ON EL DIA DE LOS MUERTOS

by Catherine Gonick

spirits shed like gasses 

   from the bodies 

 

of our ancestors, 

   children, and others

 

we have loved 

   like to put on costumes 

     

adorn their bones

   wear jewels

 

and red flowers

  tune up guitars

 

They rush to gather

   at the elevator

 

press the button

  for the noosphere

 

that earth-space full

  of our continuing

 

thoughts, private

    and shared

And when the door opens

and the operator calls

 

      going down

      going up

 

      getting off

      getting on

 

the spirits know

  they can go anywhere

 

that we are thinking

  today of them

 

remembering and waiting 

  for them to join us

 

for a fiesta without borders

Catherine Gonick has published poetry in a wide range of literary journals including The New Verse News, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and forthcoming in The Orchards Poetry Journal, as well as in anthologies including Grabbed and Support Ukraine.  She works in a company that fights global warming.

EN EL DIA DE LOS MUERTOS: A VISIT FROM MY AUNT

by Richard Garcia

The author's Titi Rosa well before her passing.

Titi Rosa came to visit me last night. It was about time. How long? Sixty-five years? Phosh, she said, That's just yesterday. She brought me a fruitcake, the kind everyone in our mean family would make fun of. She always reminded me of one of those maiden aunts in A Child's Christmas in Wales, that sat on the edge of their chairs with their teacups in hand, alert, just in case someone would speak to them. Our old house was quite nice now, with loft-like rooms, and big windows that looked out on the river that used to be buried under concrete. We stood at the window and admired the houses of the wealthy across the river. But these wealthy people were nice wealthy people. One house was like a palace make of sea foam, and seaweed, and palm fronds and driftwood that resembled formations of pelicans. Another had a pile of boxes on its roof seemingly random, but not if you studied it. They looked like cardboard but were really a sculpture of presents yet to be opened. They spilled over the front of their house as if they were falling, but they were not. And there was a skyscraper made of toothpicks by a blind man in prison for shooting his wife. It was justifiable homicide was what he had always claimed, she was a mean wife, and would not stay still when they played William Tell in the backyard. Now you are being silly, Titi Rosa said, and pinched my cheek, which I used to hate. But it felt so nice, to see Titi Rosa, and have her pinch my cheek. Now you eat the fruitcake Richie, she said, all of it, except for one slice. Wrap it up tight in cellophane, and put it in your icebox. It will last you forever, or for the rest of your life, which, according to her, is the same thing.


Richard Garcia is the author of The Other Odyssey from Dream Horse Press, The Chair from BOA, and Porridge from Press 53. His poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies. He has won a Pushcart prize and has been in Best American Poetry. He lives in Charleston, S.C.

DIA DE LOS MUERTOS

by Sister Lou Ella Hickman





streets and alleys flood with color
a confetti of noise
explodes into the night
yet we know all too well
the violence in the shadows
all we have left is our poverty
our fiesta
this is our courage
and we must dance—
it is in our blood


Sister Lou Ella Hickman is a member of the Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament. She has been a teacher on all levels and she has worked in two libraries.  Presently she is a freelance writer as well as a spiritual director. Her poems and articles have been published in numerous magazines as well as a poem in After Shocks: Poetry of Recovery for Life-Shattering Events edited by Tom Lombardo and a poem in Down the Dark River edited by Philp Kolin. Her first book of poetry, she: robed and wordless, published by Press 53, was released September 1, 2015.