Choosing Partners From a stranger’s garage, one by one, I carried each puppy from his known world, around the front of the house; clipped a leash to his collar; explained in a new language, “this is your chance.” Then “heel” which means, dance with me. I rolled a thrift-store baby’s ball away: “get it!” “bring it!” Four pups looked at their chance and yawned. The fifth brightened, danced the porch-boards with me; delivered the ball to my hand as if it were magic and I knew the spell. I took him home. The ball disappeared. The magic danced into his eyes. Taylor Graham is a volunteer search-and-rescue dog handler in the Sierra Nevada. Her poems are included in the anthologies California Poetry: From the Gold Rush to the Present (Santa Clara University) and Villanelles (Everyman's Library). Her latest book is Uplift (Cold River Press, 2016). Hedonism on the rocks Saigon, shit: it’s Saigon, it’s jet lag, and I’m not a big Valium fan, or of counting sheep (or of reading Conrad), and I don’t feel like loving myself with just my hand in the middle of the Apocalypse, so I go down to buy at a lolitas store, to the five and dime on the corner, something new something old, something borrowed and something blue, so I chose Wo, without any more name or love or background or last name, just Wo, for, minutes later, stars under the Sheraton’s rain (electric delirious spongy strong soft): Vietnamese shower, previous lack of pumping and, after navigating the Leviathan together, Sitting Bull I have finally died: I go to the room for my wallet, I pay her and I pour myself some verses of Johnie Walker over the cubic solidity of the water: God is all around. Tomás Sánchez Hidalgo holds a BBA (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid), a MBA (IE Business School), a Master in Creative Writing (Hotel Kafka) and a Certificate in Management and the Arts (New York University). His works have been published in magazines like, among others, Otoliths, By&By, Poems-For-All, Clementine, The Unrorean, Alien Mouth, Haggard&Halloo, Trascendent Zero, Crack the Spine, The Bitchin´ Kitsch, Rat´s Ass, The Commonline Journal, Epigraph, Botsotso, and streetcake Magazine, and he has been the winner of prizes like Criaturas feroces (Editorial Destino) in short story and a finalist at Festival Eñe in novel. He has developed his career in finance and stock-market. To Open the Sky Three birds breached that barrier between the seasons.... tore through the grey fabric of a fitful March sky, made swift passage to still familiar trees and home again at last to me. Fickle travelers I grieved for, their music so missed in silent winter, flip of saucy feathers in barely budding bush. And on this day they bring me spring, far too early, though I trust that unlike me they understand the light. Katherine L. Gordon is a rural Ontario poet, publisher, author, judge and reviewer. She is an award winning writer whose works have been published internationally, translated into several languages. Her books may be found at Craigleigh Press, Passion among the cacti Press, Hidden Brook Press, Serengeti Press, Melinda Cochrane International, Cyclamens and Swords Press, as well as many anthologies, books and chapbooks with fine contemporaries whose works inspire her. |