BLOOM

by Annie Cowell

Songul Yucesoy's home in Samandag, southern Turkey was destroyed when a 6.4 magnitude earthquake struck a month ago. —BBC, March 6, 2023

She raises soap sudded hands

from the washing bowl,

places them on her hips

and stretches out her aching back.

Behind her the house tilts,

crippled, less solid than its shadow, 

window frames sagging 

between cracks like craters.

On the table, rescued, somehow

unscathed, is a picture.

It is a shell-framed souvenir of life before,

when the table wasn’t orphaned

to the street. 

Now, the fruit bowl she hates

for its dull colours and chipped rim

sits beside the picture, uncomfortable,

with its solitary orange.

A white mould is beginning to blossom

on its skin.

She lifts the dying orange, 

cups it in her hands like a stunned bird

and walks the short distance 

to where her neighbours’ family inhabit

two makeshift tents, cobbled together

near the rubble of their home.

Her daughter’s friend, he of the wild eyes

and cheeky tongue, lowers his head

as she approaches, tamed and silenced

by the shame of survival.

The lump in her throat prevents speech,

so she dusts the orange 

bloom 

with her finger, takes the young boy’s hand

places the orange there. 

Squeezes. 

It’s the least, and the most, she can do.

Author’s note: Some of the events in this poem are imagined, but they were suggested by the facts in the BBC’s March 6 article “Turkey Earthquake: Survivors living in fear on the streets.” The suffering continues, even as the earthquake’s aftermath slips from the headlines.

Annie Cowell lives by the sea in Cyprus with her husband and rescue dogs. She has been published by Popshot Quarterly, Gastropoda Lit, The Milk House, and many others. She is a BOTN nominee. Her debut pamphlet Birth Mote(s) was published by Alien Buddha Press in 2022. Splashing Pink from Hedgehog Press is forthcoming later this year. @AnnieCowell3

PLUNDER

(for Cecil of Zimbabwe)
by Carolyn Gregory

This is the last known photograph of Cecil the lion (bottom) taken by Brent Stapelkamp before he was killed by the American dentist. Cecil is pictured with Jericho, a male lion who it is feared could kill the cubs of the pride fathered by Cecil. Source: White Wolf Pack.

1.

All day, he walks beside me,
his long bones slower indoors,
his gold sheen growing rich
with brown and yellow
walking past my fans.

All his life, he has taught sons
how to hunt in the savannah,
crouching and leaping
behind tall grass,
how to go for the jugular
and to strip the meat,
bringing it home to feed the family.

He has shared ancient stories
of his grandfather, the cave lion
living by his teeth and strength
five hundred thousand years ago.
Regal and triumphant,
he haunts me now.

2.

The dentist was bored
with his life of drilling and filling,
tired of his other trophies.

Africa called him back,
the roaring and howling of animals
luring him from suburbia,
pulling him away from snow
and malpractice.

One or two gunshots would be enough
to take down a great predator,
more satisfying than implants
and root canals,

a souvenir for the wall,
his ruff all groomed, the eyes
replaced with yellow glass.

3.

Shoot him with a bow and arrow,
finish him off with guns.
Make sure it's done
so the skin can be harvested
and turned into a rug.
Be sure to wield a heavy axe
to take off his head.

We want to put it on
its lacquered wall mount.
It will look fine
near the yellow afghans and throws,
terrific in our rec room.

When the fire overtakes our woods
and timber falls asunder,
when the lion calls out
his wolves and bobcats
to tear down this house of plunder,

we will not understand
the voodoo medicine big cats call
nor the end of trophies
and bragging rights
nature makes due.


Carolyn Gregory has published poems and music reviews in American Poetry Review, Cutthroat, Main Street Rag, Wilderness House Literary Review, Ygdrasil, Seattle Review. Her first and second books were published by Windmill Editions in Florida.