Other poetry in this issue:

Jack Bradigan Spula:
Roger Tory Peterson
History of Cattaraugus County
1932
Canyon of the Susquehanna, W. Branch
First Day on the Job

Philip Schultz:
At the Beach this Morning

Sarah Stern:
Feeding the Elephants
Pura Vida in Costa Rica
At the Market

Owen Andrews:
March Snow
After Verlaine
Keepsake

Edward Hirsch:
Broken
Fencer

Bryan Miller:
She Sings of Herself
Outer Island
Not to Fear Infinity

Rainer Maria Rilke:
Selections from Quatrains Valaisans and Les Roses
(translated by Susanne Petermann)
Contrée ancienne, aux tours qui insistent
Douce courbe le long du lierre
Vois-tu, là-haut, ces alpages des anges
Je te vois, rose, livre entrebâillé
C'est pourtant nous qui t'avons proposé

Traci Brimhall:
The Cities That Sleep

Oliver De La Paz:
from Dear Empire

Jacqueline Osherow:
Double Abecedarius

Cora Currier:
Jefferson at the Indian Grave

Alan Peterson:
One or More

Sarah Gutowski:
Anglesey, Burial Mound

Jack Bradigan Spula: SALAMANDERS

Here in the Alleghenies,
Endless, pointless,
You imagine that lifting
One stone will yield
At least one smooth secret.
But salamander habitat
Does not deliver on cue.
Sure, they are here.
But when found, they wriggle
Free into the muck, loose
As centipedes—
Or if in hand, they burst
Into the open air
With a power beyond
Their infinitesimal toes,
Back into
The wet and dark,
Rather anywhere
Than with you.
Do they have tongues?
Up in the foreign light
They have no time
For words anyhow.
But you have to ask: what about
Their grandfathers,
The yellow spotted giants
Sunken in the creekside overhang?

 

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JACK BRADIGAN SPULA is a Rochester-based teacher, freelance journalist and musician
who has spent years as a social activist and political dissident and therefore must
spend more and more time cradled in the arms, or locked in the bear-hug, of Poetry.