TOTALITY

by Mary Turzillo

The Sun and the Moon

did a courtship dance

did a contrary dance

nearer come nearer

far dance away

till the Sun mocked his luna love

japing “cold, changeable she” 

and “you love the earth more than me”

and it’s true: she grew fat, she grew thin,

he was hot, she was cold

Apollo, Diana:

stag and the doe

till she danced right in front of him

close to him, over him

taking delicious gold bites of him

throwing her skirts quite over him

till she blotted him out

til the night crickets sang

the the birds went to sleep

a black handkerchief over the land.

She punched a hole in the sky

where her lover had been

left a necklace of fire, a sparkle of beads

a diamond ring

for a minute or two:

the lovers' bright band

the dusk bridal veil

dark covered light, cold kissed the gold

the ring hung a promise 

a wedding of midnight and fire.

Mary Turzillo's Nebula-winner "Mars Is no Place for Children" and her Analog novel An Old-Fashioned Martian Girl were recommended reading on the International Space Station. She has been a finalist on the British SFA, Pushcart, Stoker, Dwarf Stars, and Rhysling ballots. Her poetry collection Lovers & Killers won the 2013 Elgin Award for Best Collection. Her fourth collaboration with Marge Simon, Victims, also won an Elgin. Her latest two books are Cast from Darkness, also with Simon, and Cosmic Cats and Fantastic Furballs. Mary lives in Berea, Ohio, with her scientist-writer husband, Geoffrey Landis. Today’s eclipse is her third such experience.

THIS IS YOUR WEEKEND BRIEFING

by Chris Reed

Sunday, November 15, 2020

My mother napped yesterday,

while I finished Swann’s Way.

Her water retention is down,

and we hear that someone

is unlocking the secrets of aging.

There are no words for the US 

reaching eleven million cases

of coronavirus this morning,

although the eucharistic minister 

wore a mask when she delivered

the host earlier.

The bird feeders were filled today

and promptly visited by a finch

and a red-bellied woodpecker.

Currently we are recording 

the Giants-Eagles game, in which

Daniel Jones and the Giants are

getting downfield, as constriction

threatens a transfer of power,

school reopenings and life itself.

I search for an artificial wreath. 

We have some breaking news—

a stag is walking past the window,

and we are making the call

that he is at least four years old. 

My mother sees him and reaches

for the word that means him,

although we still have no word

on reality out of the White House.

The Giants won this one.  Enjoy

what remains of your weekend.

Although relatively new to poetry writing, during the pandemic and sheltering in place with his post-stroke mother,  reading and writing poetry have become Chris Reed’s go-to survival activities.  Attending a zoom weekly poetry workshop has also been a gift and helped sustain sanity.

MEDITATION IN ROME

by Sharon Olson

School had not started and students at Rancho Tehama Elementary were still in the playground when staffers first heard gunshots in the neighborhood Tuesday morning, said Richard Fitzpatrick, superintendent of the Corning Union Elementary School District. “The bell had not rang, roll had not been taken, when the shots were heard,” he said. Staffers immediately began to lock down the campus, rushing students into classrooms and under desks when the gunman came around the corner toward the school, Fitzpatrick said at a press conference Tuesday. The gunman crashed through the front gates of the school in a white pickup truck traveling at high speed, he said. Authorities say this was part of a larger rampage through the rural community in Northern California that left five dead and 10 wounded. The man came out of the truck with a semiautomatic rifle and ran into the center of the school’s quad and began firing at windows and walls as staffers, including the school’s custodian, rushed students into classrooms under gunfire. One student was shot in a classroom while under a desk, Fitzpatrick said. That student was said to be stable. —LA Times, November 14, 2017

The gaze from Sant’Eustachio Il Caffe
reveals a stag atop the nearby church,
a crucifix sprouting between its antlers.
Stirring my cappuccino I think of Hubertus,
as Eustace is called in Belgium,
the hunter who saw his vision of the crucifix
in the forest of the Ardennes,
and asked his would-be victim
what he might do.

The stag counseled good hunting,
trimming the ranks of the herd.
I think of the X’s spray-painted
onto the carcasses of “fallen” deer
in my neighborhood,
marked for hauling away.

Fallen perhaps over-used as a euphemism
for dead soldiers, as if they had merely
stumbled, breaking rank in procession
towards the enemy at Waterloo,
Khe Sanh, Kanduz.

In my America gun cases beckon,
designer bags hold personal revolvers,
video games tally the number killed
for the game player with his joy stick,
the one who flunked anger management
and blamed the schoolmates who mocked
and bullied him, who now focuses his aim
on the heads of children in the crosshairs.

Inside the church lie the bones of Sant’Eustachio.
Painted onto the dome above, the wings
of the Holy Spirit, flung wide.

Sharon Olson is a retired librarian, a graduate of Stanford, with an MLS from U.C. Berkeley and an M.A. in Comparative Literature from the University of Oregon. Her book The Long Night of Flying was published by Sixteen Rivers Press in 2006. Her poems have appeared in such journals as Off the Coast, String Poet, Arroyo Literary Review, The Curator, Adanna, Organs of Vision and Speech Magazine, The Midwest Quarterly, Edison Literary Review, California Quarterly, The Sand Hill Review, and Cider Press Review. Two of her poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She currently lives in Lawrenceville, New Jersey where she is a member of the U.S. 1 Poets’ Cooperative, and since 2015 has been part of the Cool Women Poets critique and performance group, which gives readings in venues throughout New Jersey.