Tone Deficit BY KEVIN MCFADDEN

Can't tell your oh from your ah? Go, go or else 

go ga-ga. What, were you born in a barn? Oh. 

Ah. What do you say when the dentist asks? 

No novacaine? Nah. Then joke's on us, Jack: 

we gnaw ourselves when we really ought to know. 

Can't tell the force from the farce, nor our 

cores from our cars. The horde works hard in this 

new nation of shopkeeps, moles in malls, minding 

our stores when we should be minding our stars. 

Harmony, whoremoney—can we even tell 

the showman from the shaman? Or are we 

the worst kind of   tourists, doing La France 

in low fronts, sporting shorts at Chartres 

and so alone in our élan? Nope. We're Napoleons 

of nowhere, hopeless going on hapless, 

unable to tell our Elbas from our elbows.

Some Feel Rain BY JOANNA KLINK

Some feel rain. Some feel the beetle startle

in its ghost-part when the bark

slips. Some feel musk. Asleep against

each other in the whiskey dark, scarcely there.

When it falls apart, some feel the moondark air

drop its motes to the patch-thick slopes of

snow. Tiny blinkings of ice from the oak,

a boot-beat that comes and goes, the line of prayer

you can follow from the dusking wind to the snowy owl

it carries. Some feel sunlight

well up in blood-vessels below the skin

and wish there had been less to lose.

Knowing how it could have been, pale maples

drowsing like a second sleep above our temperaments.

Do I imagine there is any place so safe it can’t be

snapped? Some feel the rivers shift,

blue veins through soil, as if the smokestacks were a long

dream of exhalation. The lynx lets its paws

skim the ground in snow and showers.

The wildflowers scatter in warm tints until

the second they are plucked. You can wait

to scrape the ankle-burrs, you can wait until Mercury

the early star underdraws the night and its blackest

districts. And wonder. Why others feel

through coal-thick night that deeply colored garnet

star. Why sparring and pins are all you have.

Why the earth cannot make its way towards you.

At Black River by Mary Oliver

All day 

its dark, slick bronze soaks 

in a mossy place,

its teeth, 

 

a multitude

set 

for the comedy

that never comes —

 

its tail

knobbed and shiny, 

and with a heavy-weight's punch

packed around the bone. 

 

In beautiful Florida 

he is king 

of his own part

of the black river, 

 

and from his nap 

he will wake 

into the warm darkness

to boom, and thrust forward,

 

paralyzing 

the swift, thin-waisted fish,

or the bird 

in its frilled, white gown, 

 

that has dipped down 

from the heaven of leaves 

one last time,

to drink.

Some Kiss We Want by Rumi

There is some kiss we want with 

our whole lives, the touch of 

spirit on the body. Seawater

begs the pearl to break its shell.

And the lily, how passionately

it needs some wild darling! At

night, I open the window and ask

the moon to come and press its

face against mine. Breathe into

me. Close the language- door and

open the love window. The moon

won't use the door, only the window.