Red Dress Blue Suit, by Skipper Winder

Red Dress Blue Suit

It was mine to take off
She asked me if I minded if she smoked a joint first
I went along
The Red Dress condensed down to hold in my hands
Later, during the Big O, she opened the window to scream and shout
Oh...Stanley...Oh my god...Oh...Stanley...Oh my god
God, repeating that still does things to me
I asked if she knew listening to my poetry would make me a better lover
She went along
We were good lovers in that way

Her in her Red Dress
And, me in my Blue Suit.

Resurrection, by Emily Bording

 Resurrection

His knees and hands 

fall to the ground.

Stained with grass.

He wears his body 

of thirty-three years 

like a wooden coat.

Where he’s going

- there’s no knowing.

Lavender streams 

flood the riverbanks

of his eyes.

His breathe 

thin as a needle

thread with silk.

Sinking and resurfacing

like his surfboard

- stitching the seams 

between water and air.

Heat rises

from his golden crown

- a desert’s 

evening mist.

Tension dissolves 

with a single sigh 

- he’s gone,

completely gone.

 Heaving with fright

I grab for his feet

- the desperate clutch

of “First Love”.

My anxious ear

presses, pleads

to hear the pulse

of passion return.

Too young to believe

there will ever be 

another  “First” 

- of anything.

Where the rumble 

of tides

once swelled 

- only the echo

of my breath.

Every blade of grass 

has dulled.

His leaving 

sharpens

the edge 

of every now.

Swift as a falling hammer 

the whump of life

 resounds.

He lifts his head

resurrects a smile

and from the shores

of his far-reaching gaze

- a fearless sun slowly rises.