among the spilled seeds.
Martha Christina has published two collections: Staying Found (Fleur-de-lis Press) and Against Detachment (Pecan Grove Press). Her work appears in earlier issues of Red Eft Review, and recently in Star 82 Review, Crab Orchard Review, and Tiny Seed Journal. Born and raised in Indiana, she now lives in Bristol, Rhode Island.
Saturday, February 17, 2024
A Gift by Martha Christina
On his birthday
my friend, Michael,
will have an MRI.
His neurologist
wants to affirm
or rule out
suspected
Parkinson’s.
For now, his
diagnosis is
essential
tremor. Not
essential to me,
Michael laughs,
as if diagnostic
labels were a joke.
Martha Christina has published two collections: Staying Found (Fleur-de-lis Press) and Against Detachment (Pecan Grove Press). Her work appears in earlier issues of Red Eft Review, and recently in Star 82 Review, Crab Orchard Review, and Tiny Seed Journal. Born and raised in Indiana, she now lives in Bristol, Rhode Island.
my friend, Michael,
will have an MRI.
His neurologist
wants to affirm
or rule out
suspected
Parkinson’s.
For now, his
diagnosis is
essential
tremor. Not
essential to me,
Michael laughs,
as if diagnostic
labels were a joke.
Martha Christina has published two collections: Staying Found (Fleur-de-lis Press) and Against Detachment (Pecan Grove Press). Her work appears in earlier issues of Red Eft Review, and recently in Star 82 Review, Crab Orchard Review, and Tiny Seed Journal. Born and raised in Indiana, she now lives in Bristol, Rhode Island.
Sunday, February 11, 2024
Reunion by Steve Deutsch
Mom and Dad
loved lupine,
but couldn’t control it.
Year after year, they’d plant
the finest seeds
in the finest soil
but it bloomed where it would.
My brother left
home the day
after his sixteenth birthday.
I hear from him now
and again—chicken scratch
on the back of a postcard
or a long-distance call
from some place
in the California desert
where lupines are native.
Perhaps he is harvesting
some to bring home—
a handsome gift
for a nurturing couple.
The lupines come up
whenever they will
wherever they will
and my brother
just called
from someplace new.
In a better world the lupine
Would grow where they plant it
and my brother would walk in the door.
Steve Deutsch is poetry editor of Centered Magazine and poet in residence at the Bellefonte Art Museum. He has been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize. Steve's chapbook, Perhaps You Can, was published in 2019 by Kelsay Press. His full-length books, Persistence of Memory and Going, Going, Gone, were also published by Kelsay Press. Another collection, Slipping Away, was published this past spring and his latest, Brooklyn, was awarded the Sinclair Poetry Prize from Evening Street Press and has just been published.
loved lupine,
but couldn’t control it.
Year after year, they’d plant
the finest seeds
in the finest soil
but it bloomed where it would.
My brother left
home the day
after his sixteenth birthday.
I hear from him now
and again—chicken scratch
on the back of a postcard
or a long-distance call
from some place
in the California desert
where lupines are native.
Perhaps he is harvesting
some to bring home—
a handsome gift
for a nurturing couple.
The lupines come up
whenever they will
wherever they will
and my brother
just called
from someplace new.
In a better world the lupine
Would grow where they plant it
and my brother would walk in the door.
Steve Deutsch is poetry editor of Centered Magazine and poet in residence at the Bellefonte Art Museum. He has been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize. Steve's chapbook, Perhaps You Can, was published in 2019 by Kelsay Press. His full-length books, Persistence of Memory and Going, Going, Gone, were also published by Kelsay Press. Another collection, Slipping Away, was published this past spring and his latest, Brooklyn, was awarded the Sinclair Poetry Prize from Evening Street Press and has just been published.
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