POETRY CRITICISM FEATURED ARTIST CONTRIBUTORS GUIDELINES ABOUT TIMELINE
Liz Robbins


Mike's Rage

Past porches, the night's parched wind unfurls,
peels layers from the spindle legs of girls.
Danica's out with Amy, Jill, and Jess.
The downtown spotlight spins in white distress.

I walk to Gyp's, the brown-lit, paneless bar,
her moon face smears in every passing car.
Lights clench and whistles tear. I order shots,
and build the inner fire of sticks and knots.

Soon I'll hear the wheat field, darkened farm
where once I hid. Blue corners tight with arms
and leather, flinches.
                              When the hours grow young,
I'll see her blank thighs soundlessly unstrung.
Smell the wind's blood-knuckled fists and dirt.
The girls go by, scissoring in skirts.




"A Family On Their Lawn One Sunday in Westchester, N.Y., 1968"

Just what his father was, a wild-eyed kid,
is difficult to envision now (Dad covers
his eyes, tired from the sun, Mom's in the mid-
life crisis bikini). Their son discreetly hovers
above a blue inflated pool in the yard,
leans down to gaze at his own small face.
His parents, lying long in chairs, are guards:
their bodies turned away to smaller traces
of comfort: stuffed ashtray, the full glass
on the table in between. Their weekend bliss:
the country club tan. Their weekend pass:
him running the yard. They do not kiss
or touch, but once they did. Dad eyeing Mom's hips,
some years before the boy's name crossed their lips.

































AUTHOR BIO

Liz Robbins' Play Button won the 2010 Cider Press Review Book Award, judged by Patricia Smith. Her poems are forthcoming in Cimarron Review, The Journal, and New York Quarterly. She's an assistant professor of creative writing at Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida.

POETRY CONTRIBUTORS

Nicole Caruso Garcia
Claudia Gary
Tracey Gratch
Kathryn Jacobs
Erin Jones
Jean Kreiling
Angela Alaimo O'Donnell
Alexandra Oliver (Featured Poet)
Liz Robbins
Doris Watts
Marly Youmans
Claire Zoghb

NEWS
> A panel on The Mezzo Cammin Women Poets Timeline has been accepted at this year's Southern Women Writers Conference.
FEATURED ARTIST
Rhea Nowak: I am always intrigued by the relationships between clarity and chaos, rhythm and awkwardness, mark and intention, presence and absence.
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