THE WIDENING FAULT / image by Amalie Flynn

Parkinson’s Triolet

I cup the base of your skull, catch
precious cells spilling out like salt
that seasons your limbs, your unholy lurches
I cup the drumbeat of us, mis catch

the rhythm, drop plates with a crash
You feed pills into the widening fault
My palm on the back of your head catches
our precarious marriage, heavy with salt

Summer Isolation

I paint the porch with strokes of blue
diamond. By sunset, it’s a veranda

of green and you have fallen asleep
at the shore of a lake that glaciers through

your dreams. You wake with stones in your
teeth and ice melting under your skin

You arrive home with feet delighted
by the verdancy at our entrance. We

dig holes in the ground, nests for roots
the width of thread. You shake ancient

drops of water off your bones. When
a ruby-throated hummingbird

zips past
we see it

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Carol Graser

Carol Graser grew up in an Air Force family, witnessing anti-war demonstrations from “inside the fence”. Her first CD action was fittingly at the Seneca Army Depot, climbing the fence to protest the deployment of cruise and Pershing missiles. She is the author of the poetry collection The Wild Twist of Their Stems, Foothills Publishing, 2007 and her work has appeared in many literary journals, most recently in I-70 Review, Midwest Quarterly and Hollins Critic. She hosts a monthly poetry series at Saratoga Spring’s legendary Caffe Lena that she initiated in 2003.