Magnolia

Sunday Without Church in Haiti
by Steven Joyce

One small snap the starling’s
beak yellow as sky
in Kansas still
as before a storm cold
as rain in winter the colors
seem all wrong the smell
of coffee like mud patties
otherwise Haitian a likeness
poking its head out from heavy sleep
it has slept in among charcoal fire and morning spice
sleeping congested sleep the tulips and daffodils and hyacinths and hostas
coughing in the night
waking like attic flies to the sting of spring
sun and the new turn and wobble of
a planet that hums along
pretty well smoothly otherwise
Dairy queens and McDonalds
not flung like I expected
or hung upside down hamburgers falling like rain
as the earth decides to change polarities
some say you know you better
have a gun then and
food stocks
and america will lose its capitalization
and spring will be winter
and  sunday will be monday
far from any preacher’s hell
this Taino churchless paradise. 

The Chute
by Andrew Glaze

I swore I’d take no word except from myself on rules,
would not wait for the world  to go like witches, widdershins,
or somehow signal what I was supposed to say--!
But having done this awhile,
a time came when I must guess myself which turn to take.
That was the warning. Up the chute
I could hear the failure ravens call:
“Succulent thief, pay the bill, your life has stopped  to stay.”                     

And I must answer—what, I haven’t  as much as a guess.
I wait and chew my thumb,  Heaven not having bothered
to volunteer a word.
We are such arrogant thieves you and I,
thinking  the world’s our popsy. Won’t somebody tell us,.
quickly, quickly, who to summon for help?
We’ve got no light or fix or numbered tag
and the lanterns are moving this way.