Issue Eight

DOG CUSTODY: A VILLANELLE

you are in love, you make silly choices.
Selecting him was easy: the only blue dog we’d ever seen.
It’s hard to forget his bark, a cloud of furry voices.

As we left the pet store, we laughed at the invoice
listing all the toys and food so expensive, so obscene.
When you are in love, you make silly choices.

And after we broke up, how do we make choices
regarding who gets to see him without being mean?
I can’t sleep in the dark. What are those scary voices?

What about the Sundays we left him to rejoice
at church? Can you forget how you leaned
toward me in love, how you sang faith’s praises?

In my car, I found one of his frayed old leashes
from the last time at the park—he came back unclean.
He barked at the geese, a cloud of winged voices.

You win. I give up—he always listens to you best: chases
squirrels, but returns. But if a new girl comes, I’ll turn green.
When you fall out of love, you make silly choices.
Three hundred miles away, I can still hear your voices.


DALÍ’S FEAR OF GRASSHOPPERS

A little larva
trapped in a bean
soup. I want to eat
all the jumping.


CONTACT

Hard
little    
plastic     
disc

covering
my pupil     
contains
tiny    

specks             
of protein.
A single
krill        

could live
off the salt.        
I wouldn’t
even

mind         
if it swam
across
my eye,    

sending   
a quick
ghost
hurrying    

past,    
rattling
its miniature        
chains.

Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the author of Miracle Fruit, winner of the Tupelo Press Prize.  She is assistant professor of English at SUNY-Fredonia.


Two Poems by Eva Tihanyi


THE PERSISTENCE
OF VISION WITH REGARD TO
MOVING OBJECTS

The human eye holds images
a fraction of a second longer
than they are in sight

Each such instant: an interstice
like the space between the shoe
and the foot in it, the act
and its consequence

After each frame, unnoticed,
the next moves in, smooth and discreet

The eye thinks it’s looking
at one image only: illusion of motion

In this way my eyes hold you,
frame to frame to frame

Create their own illusion,
fill you in


WHAT IT’S ABOUT

It’s about the slow dismantling
of hope, the casting aside
of desire

It’s about the cost
of that desire

It’s about presence
and absence, having
and not having,
meticulous chaos

It’s about time and timing,
and death, the ultimate
timelessness

It’s about standing
at the corner of Myth and Truth,
a dangerous intersection, no light
to count on

It’s about the quicksand
pull of memory, you
on the right side of the bed, your profile
silhouetted in 3 a.m. darkness

It’s about the heart,
brought to its knees–
every time


Eva Tihanyi teaches English at Niagara College in Welland,Ontario, is the literary editor of Niagara Current magazine, and writes occasional book reviews for the Toronto Star.  Her fifth book of poetry,The Contagious Language of Fire, is forthcoming from Black Moss Press in 2005.