Autumn 2023

Note: I met Olga Taran many years ago by a strange and happy series of coincidences. An interest in Descartes led me to study geometry. Since my education had been…

Sunlight streamed through the westward windows at a slant, glinting off the twenty desks arranged in standard grid formation. That sunlight seemed almost heavenly to Jackie Potter as she sat…

Little Red Zombie Little Red Zombie, who made thee?Who framed thy dreadful symmetry?Little Red Zombie, burning bright,Drinking Liquid Wrench all night.Little Red Zombie, cold and blue,You’re not happy, boo hoo…

Fishing in Childhood —after lines by Tony Hoagland If we are always who we are, if our livingis finally of a piece, couldn’t we observe itcomplete in any moment—choose any…

Journal Entry #1 There is more hair in the sink. There is always more hair in the sink. And in the shower. And in the drain. And in my hands.…

d translated from the Yiddish by Mildred Faintly In the rich keen colors . . . In the rich keen colorsof a deeply overgrown gardenwhere willow trees hang their pallid…

I think I’ve chosen darkness. Or maybe I’m just lazy. Not really sure. There was a boy, drowning. I was sitting against a tree, reading. The birds, the damned birds,…

People are Strange This is the end for my dad, but he’s died before, so maybe I’m wrong. I know it’s a cliché, but deathbed regret is a real thing.…

translated from the German by Mildred Faintly Fortissimo You played a passionate song,I was afraid to ask what it was calledbecause I knew its name would say everythingthat had flowed…

                             A POX ON BOTH OUR HOUSES Ah, syphilis—so sweet, so soft and sibilant, the most beautiful word in the English language. I sing the infectious tune, the bacterial…

The Wetness Notwithstanding “Urination,” he told the class, “may be a sign or a symptom, but it is almost never a cause. ” And as usual he felt compelled to…

Hunger I’d not yet eaten, but walked where the feast was spread. The first course offered wild rose in a pasture’s corner, slice of path cutting uphill to walls of…

The Tale of the Seven Beggars Part Three On the third day of the wedding celebration, the bride and groom remembered the third beggar and longed for him so strongly…

Margot Farrington, The Blue Canoe of Longing, Dos Madres Press 2019. Available from Dos Madres and Amazon Margot Farrington’s Blue Canoe is an unqualified pleasure. Every poem in it is…