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  • Issue #27 Spring 2024
    • Issue #27 Art Spring 2024 >
      • Kristina Erny Spring 2024
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      • Marsha Solomon Spring 2024
    • Issue #27 Poetry Spring 2024 >
      • Terry Belew Spring 2024
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      • Dustin Brookshire​ & Caridad Moro-Gronlier Spring 2024 Spring 2024
      • Charlie Coleman Spring 2024
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      • Reyzl Grace Spring 2024
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      • Meredith Herndon Spring 2024
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      • Anoushka Kumar Spring 2024
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      • Lynne Thompson Spring 2024
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      • Donna Vorreyer Spring 2024
    • Fiction #27 Spring 2024 >
      • Bryan Betancur Spring 2024
      • Karen George Spring 2024
      • Raja'a Khalid Spring 2024
      • Riley Manning Spring 2024
      • Adina Polatsek Spring 2024
      • Beth Sherman Spring 2024
    • Nonfiction #27 Spring 2024 >
      • Liza Olson Spring 2024
  • Issue #28 Fall 2024
    • Issue #28 Art Fall 2024 >
      • Eric Calloway Fall 2024
      • Matthew Fertel Fall 2024
      • JooLee Kang Fall 2024
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      • Sean Layh Fall 2024
    • Issue #28 Poetry Fall 2024 >
      • Jodi Balas Fall 2024
      • Clayre Benzadón Fall 2024
      • Catherine Broadwall Fall 2024
      • Sara Burge Fall 2024
      • Judith Chalmer Fall 2024
      • Stephanie Choi Fall 2024
      • Sarah Jack Fall 2024
      • Jen Karetnick Fall 2024
      • Ae Hee Lee Fall 2024
      • Svetlana Litvinchuk Fall 2024
      • Mary Lou Buschi Fall 2024
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      • Camille Newsom Fall 2024
      • Elizabeth O'Connell- Thompson Fall 2024
      • Olatunde Osinaike Fall 2024
      • Jessica Pierce Fall 2024
      • Diane Raptosh Fall 2024
      • Isaac Richards Fall 2024
      • Robyn Schelenz Fall 2024
      • Christopher Shipman Fall 2024
      • Alex Tretbar Fall 2024
      • Ruth Williams Fall 2024
      • Shannon K. Winston Fall 2024
      • Wendy Wisner Fall 2024
      • Anne Gerard Fall 2024
    • Issue #28 Fiction Fall 2024 >
      • J​oe Baumann Fall 2024
      • ​Morganne Howell Fall 2024
      • Matt Paczkowski Fall 2024
      • Ryan Peed Fall 2024
      • Gabriella Pitts Fall 2024
      • James Sullivan Fall 2024
  • Issue #29 Spring 2025
    • Issue #29 Art Spring 2025 >
      • Irina Greciuhina Spring 2025
      • Jesse Howard Spring 2025
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      • Marsha Solomon Spring 2025
      • Elzbieta Zdunek Spring 2025
      • Na Yoon Amelia Cha-Ryu Spring 2025
    • Issue #29 Poetry Spring 2025 >
      • Deborah Bacharach Spring 2025
      • Diego Báez Spring 2025
      • Jaswinder Bolina Spring 2025
      • ​Ash Bowen Spring 2025
      • Christian J. Collier Spring 2025
      • ​Shou Jie Eng Spring 2025
      • Sara Fitzpatrick Spring 2025
      • Matthew Gilbert Spring 2025
      • Tammy C. Greenwood Spring 2025
      • Alejandra Hernández ​Spring 2025
      • Ben Kline ​Spring 2025
      • ​David Moolten Spring 2025
      • ​Tamer Mostafa Spring 2025
      • ​Rongfei Mu Spring 2025
      • Cynthia Neely Spring 2025
      • Pablo Otavalo Spring 2025
      • ​Bleah Patterson Spring 2025
      • ​M.A. Scott Spring 2025
      • ​Liam Strong ​ Spring 2025
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      • ​Cassandra Whitaker Spring 2025
      • Angelique Zobitz Spring 2025
    • Issue #29 Fiction Spring 2025 >
      • Vanessa Blakeslee Spring 2025
      • K. J. Coyle Spring 2025
      • Meredith MacLeod Davidson Spring 2025
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    • Issue #29 Nonfiction Spring 2025 >
      • JM Huscher Spring 2025
      • Qurrat ul Ain Raza Abbas Spring 2025

Barbara Saunier
​

How do you like to go up in a swing,
   Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
    Ever a child can do!
                                           —Robert Louis Stevenson

                  Think It the Pleasantest Thing

If you find yourself in a chair swing
made of planks and pushed from behind
              by a nine-year-old boy in the doldrums between
              the end of summer and the beginning of school--

        try to forget about sirens rising and falling
in their approach through the hills of your stomach
              —in that nausea of what’s already urgent and only likely
                          to get worse --
​
             Try to remember your mother’s percale sheets
wind-billowing from her clothesline; her
                  diaphanous curtains breathing at an open
                         window. Resist imagining your head

       malformed between concrete blocks or under
the dead weight of a rodeo bull leaning on his own
              skull. It’s opportunity missed even pinching the skin
                        over the bridge of your nose or drilling

        your fingers under your hair clear to your medulla
oblongata. Imagine instead the amber waves of bourbon
              swirled in a glass, the banked curve of a skirt hem swiveling
                        from hips. Let your movement

         hypnotize the leaves on the nearby lilac
like a cobra weaving before a mouse — then swallow
              the sun feet first and let your own peristalsis work it back
                         through your vestibules to your open mouth

          and again up to the bottoms of your feet. Be yourself
the hands and the measure of butcher’s twine
              that becomes Cat’s Cradle, with their shared swoop
                         and gather. Be the hammock the cradle

          the echo the womb. And when the boy drifts away
into his own equilibrium, become the whistle
                         spun ‘round his finger by its chain
                         and slid freefall into his pocket.



No Vacancy

Lila’s mother laundered bed sheets maybe
once in spring and once in fall. So when, after
popcorn and toasted-cheese sandwiches,
you two girls giggled into that small bed,
you drew over yourselves the redolence
of warm bodies, the burr of rumpled laughter
and frayed wool sweaters with holes at the elbows.
       You nestled into a gamy, welcome
            welcome.

Your mother washed your sheets
once a week at least. That may be how
tonight and on the road, you know
more than you think you know. If I say,
      Someone’s been sleeping in my bed,
it’s not what you might think — not
some fair-haired fairy story and surely not
the smear you find on your own burgundy sheets
when your lover welcomes you home
from that all-girls’ weekend in Detroit.   In fact,
​
it’s nothing you’ll likely see — no
make-up smudge, no hair too long, too
dark. You might think soap, but it’s nothing
bottled, dabbed or rinsed. As aroma, it’s more
       the difference of his late rising
              and your early. The difference
              between a Chevy
       and a Ford. Between breathing
the russet feather from a red-tailed hawk, and then
              a wild turkey’s bronze wing.

                             There it is.

And so tonight, before you’ve barely
turned the cover down, how
something of these unfamiliar sheets rankles solitude
     and closes on your throat. Says
             Withdraw your hand. Says
No vacancy. Who lay in these sheets last
may know where those young girls went
but will not let you follow. May know why
you no longer forage in your dreams
but will not say. How tonight
        if I could say salt, you might think sweat.
        If I could say rust, you might think
              iron in the blood. And really

that may come as close to it as anything.



--
Barbara Saunier has published in numerous journals and reviews, including Poet Lore, Cream City, Spoon River, and Nimrod International. Her work also placed first in The MacGuffin 16th National Poet Hunt. Since retiring from teaching at Grand Rapids (MI) Community College, she lives quietly with her horses, cats, and one good dog. 

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  • Home
  • About
    • Our Story
    • Masthead
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  • Features
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  • Previous Issues
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  • Issue #27 Spring 2024
    • Issue #27 Art Spring 2024 >
      • Kristina Erny Spring 2024
      • Luiza Maia Spring 2024
      • Christy Lee Rogers Spring 2024
      • Erika Lynet Salvador Spring 2024
      • Marsha Solomon Spring 2024
    • Issue #27 Poetry Spring 2024 >
      • Terry Belew Spring 2024
      • Dustin Brookshire​ & Diamond Forde Spring 2024 Spring 2024
      • Dustin Brookshire​ & Caridad Moro-Gronlier Spring 2024 Spring 2024
      • Charlie Coleman Spring 2024
      • Isabelle Doyle Spring 2024
      • Reyzl Grace Spring 2024
      • Kelly Gray Spring 2024
      • Meredith Herndon Spring 2024
      • Mina Khan Spring 2024
      • Anoushka Kumar Spring 2024
      • Cate Latimer Spring 2024
      • BEE LB Spring 2024
      • Grace Marie Liu​ Spring 2024
      • Sarah Mills Spring 2024
      • Faisal Mohyuddin 2024
      • Marcus Myers Spring 2024
      • Mike Puican Spring 2024
      • Sarah Sorensen Spring 2024
      • Lynne Thompson Spring 2024
      • Natalie Tombasco Spring 2024
      • Alexandra van de Kamp Spring 2024
      • Donna Vorreyer Spring 2024
    • Fiction #27 Spring 2024 >
      • Bryan Betancur Spring 2024
      • Karen George Spring 2024
      • Raja'a Khalid Spring 2024
      • Riley Manning Spring 2024
      • Adina Polatsek Spring 2024
      • Beth Sherman Spring 2024
    • Nonfiction #27 Spring 2024 >
      • Liza Olson Spring 2024
  • Issue #28 Fall 2024
    • Issue #28 Art Fall 2024 >
      • Eric Calloway Fall 2024
      • Matthew Fertel Fall 2024
      • JooLee Kang Fall 2024
      • Jian Kim Fall 2024
      • Robb Kunz Fall 2024
      • Sean Layh Fall 2024
    • Issue #28 Poetry Fall 2024 >
      • Jodi Balas Fall 2024
      • Clayre Benzadón Fall 2024
      • Catherine Broadwall Fall 2024
      • Sara Burge Fall 2024
      • Judith Chalmer Fall 2024
      • Stephanie Choi Fall 2024
      • Sarah Jack Fall 2024
      • Jen Karetnick Fall 2024
      • Ae Hee Lee Fall 2024
      • Svetlana Litvinchuk Fall 2024
      • Mary Lou Buschi Fall 2024
      • Angie Macri Fall 2024
      • Gary McDowell Fall 2024
      • Sam Moe Fall 2024
      • Camille Newsom Fall 2024
      • Elizabeth O'Connell- Thompson Fall 2024
      • Olatunde Osinaike Fall 2024
      • Jessica Pierce Fall 2024
      • Diane Raptosh Fall 2024
      • Isaac Richards Fall 2024
      • Robyn Schelenz Fall 2024
      • Christopher Shipman Fall 2024
      • Alex Tretbar Fall 2024
      • Ruth Williams Fall 2024
      • Shannon K. Winston Fall 2024
      • Wendy Wisner Fall 2024
      • Anne Gerard Fall 2024
    • Issue #28 Fiction Fall 2024 >
      • J​oe Baumann Fall 2024
      • ​Morganne Howell Fall 2024
      • Matt Paczkowski Fall 2024
      • Ryan Peed Fall 2024
      • Gabriella Pitts Fall 2024
      • James Sullivan Fall 2024
  • Issue #29 Spring 2025
    • Issue #29 Art Spring 2025 >
      • Irina Greciuhina Spring 2025
      • Jesse Howard Spring 2025
      • Paul Simmons Spring 2025
      • Marsha Solomon Spring 2025
      • Elzbieta Zdunek Spring 2025
      • Na Yoon Amelia Cha-Ryu Spring 2025
    • Issue #29 Poetry Spring 2025 >
      • Deborah Bacharach Spring 2025
      • Diego Báez Spring 2025
      • Jaswinder Bolina Spring 2025
      • ​Ash Bowen Spring 2025
      • Christian J. Collier Spring 2025
      • ​Shou Jie Eng Spring 2025
      • Sara Fitzpatrick Spring 2025
      • Matthew Gilbert Spring 2025
      • Tammy C. Greenwood Spring 2025
      • Alejandra Hernández ​Spring 2025
      • Ben Kline ​Spring 2025
      • ​David Moolten Spring 2025
      • ​Tamer Mostafa Spring 2025
      • ​Rongfei Mu Spring 2025
      • Cynthia Neely Spring 2025
      • Pablo Otavalo Spring 2025
      • ​Bleah Patterson Spring 2025
      • ​M.A. Scott Spring 2025
      • ​Liam Strong ​ Spring 2025
      • Alexandra van de Kamp Spring 2025
      • ​Cassandra Whitaker Spring 2025
      • Angelique Zobitz Spring 2025
    • Issue #29 Fiction Spring 2025 >
      • Vanessa Blakeslee Spring 2025
      • K. J. Coyle Spring 2025
      • Meredith MacLeod Davidson Spring 2025
      • Jessica Mosher Spring 2025
    • Issue #29 Nonfiction Spring 2025 >
      • JM Huscher Spring 2025
      • Qurrat ul Ain Raza Abbas Spring 2025