-by Deborah (Gottlieb) Garrison Here we go again,up the narrow stairof fall, and I'm full of nerve, have to have you, I'm looking for youeverywhere.  It's trueI like men too much, and when I see one in the streetI used to know — starting to bebald, in a raincoat eight years old, worry a lit…

Listen, that I was never one to understand itis part of the reason I never supportedwaved, cheered, yellow-ribbonedthe boys back home. There was too muchdesperation, too much last option taken withoutother options considered. But look: show me a world without ghettos, show me women lined up for their first vote, show mesomething better after and…

Cary Grant was so perfect but his hands look like someone else's as they embrace the woman, the saint. Maybe they were Leach's hands, so out of place, trying to be anywhere and never belonging where he wanted to be. There was the man he was born and the man he was born to play.…

Freshman year in high school, poetry class, and I was reading through the book, and the teacher asked me a question and though I could normally answer a question without even one ear half-cocked ("It concerns man's inhumanity to man" was always good), the poem I had just read had so torn me that I…

Well, swords is the obvious example, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger and all of that. Or in the case of chocolate it makes you sweeter. Or some spices, releasing their magic. Or in the case of glass it can mean shatter. There is also the aspect of balance because it is what you…

IN SYMPATHY, BUT ONLY FOR A LITTLE LONGER–   by Ann Menebroker everyone'sdoing their jobbut annieand she can'tbecause she doesn'tfeel up to itand gets claustrophobiashe's thirstyshe has to go wee weeshe feels fatshe's tiredshe's hornyshe can't face peoplewithout slipping into themlike a toe checkingwater temperatureshe feels unsafeshe drinks and gets sickshe sweats easilyshe doesn't like…

I've got to tell youhow I love you alwaysI think of it on greymornings with death in my mouth the teais never hot enoughthen and the cigarettedry the maroon robe chills me I need youand look out the windowat the noiseless snow At night on the dockthe buses glow likeclouds and I am lonelythinking of…

It breathes on you softly whiskered like a boy you kissed in college who smelled like lavender whiskey This breath tickles looking for hidden treats in your fists and pockets close your eyes It feels tough like you'd like to be and aren't your grandfather had a coat like this smell of pipe tobacco and…

When you are not hereI slip my leg over to your sidejust to remind you that it was my bed in the first place and wake at nighttelling you a dreambut even if you were hereyou would have slept slept through the story.

I dreamed I told you everything, that I laid it out in logic and compassion. In my dream you understood me perfectly. When I woke up, though, I was alone. And I had not yet said a word of what I meant.