River, Blood, And Corn Literary Journal

For Q

by Kim Shuck

Pull on a different mountain range

One leg at a time

You time travel in poem

He told me

I've seen you do it

We went relic spotting

More than once

Through the line up of the '53 Dodgers

Before his heart was broken

Memories never sit as neatly in a prong setting

As a heart solitaire

Memories never sit as neatly

Kim Shuck is the 7th Poet Laureate of San Francisco Emerita. Shuck is solo author of 9 books, co-authored one, edited another ten and has contributed to a vast array of anthologies, journals, curriculum guides, tours, and protests. www.kimshuck.com

To my bystanders

by Deborah Jang

People stand by during attack of elderly Asian woman – Associated Press

Did you catch a whiff of lilac

on that warm summer eve

while we gathered at the bus stop,

each wandering our mind?

Out the corner of your eye

did you flinch, did you see him

rushing twilight, pushing rudely in?

In a flash of recognition,

did your stomach tell your throat

what was going down?

Did you see my toes curl fetal

while I lay sideways

on the concrete stunned?

Did you freeze in fear and horror?

Did you look the other way?

Did you reach down for your phone

or was it already in your hand?

Were you scared to intervene?

Did your silence cheer him on?

Was it you who kneeled down

and whispered something kind

I didn’t understand?

Did you see my bruised face on TV?

Did they say my name?

Did they even try?

Deborah Jang’s creative practices include assemblage sculpture and poetry, based out of Denver, Colorado and Oceanside, California. Her debut poetry collection is titled Float True (Shanti Arts, 2020). Her new chapbook is Last Will and Best Guesses (Finishing Line Press, 2022). deborahjang.com

Community

by Kim Shuck

Grandma lived with this peppernut

Sapling and tree

They drank the same water

I know that the creek is here

Under ground

Under thought

Near the lilac

Someone’s relic of a different life

Someone’s idea

Carried from somewhere else

On a quiet day

When there has been rain

Rest your cheek on the trunk and hear/feel

Water

Running in cracked pipes

Grandma

The tree

The elderberry

The salamander

The sense of humor

The fog

Each water particle

Rhymes with the life here

Whispers kinship

To the cracked and layered

Rocks on this

Hill

Kim Shuck is the 7th Poet Laureate of San Francisco Emerita. Shuck is solo author of eight books and one that is on the way. She has edited or co-edited ten volumes of poetry. She contributed essays to the recently released de Young 125, a collection of writing about and photographs of pieces in the permanent collections of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Her most recent collection of poems is Exile Heart from That Painted Horse Press. www.kimshuck.com

For Q

To my bystanders

Community

River, Blood, And Corn Literary Journal: A Community of Voices