Issue > Poetry
Beth Gylys
Beth Gylys, an award-winning poet and professor of Creative Writing at Georgia State University, has published three books of poetry – Sky Blue Enough to Drink, Spot in the Dark and Bodies that Hum – and two chapbooks – Matchbook and Balloon Heart. Her work has appeared in Rattle, New Republic, Barrow Street, Paris Review and many other journals and anthologies.Monastic
Silence—the gristle
on which I chewed
day after day.
I can't describe the taste.
Have you studied the space
between leaves on a tree?
Daily, we worked in the garden
side by side. I treasured each
labored breath of my brothers,
each small grunt.
I befriended a spider in the corner
of my window—carcasses
of flies drying on the sill.
Did I meet God? I understood less
more clearly. God's
patience—my common prayer.
Poetry
Valerie Nieman
Mourner's Purple
Poetry
Ann Conway
My Friend, Lost
Fiction
Jade Freeman
Easy