FAVORITE GODDESS

by Karen Warinsky

 

Cynthia waxes, manages her money,

shops off season for the children’s clothes,
stretches the meat with casseroles,
smiles at her husband.
 
Selene wanes, 
lights small candles,
bundles the baby, the grandmother,
cocooning them in blankets woven for beauty,
hums to herself.
 
Like Hecate at the crossroads a woman waits for grain,
for water, the line winding and wide like the Nile,
life pressing against her hip,
laying gentle in her tired hand.
 
Beyond, in the pitch and quiet of space,
Artemis flies, seeking herself in beaming moonlight,
hunting a discovery for men
on a mission that will hold no answers 
for Earth’s struggling, steadfast daughters.

 
Karen Warinsky began publishing poetry in 2011 and was named as a finalist for her poem “Legacy” in the Montreal International Poetry Contest in 2013.  She has two books from Human Error Publishing: Gold in Autumn (2020) and Sunrise Ruby, (2022), both.  Her work centers on mid-life, relationships, politics, and the search for spiritual connection through nature, and she coordinates poetry readings under the name Poets at Large.

BEAUTIFUL AND BITTER THE WATER

by Matthew Johnson

Before God had gone down to trouble those waters,
I had dipped and wash you child in the calm waves
Of the Nile.

From rooted Jordan and Babylon child,
I sang to you those ancient songs
As I scrubbed away the dirt from your black flesh.

In the plantation cots in the golden dusk of Georgia,
In steadfast resolute,
I tried to cleanse the expanse of your black skin with water.

But now child, I’ve been unsettled.
Muddy as the blackened conscious of Delta Blues,
I’ve seen the waters turn a syrupy-hue.

I now allow you child to drink bitterness
And etch the poison of human guile
In your god-like blood and god-like skin.

Let us flow to a return child,
When I sang those old spirituals, lulling you to sleep
With the most savory of shadows and dreams.

But in those days oh child,
The waters were far too deep
And your skin was far too beautiful to leave.


Matthew Johnson is a 2015 December graduate of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Matthew is a sports journalist who has written for the USA Today College, Fansided, StoopSports and his university newspaper, The Carolinian. Matthew’s poetry has appeared in The Coraddi and The Carolinian. He lives in North Carolina.