Our Danny Petoskey

The anniversary of his death is the cruelest fishhook. Yanking us back, violently. When the days turn crisp, as they have now, when summer fades and autumn crawls into our tiny farming town—that’s when we most grieve our fallen classmate. One year we tried to ignore the date, but the hook came anyway and somehow was even more brutal. So now we meet it head on: we make a day of it. The downtown is strewn with somber-black ribbon. Coffee is shared and then, later, whiskey. We pass the yearbook, we muse, we moan. If a stranger such as you wanders by, the story is told in fullest detail.

Thanksgiving in Hometowns

For thrum of yellow through sycamores and slant of sunlight through milk jug’s rounded edges. For gold-ignited summer and star-spangled boneweed on the road.

Grant’s Tomb

Grant’s Tomb From its roof, pigeons explode, their wingsthrumming like playing cards, clothespinnedto our bike spokes when we were kids. A jogger briskly thuds through growingpiles of leaves. One snags on a straywisp of her hair before it zag- zigs through the air. Sword-crossing spans,one dappled pair soar out beyondthe traffic’s flow. Through clouds of […]

Wooly Mammoth

Wooly Mammoth Eventually the permafrost surrendered him To genetic speculation. Gog and Magog, the door was agog. Sort of goes without saying though. Now I know I have to get Myself out of trouble. Before leaving town Check the weather and your luggage. Many words spoken to me have seemed English. He instructed me in […]

The Strongest Love

Cliff Saunders has an MFA in Creative Writing from The University of Arizona. His poems have appeared recently in The Wayne Literary Review, Pedestal Magazine, Wilderness House Literary Review, Pinyon, San Pedro River Review, North of Oxford, and RipRap Literary Journal. He lives in Myrtle Beach, where he serves as co-coordinator of The Litchfield Tea […]

End-of-August Misgivings of the Old Woman Jealous of the First Grader’s New School Shoes

End-of-August Misgivings of the Old Woman Jealous of the First Grader’s New School Shoes the sign down the road – do not pick blackberries – yellow jackets our final peach pie pits and skins swarming with flies a sketch of bird song in a failing tree broken fence railings dry foxglove seed silent rocks in […]

An Occasional Waltz

Kort Ploshay grew up with a telephone party line, the local library, a slide rule (a slight improvement over the abacus) and the US Post Office for communication. Now he designs cutting edge enterprise software solutions for the United States Army. Kort was an active Bard from 1963 through 1975, singing folk songs, writing and […]

between the lake and the mountain

Eve Taft is a writer who lives in Minneapolis. She loves James Joyce, rainy days, and stories about magic. between the lake and the mountain for Doug Green when the wind comes, as it always does the old house shakes, shivers sheets of rain hurl against it unconcerned, the walls and windows settle looking over […]

The Darkening

The Darkening Summer’s fruit is rotting. I will use it to fertilize my seeds. When the world terrorizes me, I will hold up the mirror & ask: How do I terrorize myself? My path is strewn with bones. I will make a flute to play! Is magic, then, all in your head? wondered the initiate. […]

No Creek Up Here

This is the last in a series of three installments for Visitant featuring collaborative works from poet Dennis R. Kolakowski and artists Bruce Pipman and Charles W. “Bud” Gibbons, III. Biographies and back story below. No Creek Up Here Every beer I ever swallowed has been a fair investment in this moment, but Lord what I wouldn’t give right now […]