volume seven | number one | spring 2006

Poetry

Carolyn Blount Brodersen
-- On the Bus

Collette Lawlor
-- The Diver
-- Fall

Jenn Habel
-- Us
-- Allow Me to Introduce My Bad Side

Taylor Collier
-- When He Knocks

Janet I. Buck
-- A Letter to My Sister

Linda Benninghoff
-- Voices Soft as Morning Fog
-- The Aspen

Gary Charles Wilkens
-- The Gift
-- I, Tiresias

Jenny Yang Cropp
-- stealing kimchi

 When He Knocks
 -- Taylor Collier

The neighbors all warned you
though you didn't really believe,
chalked it up to gossip,
until you saw him yourself

on the sex-offender list—his name
bold-faced on the page, his crimes
in print, no longer whispers
in kitchens over cups of tea.

You were always polite, always
waved back, but now you
force smiles, so he won't know
you know.

What do you say to him,
your neighbor
who molested his own sons,
when he knocks on your door

and asks to borrow
a cup of sugar? If you let him,
will he come back? Will he
walk over to you

at the yearly block-party or at church
and try to strike up conversation,
leaving others wondering,
whispering about you? You lie,

tell him no, you're out of sugar too.
He trudges across the yard, back
to his truck and leaves
(for the grocery store)

That night you're locking up
the house before bed, as you've grown
accustomed to doing, and you see
a fresh bag of sugar on your doorstep.