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Summer/Fall 2001Volume II Issue III

contents

portal to our archives

from the editors

News & Notes

who we are & how to submit

linkage

John Cotter has published work in www.pith.net and Maverick Magazine. He's a freelance writer and lives in Boston.

Shafer Hall is a Texas poet and playwright living in Brooklyn. His play, These Men Died While Dreaming, was preformed by Austin's ONEtheatre company. Some of his poems are available at www.thenakedape.com.
 

 

Midwest

John Cotter & Shafer Hall

 

There goes Ben Schiek's little girl
Through rows of blue corn
Observed, from under the earth
By sleeping seasons

Of bending barns and holly
And the music of my shoes
Moving away from her,
Moving home. I taught her

Nothing, she showed me
How to walk on smaller feet,
Friendly groundswells
Where my brothers are buried

Ache like stalks when she walks
Across them toward me,
nearer to me, past.

Lace isn't
Denim or even gingham but
When I lay my cheek on
My bluejeans another

World is born,
Beneath those fields I knew:
Stalk, rock and swell,
Like the back of her hand.

 

 

© 2001 by John Cotter & Shafer Hall

Also by John Cotter & Shafer Hall:

Ophelia