The Sculptress

by Vivian Cassina

The cement runs through my fingers
and puddles on the floor beneath my feet.
For he resists my attempts to sculpt him
into the man that my eyes see, here
before me--- just out of reach,
So close to perfection ---

Yet he is imperfectly formed
for his only judge is himself, lying in pieces
he cannot chance, again, to repair.
Ah, but the pieces fit so perfectly
within my hand, to hold and fumble
to feel their white hot coolness'

And so, I lose myself in his fragility.
I watch as the cement slowly hardens
and am ashamed, for I am glad he did not mend.
For if he were whole, a perfection,
of what purpose would the sculptress be?
and of what use would he see in me.

Telling

by Louie Crew

Elegy for a Friend and Witness

by Tamara Jenkinson

Dessert

by Janet Buck

For a long time,
I was a cranky country tune
wishing to wiggle its hips to love.
The last sad song on scratched CDs.
Desert owned dessert of hope
and not the other way around.
Emotion was a tumbleweed.
Pubic hair was graying wire.
Fences made of Brillo brine.
Stage of flesh was closed to touch,
an apathetic audience.
Time and treatment earned me that.
When it came to men before,
firewood stacked in hearth and home--
wet matches or a flat soufflé.

Dessert replaces desert storms.
Sleeping under stars for real.
Your fingers tune piano strings;
moonlight is a microphone.
You fiddle me; I rise to you
the way a lemon trusts the squeeze.
You are the rose all hearts deserve
on sunny morning breakfast trays.
Porch swing sway and pillow talk
make masters of our instruments.
All the drying reeds of past
seem cattails in shrinking ditch.
My breasts are bumps
of Braille to read.
Practice on my body, please.

Mount Scopus Campus

by Moshe Benarroch

    If weighed and found wanting the balance
Finds grace.
    Opposites are needed and they both find 
 Their place.
    Both death and life are our measured
Portion.
    Truth finds its balance without a 
Distortion.
     The precious and worthless together
Shall lurk.
    Life comes to the surface when death
Has its work.
    Each faces the other, Two opposing 
Powers,
  "working together" to bring graceful
white showers.
But opinions are stones which think
    To be bread,
They are slicing dividers that stand in
    Our heads.
Opinions make war they assault and
     Assail,
Till they Fall on the Rock and The
    Spirit prevails!