Two poems by A.J. Huffman

Entropy

Sandcastles fall from the smallest winds,
turning order over/through/[and] against itself.
I trundle under the devastation with tools
I have been forbidden to touch.
A new wall breathes against my surface.
Sharpened by its preceded hollow, it leashes
my strategy -- I begin forgetting myself
in the middle of sentences . . .

Still momentum is built.  By desistence,
I acquire acreage (mental not physical).
The tally:  loss negates gain
as we flounder in [diminishing?] circles
fueled by our own divisible foot
                                                  steps.



Leading to the Moon . . . 

Dial it down to the crocodile's tears.
The butterfly house is abandoned and dripping
with brackish dreams.  Three cats whisper
our feathers across the moss.  An empty
bench catches them and collapses
from the weight.  Of imaginary alliances
is the battle cry from the bushes
no one sees.  The bridge
stays silent:  collecting unspoken payment
for passage back.  To sanity?  Surely,
we pledge a toast to total compliance
with each other's wonder at waterfalls
made from dying vines.

A.J. Huffman's poetry, fiction, haiku, and photography have appeared in hundreds of national and international journals, including Labletter, The James Dickey Review, and Offerta Speciale, in which her work appeared in both English and Italian translation.  She is also the founding editor of Kind of a Hurricane Press.

A Poem by April Salzano

The Girl of My Dreams

She is thin in the morning and fat
by nightfall, loose seams tearing apart, death
a wish that comes as much as it goes,
a passing fancy, a fancy passing.
She watches a string dance, umbilicus
of dust laced from ceiling to cupboard,
she is sure it is not the reverse.
She watches it blow but never fall.
Falling and mingling with the rest of the filth,
it will go undetected.  Her skin has a mouth
that eats everything in sight.  Careful,
she thinks you look delicious.
Dust bunnies romp in the garden of her
dreams, unflowered, save the dandelions
with all their heads popped off
because of people who had babies
and made rhyme out of reason,
not the reverse.  Laughter is her echo,
a paralyzing fit of convulsions.
She is contradicted.
Look into the mirror.  Her
reflection is yours.  Now read this
backwards and see
how lovely she is.



April Salzano teaches college writing in Pennsylvania where she lives with her husband and two sons.  Most recently, she was nominated for two Pushcart prizes and finished her first collection of poetry.  She is working on a memoir on raising a child with autism.  Her work has appeared in journals such as Convergence, Ascent Aspirations, The Camel Saloon, Centrifugal Eye, Deadsnakes, Visceral Uterus, Salome, Poetry Quarterly, Writing Tomorrow and Rattle.  The author also serves as co-editor at Kind of a Hurricane Press.