House Dust is skin cells shrouding the broom that once gathered them, draping it now in gray; his blind calico’s brown eyelashes; pearl fibers sloughed off thread she strung through buttons two nights before they buried him in his white church shirt; pollen the daisies he gave her exhale from their kitchen jars. They form […]
Read more "House Dust"Wrapped Tight Ball of string wrapped tight and tidy yearns to fling itself in a direction to unravel massiveness into feathery strand beckoning in wind for more length to discover more paths no worries of finding way back or to dangle like trapeze swinging back and forth inviting acrobats to fly unlike ball of string […]
Read more "Wrapped Tight"A Master What if A Master could teach my son to fly over the cornfields of any countryside a person might wish or dream to see. This Master would dress like a carnival barker. My son, who long ago stopped minding my rules, would kick off his tennis shoes and take flight. People would see […]
Read more "A Master"Slivers After Creeley’s The Flower I think I layer tensions like bottles shattered in ditches the thirsty refugee hides. Each faulting gesture blocks breath, catches in my chest, cracks knees in a fall. Tension is a wasting blade It slices that one and that one and that one. R.T. Castleberry‘s work has appeared in Roanoke […]
Read more "Slivers | After Creeley’s The Flower"Barred From The Hive The birds have gone to sleep tonight And after more nights the unnecessary drones Will be homeless, barred from the hive, Buzzing around the discarded soda bottles And trying not to die but verily dying While I lie here waiting out another year Of my lifecycle Alone Alone, Barred from the […]
Read more "Barred From The Hive"Dayton Street Remember when diapers were delivered By a truck with a stork painted on it? I still see that truck once in a while, Like a sighting of the Goodyear blimp. Or maybe I made that up; Memory and reality don’t really mesh. Crashing the Tupperware party, I found more plastic. But far be […]
Read more "Dayton Street"Burnt Rice It’s a broken leg — as in not my fault, the reason I put food on the stove and forgot it (I) existed which is to say that I existed once, I think I was a fish. When you called me into the room to say I burnt the rice, I faded blue. […]
Read more "Burnt Rice"River Dogs River folk have destroyed the bridge beneath an obsolete moon their dogs run wild lizards grasped tightly in their iron jaws beneath an iron moon the bridge yaws empty a tracery of absence where the bridge once existed dogs laugh into the throat of history observing the ongoing battle between freshness and salt jellyfish encroach […]
Read more "River Dogs"It was a birthday gift, sent alone the day before your heart leaves for a place that’s safer—a book on travel, what to listen for, by yourself in walls that let you look back while your shadow is taken away —it’s too soon! the ribbon is still splendid will spend the night the way a […]
Read more "Untitled"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 […]
Read more "The Strongest Love"