Ann E. Michael
Desist/Resist
Dying takes work.
Intricate systems
connect cells
within our selves,
networks large
and small, co-
ordinate the shut
down with
the message:
cease.
Heart responds
with clenched-fist
punch; the rest
follows the leader.
Often, there's
resistance—
life being rugged
and persistent.
Cells and synapses
take their time
to diminish,
working hard
against the finish.
Mockingbord Joust
April, the maples have begun to bud
and there on the larch's bare branches that bird
goes copying every riff he's ever heard,
trying to impress.
Chirping, lilting, trilling, at times two tones
at once, his small heart beating rapidly
under the dull white feathers and nobody
listens, I guess.
Maybe one human stops to spy him, gray
on gray limbs under gray sky, no one's praising
the thrill of his irruption, mash-up phrasing,
juiced clatter of his jazz.
We who bypass his flash of white, rasp and song,
think his kind common as paper coffee cups
beside the road. Who's bothered to look up?
Only his rival has.
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| AUTHOR BIO |
| Ann E. Michael is the writing coordinator at DeSales University of Center Valley, PA, and the author of the poetry collection Water-Rites as well as four chapbooks. She's also a librettist, essayist, and long-time blogger (www.annemichael.wordpress.com). Her work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, 9th Letter, Natural Bridge, Painted Bride Quarterly, ISLE, and in many other journals, anthologies, podcasts, and websites.
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| POETRY CONTRIBUTORS |
 Barbara Crooker
Alexandra Donovan
Jehanne Dubrow
Kathleen Goldbach
Colleen S. Harris
Brittany Hill
Katherine Hoerth
Lynne Knight
Jean L. Kreiling
Angie Macri
Carolyn Martin
Kathleen McClung (Featured Poet)
Mary Mercier
Ann Michael
Leslie Schultz
Myrna Stone
Jean Syed
Ann Christine Tabaka
Sally Thomas
Doris Watts
Joyce Wilson
Marly Youmans
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| Megan Marlatt:Looking like large puppet heads, it was "anima", the root of "animation", that led me to the making of the big heads, (or "capgrossos" as they are called in Catalonia where I learned the craft.) Anima is the soul or what breathes life into a being and to animate an inanimate object, an artist must insert a little soul into it. However to bring attention to what is invisible, (the soul), I chose to mold its opposite in solid form: the persona, the ego, the big head, the mask. Nearly every culture across the globe has masks. They allow performers to climb into the skin of another being and witness the other's world from behind their eyes. While doing so, the mask erases all clues of the performer's age, gender, species or race. In this regard, I find them to be the most transformative and empathic of all human artifacts.
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