Force of Paper

By Mary Pacifico Curtis

The magnetic north pole is moving
I hear and imagine

it’s gone for a walk freeing itself
in circles around where it was fixed
stretching and testing the magnets mood
as the globe shifts too

what was the USSR
now a collection of stans
Kazakhi-Uzbeki-Turkmeni-Jajaki
and Kurdistan for northern Iraq
Dagestan
“country of mountains”
hiding terror’s plan makers
Waziristan
Pakistan

bumps on the globe elevate terrain
that doesn’t change so easily
no matter the name
paper mache under thick glaze
holding the world together.

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Fast Lane

By Mary Curtis

To the right
three kids two parents
kicking up dust
on the side of a highway

a fast moving highway

a fast moving family
out of their car
in the mirror
as I pass

the littlest boy urps

pressing his shorts close
to white spindles in big shoes
(I imagine goose bumps)
his mom reaches him

pushes his head down

and he urps again
his dad stands beside
the kids watching

You ask how did I see this,

see this I say
my rear view mirror
a reflection passing
I saw in real time

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Submission Guidelines

By Mary Pacifico Curtis

Do not send poems
about the death of a pet
loved one, failed romance,
a rhymy rhyme

what you send
better be funny
not chicky ducky

under any circumstances
fuzzy rabbits
aren’t publishable

consider beer, wine, gift cards to Starbucks
we need sustenance

to publish what we will
limbs, crazed acts
silk–wrapped larceny

sex in flocked sheets
grotesque branches and broken lives
the permanence of stone

but please don’t send passionate dreams
or numberless rhymes, too many adjectives
one who has flung herself out of the grass,

one who is eating sugar out of your hand,
anyone living in a pretty how town and don’t ask
what do we plan to do with our wild

and precious lives

send no love, nature, longing, beauty, no,
no not those they’ve been done
and will cause us not to recycle.

Simultaneous ok attach as a .doc
or use the postal address below
Do send SASE or email info for
acknowledgment.

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News From Haiti 2010

By Mary Pacifico Curtis

The girl-child is one
among thousands
round belly girded
by obvious ribs,
her brown twig arm
with willow digits
outstretched, glittering
brown pools for eyes
holding this moment
and the ones before
of amputation and pain
controlled, now cookie in hand
she urges her surgeon
to enjoy the sweet.

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