by M.E. Riley

Tether ball hung from overgrown
maple really a soccer ball dented in
half with yellow nylon rope
but stepfather called it tether ball
That’s what it was

School was over
I pushed the trampoline beneath
the tree jumped high enough to bite
the tip off an oak leaf
I shoved my fist into the bulging ball
it swung away from me it swung back
towards me my bouncing sports bra
small knots I’d been praying for
Weren’t as big as my cousin’s she wore
a nude bra with underwire so her peach
knobs wouldn’t show through
tight Aeropostale shirts I’d never been able to afford

Didn’t even want a brand name
across my breasts till I saw hers
stretching the cotton-stitched logo
my neighbor groping spaces between
a and e, r and o
their moans growing as I tried
keeping distracted Baywatch playing on
his TV mounted in the corner

Summer heat swelled the room
his Nascar bedspread felt
scratchy back of my neck sweated walls
bowed in like pairs of hips
squished soccer balls I looked through his
bedroom windows across the street was my house
backyard and trampoline the tether ball
swinging with every hot thrust of wind

I played in the backyard till mid-August
even though Mama fussed about it being too hot
I jumped and punched and bounced and swung
till I heard a screen door open and shut
across the street my neighbor shirtless jerking
lawn mower pull cord it revved up then went
quiet revved then quiet rev-sigh, rev-sigh, I watched
till humidity grew thick my throat clenched

###
M.E. Riley is an Assistant Poetry Editor for Bayou Magazine, as well as a regular contributor to Bayou’s blog. Work has most recently appeared in Nude Bruce Review, Eunoia Review, Belle Journal, and Tales from the South VI.

A Gift

by Maria Wheeler

You plucked it from
A barren peach tree
And offered it to me some sort
Of bruised and oozing, thoughtless joke-
You centered it plump on a cotton placemat.
Its fuzzy, orange brilliance paled
The autumn warning
Of crisp grey leaves
And waning sunlight,
Of life and time-
so swollen, so soft and dewy
It mocked my womb
and warmed my heart.

###
Maria Wheeler has been teaching English for thirteen years. She has an MA in writing and is working on an MFA in professional and creative writing. Maria lives in New Jersey with her husband, a musician. Someday she hopes to finish her memoirs on that peaceful, little farm.

Scorch

by Brendan Sullivan

The white cotton of a summer day
streams across June
like paint peeling off porch railings
buttercups go drowsy in window boxes
watching the world nod and doze
and the burr of cicada wings
rubs the still air scorched
and scars the sky
like locusts on honey.

Sunset

by Emily Windover

afternoon crumbles into evening
citrus splashes across the wooden trees
jubilant and fresh
crunchy december grasses stretch out
in patches of yellow and scruff

the sun gets lower, the sky gets milky
the haze infused with peach
spread over the fields like a blanket
blurring the fence posts and steeples
like a watercolor

the darkness comes with a certain sadness
details disappear
deer recede into the shadows
the last bit of light is messy pink jet scrawl
there is no turning back
sad blackness erases everything

Sail Over the Rim

by Donald Frey

Cast off Embark
Throw smart phones
to sharks along
with keys Visa bills

Quit your job
Leave your junk
Breathe fresh air
Discover passion

Take a lover
Board a ship
The winds wait
Set your sails

Go now
without compass and chart
Leave shrinking shores
Head for deep waters

Rumbling heavens
White caps
Flashing horizons
Check you trim

Tack to
Starboard.
Push your mast into stars
Sail over the rim

###

My wife and I live on country acreage with a mountain view. I’m a retired lawyer.who formally skied and climbed mountains. Now I tend a large flower garden and
enjoy poetry as my new passion.

Art by Stik, from London Street Art

silence

by Raymond Stiefvater

some-
times
crickets
say it
best

From London Street Art by Pablo Delgado

Of Trans Ams and Chickens

by Jessica Tyner

My old ’83 Trans Am lapped up the salted highway,
clear stripper shoes in the backseat and fried chicken
pressed against my thigh. There was nothing special
about that day, nothing different about the bruises
creeping up my shins to rest uncomfortably on my knees—
backpackers breaking on a pointed rock, wiping sweat on their ascent—
nothing changed about the black Knightrider Hot Wheels hanging
from the rearview mirror or the worn wooly seat covers
molded perfectly to my ass.

I don’t know what made me think of you,
what wargame my heart waged on my brain
or why, miles down the too familiar interstate I pulled over with tears
pin wheeling down my face and tore like a beast
into the greasy breast wondering why you never kissed me anymore
and at the fact that chickens—
if they wanted to—
could overtake the world;
there are so many more of them than us.

###

Jessica Tyner is a Pushcart Prize-nominated writer from Oregon and a member of the Cherokee Nation. Her publishing history includes over 30 pieces in 2012 alone. Recent projects include travel writing with Mucha Costa Rica, copy editing for the London-based Flaneur Arts Journal, and contributing to New York’s Thalo Magazine. She has recently published poetry in Slow Trains Literary Journal, Straylight Magazine, and Glint Literary Journal.
www.jessicatyner.com

Cafe Angelika Revisited

by Robert Karaszi

Twilight’s saffron haze reduced to memory
as light strengthens its spars over the horizon
silhouetted gossamer, woven upon ash wood and hedge
taut like strings on a violin

from my terrace down;
closely packed houses, roof tops
gnawing at the pith of the air, where starlings wings
stretch for sunshine through eastward glints

I recall factories and windmills,
wheeling under huddled clouds
across the contoured path of the Danube
where low tide exposes rockweed, tangled like knotted hair

I remember omnibuses nosing northward
towards Cafe Angelika; over mocha layered crepes
the first kiss gleaned from your lips,
revived this weary traveler

###

In 1990 Robert Karaszi worked as a lyricist, singer/song writer for an independent record label
where he also freelanced as a writer for upcoming artists. Today he leans towards writing
more traditional poetry. Currently he resides in New Jersey and has spoken at many poetry readings
and various events.

$250 I Want it to Be Summer Poetry Contest!

Yes! Do you want to win $250 for 1 poem, and have it published on our site? Do you want $25o to go on a summer picnic or go to the zoo or take swimming lessons? Great! We are giving away $250 for the best poem we receive starting today April 4th 2013 until June 21, 2013. It’s still chilly, and I want it to be Summer. I want warm weather, swimming, sitting outside in the morning with a cup of coffee. You know what I mean, I want it to be summer. The only thing that will make me feel better about the not so good/still too cold weather is poetry, good poetry. So with that in mind we are putting up some money for your best poem. If you win you can use the money to rent a jet ski or something…Here are the rules:

1. Send an email to eds@everywritersresource.com with the subject line: Summer Poetry Contest

2. Send up to 6 poems

3. Send ONLY 1 EMAIL! You get one entry if I have to sort through 15 emails for 6 poems, your work will be discarded.

4. Last do not send over 6 poems or your work will not be considered.

We will publish poems as we go along. So if you send us a poem, we might publish it the next week. Any poem we publish between now and June 21st is eligible (if sent to the contest). The best poem wins $250. The editor is the judge (that’s me).

So send us your poem. Get it published. Win the contest. Use the money for fireworks on the 4th of July. I really want it to be summer.

Oh and the best part: NO ENTRY FEE! Repeat: FREE TO ENTER!

If you want to donate to us, that’s great, but you do not have to!

Click here if you want to be nice and donate!

Send us great poetry everyone, I’m going to read them with my sunglasses on and think about the beach….

From the Cathedral Building

by Neil McCarthy

If I could see through your eyes the city
from the roof of the Cathedral Building,
hear the wind through the nearby arms of a crane
as I run cotton-moss between my fingers,
I, too, would smile and watch the tops of
people’s heads and wonder what they are thinking.

This is a poem you have already written.
These lines shadow you daily down Father Griffin
Road and across Wolfe Tone Bridge. And I am
writing to you now, wondering which symbol, if any,
you could remember me by: as hallowed sunshine,
cloud, or rain like fingerprints on the river?

###
Neil McCarthy is an Irish poet from Cork now living in Los Angeles. He is the author of three chapbooks of poetry, with many poems appearing in journals such as The New York Quarterly, The SHOp, Magma, and Popshot to name a few. He is a regular performer and can be found at www.neilmccarthypoetry.com and on twitter @NeilFMcCarthy