The Rosebud by Jason Fisk

I hadn’t seen you
since the day you told
me you were pregnant,
in that cafe.  It was
a September day,
filled with a cold fall rain.
I remember thinking
that I could smell the rain
on people as they passed our table.
There was an unopened
rosebud in a simple
glass vase on our table.
What am I going to do?
You asked
over and over.

Today we stood in the aisle
between the cards
and the candles
at Target, small talk
our armor.  I looked
at your empty belly.
You pulled your jacket closed.
“Well, it sure is good to see you,
we’ll have to get together sometime,”
you lied.  I wanted to tell you
that I had learned
in a poem
that the Japanese
prefer the rose bud
to the rose blossom,
but how do you fit
that into conversation?




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[first read in his chapbook The Sagging: Spirits & Skin; used with permission from Propaganda Press]

Planting (for Kaya) by Rebecca Schumejda

As your father pushes soil over seeds,
you dig them back up.

“No,” leads to a tantrum
on top of where the summer squash will grow.

Since your father knows how much
of who we are gets planted early;

he wraps explanations
around your trembling body.

In the background, I attack weeds
suffocating roses,

the way I suspect my mother would have
under similar circumstances.

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[first read in nibble number eight]