Prose Poems issue 11-12, featuring Erika Zambello, John Levy, R.W. Thorne, Sydney Lea, and with a guest poem by Brett Ortler

A Different Sort of Minnesota Winter
It’s normal now to take a wrong turn, on purpose, after dropping your kid off at school, to look for SUVs or trucks with out-of-state plates and tinted windows. They wait outside bus stops, school pickup lines, food banks, churches. It’s normal now to drive with the radio off, so you can hear cars honking or the sharp sound of a whistle in the distance. And it’s normal now, if you pay close enough attention, for them to visit you—a black Dodge Charger in front of your house, with its lights off, but idling, speeding away once noticed.

It’s normal now for the people with long guns and masks and pepper spray and tear gas to say that whistles and pun-filled signs (Ice is Slippery and Dangerous!) are the true threat. A whistle is a small thing, but so is the word no. That is what they are afraid of—of being outnumbered—not by some imagined invasion of migrants, but by a chorus of dissent, tens of thousands of people who know what is happening is wrong.

BRETT ORTLER

Today
I learned that you can ship fish in the mail. It’s true. My dad received two orange, adult angelfish—a mated pair—in a soft bag full of water. Protected from winter in New England, their plastic-wrapped home came further ensconced in hand-heaters. The seller had to wait and ship on a warm day; at least warm by December standards. This feels like a metaphor, right? That the fish are us and their shipment is a journey and the handwarmers are… I don’t know. A reference to Dante’s Inferno? An allusion to climate change? This is a poem after all. But, nope: Two angelfish in a brown, square, UPS package are just the quickest way to move a pair of pets from Vermont to Maine.

It’s Sunny
and snowing and cold here on the coast. I didn’t know it could be sunny and snow at the same time— light absorbed by flakes and dashed across my retinas. The whole world is gold, from the shimmering waves to the stone jetties to the eyes of the ducks that swim in the shallows. Everything is frozen—or maybe I’m just frozen, as the wind has pushed the temperature down below zero. But I don’t mind. Instead, I concentrate, intent on capturing this moment in my memory. I want to happen upon it again, years from now, déjà vu in some other place. A stiff wind, a blinding reflection, the smell of salt – and time suspends, like the snow at the edge of a storm. One foot in the present, one back on this Maine miniature cliff.

ERIKA ZAMBELLO

The Taxidermist’s Sons The older son, Charlie, 7, told the younger son, Vince, 4, that all the furniture in their house was alive and held conversations at night after everyone else was asleep. Vince asked what they talked about. “They talk a lot about you,” Charlie said, “and they almost never have anything nice to say about you.” “Even the stuffed chair?” Vince asked. “I sit in that the most.” “It wasn’t stuffed, you know,” Charlie said, “until Dad found it, dead, in an alley, and Dad stuffed it. It hates us all, but you the most. It can’t stand you.” Vince silently wondered if Charlie meant the chair wanted to stand up but couldn’t stand because Charlie was sitting on it. “Does it stand up and walk around when we’re asleep?” Vince asks. “Yes, and lots of times it walks over to your bed and stares down at you, wondering if it’s time to kill you.”

         JOHN LEVY

R.W. THORNE

Last Laugh Yesterday, outside the supermarket, I heard a rough-looking man’s laughter, boisterous, savage. I looked toward the sound and watched his wife or girlfriend shrink from him. To her, clearly, nothing was funny. The moment triggered a memory from nine full years ago. Cruel laughter had erupted behind the railroad station platform’s gate. A woman next to me stood dazed. Like us all. The frigid evening, unseasonable, punished us as we waited for the train to Montreal. The night before, someone had killed sixty people from a hotel balcony, then killed himself. I could almost hear that killer laugh too, though no survivor reported that he did so. In that moment, I remember thinking back to my young boyhood, standing outside Kevin’s house, waiting for him to come out and play. I heard his shrieks as his big brother beat him up, unaccountably laughing as he did so. I was bewildered. The brother often beat Kevin, but whenever I asked why, Kevin shrugged. It was something that happened– like massacre in our time. I’ve survived into old age, and I’ve learned to accept things, however I feel about them. I’ll go insane if I don’t. But some are hard to take. Shivering beside those tracks, I was waiting for that crazed laughter again. I think we all were. It didn’t come. But the train did, right on time.

SYDNEY LEA

 

We’ve started a press! Check out Democracy of Noise by Prose Poems author Dan Pinkerton here! It’s the first poetry release from Gray Duck Press.

Brett Ortler is the editor of Prose Poems. He lives in Minnesota.

Erika Zambello is a writer, artist, and communications specialist living and working in North Florida.

John Levy lives in Tucson with his wife, the painter Leslie Buchanan. His most recent book of poems is 54 poems: selected & new (Shearsman Books, 2023).

R. W. Thorne (he/him) is a 24-year-old writer from the Scottish Highlands. His work has appeared in several Scottish zines and magazines, including Extra Teeth, The Selkie, and littlelivingroom, and he has featured as a headline poet at events in Durham, Paris, and Edinburgh. You can find more of his work on Instagram.

A former Pulitzer finalist in poetry, Sydney Lea was Vermont’s Poet Laureate from 2011 to 2015.  In 2021, he was presented with his home state’s Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts. He has published a novel, five volumes of personal and three of critical essays, and sixteen poetry collections, most recently What. His sixth book of personal essays, Such Dancing as We Can, is now available from The Humble Essayist Press, and his second novel, Now Look, will appear in May of 2024.