Putting in the mail
A copy of my new collection:
The clerk asks about
Liquids, perishables…
Liquid—no, I tell him;
Perishable is another matter,
Words and pages.
To be sure, it has a
Library of Congress barcode,
So I suppose you could
Present yourself in Washington someplace
And be led to the right shelf.
Or I may be imaging that.
Poets do not set out to be famous,
Insights and images stuffed
Into the backs of drawers.
I think of 19th century composers,
Famous at the time,
Their works no longer performed,

We have saved copies
For our grandchildren, which
Their grandchildren may find
In a box somewhere,
Unless someone’s wife has hauled them
To the church book fair,
In which case they will
Take their chances, like
That single manuscript of Lucretius,
But will know better than to count
On a particular monk.

Robert Demaree is the author of four book-length collections of poems, including Other Ladders, published in 2017 by Beech River Books. His poems have received first place in competitions sponsored by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire and the Burlington Writers Club. He is a retired school administrator with ties to North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. Bob’s poems have appeared in over 150 periodicals including Cold Mountain Review and Louisville Review.

Notice
the Pope’s
white skin beneath the red velvet robe.
Contemplate the thin papery silhouette
of Italian hands touching himself –
sometimes lovingly smoothing finger tips
of the right hand
over his perfect belly.

God has called him while
he drifts toward sleep and
the kingdom of his dreams –
a sometimes white world of goodness
made salient from the footprints left
by tiny angels, the ones who have danced
across the filigree of his indefectible
batiste shirts
angels who have enjoyed trampolining
off the springy fat of his cheeks.

Hunter Boone is published in Sappho Magazine under the pen name of J. Hunter O’Shea, has a BA in Creative Writing, studied with Stuart Dybek, Eve Shelnutt, Herb Scott and Jaimy Gordon whilst completing a MA of Fine Arts at Western Michigan University, and plays a Fender Stratocaster.

Thomas had insisted that Joanna was a Lorrainer
who conversed with angels in the heart of solitude,
a shepherdess who saw God in forests and fountains,
the fountain of Domrémy where fairies and fawns
sought the sanctity of the woods.

The sagacity of her guileful judges
is worth nothing but ridicule.
They asked what language the angelic visitors
employed in their discourse with her
as if God could not breathe his whispers
into her pure, innermost thoughts.

The Pucelle d’Orleans died grandly
in her battle with fire and falsehood.
The soldier who planned to throw a faggot
on her scaffold regretted his plot.
He spent the remainder of his life a penitent
after he had seen the fluttering dove
rise out of the ashes of the Maid of Arc.

Susie Gharib is a graduate of the University of Strathclyde with a Ph.D. on the work of D.H. Lawrence. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in multiple venues including Adelaide Literary Magazine, Green Hills Literary Lantern, A New Ulster, Crossways, The Curlew, The Pennsylvania Literary Journal, The Ink Pantry, Mad Swirl, Miller’s Pond Poetry Magazine, and Down in the Dirt.