Poetry
A Stranger’s Story
The new moon hangs low and bright,
frightening as it rises.
The silence of a winter road leads
to a warehouse lane of cobwebbed windows,
the rake of a north wind coiling
shreds of steam and plastic sheeting.
I fear day’s end.
Raised by a pack aching for extinction,
I was born to a language of scars, of reprisal.
No one worried about injury. No day turned to my luck.
Restless, remote,
I live in my nineteenth neighborhood.
I’ve ripped every root that would hold.
Friendships drain through distance,
changing identities,
bruise of brusque suggestion.
My doubts are precise as execution protocol.
I live my life shivering on a homestead corner.
A foundation, four stone steps
are muddy leavings in a fenced-off field.
A single headlight, a motorcycle’s sweep
ripple the air nearby.
Half the night is left, the deepest cold.
I pitch a brick over the wire,
wave good-bye, amble off.
R. T. Castleberry
Snapshot
Subsistence
Witness
an act ancient and absolute:
A hawk subdues
a clumsy, lesser bird.
Beak, talon,
unflinching will
Feeding
on her mantled prey
among the fallen leaves,
the hawk is in no hurry.
Resting, working.
Shredding useful flesh.
The air, restive,
seeks another tableau.
The light holds,
waiting for her
to rise,
to recede again
into the hell
of her origin.
Carolyn Adams
14
Cenizo
Fourth Quarter 2012
A boy pulled a tow chain
from a Chevy as black and sleek
as his hair,
wiped his hands on his jeans,
hung a cigarette from his lips.
He took a snapshot
from his back pocket.
A girl hung laundry
on a wire clothesline.
The wind unfurled
a green lace willow,
like an ocean surge.
She lifted a yellow dress
into the waves of air,
pinned it gently to the line.
A shadow crossed the girl’s face.
The boy didn’t recognize her
for a moment,
with her opal eyes
and her diamond mouth.
A low song had begun
in the back of her throat.
A small heart had opened
onto the world.
Carolyn Adams