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  • Issue 22 Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Art Fall 2021 >
      • Bonnie Severien Fall 2021
      • Camilla Taylor Fall 2021
      • Guilherme Bergamini Fall 2021
      • Emanuela Iorga Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Poetry Fall 2021 >
      • Maureen Alsop Fall 2021
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      • Natalie Hampton Fall 2021
      • Sherine Gilmour Fall 2021
      • Adam Day Fall 2021
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      • Adam Tavel Fall 2021
      • Sara Moore Fall 2021
      • Karen Rigby Fall 2021
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      • Kindall Fredricks Fall 2021
      • Cin Salach Fall 2021
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      • Rachel Stempel Fall 2021
      • Haley Wooning Fall 2021
      • Rikki Santer Fall 2021
      • Evy Shen Fall 2021
      • Suzanne Frischkorn Fall 2021
      • Danielle Rose Fall 2021
      • Eric Burgoyne Fall 2021
      • John Cullen Fall 2021
      • Maureen Seaton Fall 2021
      • Hannah Stephens Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Nonfiction Fall 2021 >
      • Kevin Grauke Fall 2021
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      • Amy Nicholson Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Fiction Fall 2021 >
      • Tina Jenkins Bell Fall 2021
      • David Obuchowski Fall 2021
      • Thomas Misuraca Fall 2021
      • Aiden Baker Fall 2021
      • Jenny Magnus Fall 2021
  • Issue 23 Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Art Spring 2022 >
      • Jonathan Kvassay Spring 2022
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      • Andrea Kowch Spring 2022
      • Layla Garcia-Torres Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Poetry Spring 2022 >
      • Robin Gow Spring 2022
      • T.D. Walker Spring 2022
      • Jen Schalliol Huang Spring 2022
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      • Carrie McGath Spring 2022
      • Lupita Eyde-Tucker Spring 2022
      • Susan L. Leary Spring 2022
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      • Rita Mookerjee Spring 2022
      • Erin Carlyle Spring 2022
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      • Jen Karetnick Spring 2022
      • Meghan Sterling Spring 2022
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      • Michael Passafiume Spring 2022
      • Jeannine Hall Gailey Spring 2022
      • Phil Goldstein Spring 2022
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      • Martha Silano Spring 2022
      • Vismai Rao Spring 2022
      • Anna Laura Reeve Spring 2022
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      • Brittney Corrigan Spring 2022
      • Callista Buchen Spring 2022
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      • MICHAEL CHANG Spring 2022
      • henry 7. reneau, jr. Spring 2022
      • Leah Umansky Spring 2022
      • Cody Beck Spring 2022
      • Danyal Kim Spring 2022
      • Rachel DeWoskin Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Fiction Spring 2022 >
      • Melissa Boberg Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Nonfiction Spring 2022 >
      • Srinaath Perangur Spring 2022
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  • Issue #24 Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Art Fall 2022 >
      • Marsha Solomon Fall 2022
      • Edward Lee Fall 2022
      • Harryette Mullen Fall 2022
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      • Natalie Christensen Fall 2022
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    • Issue #24 Poetry Fall 2022 >
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      • e Fall 2022
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      • Millicent Borges Accardi Fall 2022
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      • Esther Sadoff Fall 2022
      • Whitney Koo Fall 2022
      • W. J. Lofton Fall 2022
      • Rachel Reynolds Fall 2022
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      • Annie Przypyszny Fall 2022
      • Konstantin Kulakov Fall 2022
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      • Jennifer Martelli Fall 2022
      • SM Stubbs Fall 2022
      • Joshua Bird Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Fiction Fall 2022 >
      • Otis Fuqua Fall 2022
      • Hannah Harlow Fall 2022
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      • Kate Maxwell Fall 2022
      • Helena Pantsis Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Nonfiction Fall 2022 >
      • Courtney Ludwick Fall 2022
      • Anna Oberg Fall 2022
      • Acadia Currah Fall 2022

Patty Seyburn

Bo Peep Synecdoche 

         
          In dreams, still often alone.

The subconscious sometimes run by God’s adjuncts, sometimes by that guy
with sleeves at the coffee 

shop’s corner table scribbling notes you can’t see in a way some call
furiously.

            I descended the stairs and saw a monster.

And when I looked up, a shepherdess crook affixed to the ceiling, dappled in blood.
Cue the ominous scale. 

Her prop stood in for her: a part for the whole, her symbol. Probably 
more metaphor 

            but who doesn’t like the word synecdoche? Who?

The monster had no prop, was a prop, a symbol
of what might scare you, like being alone.

It was time to wake up and I did
because every citizen of the dream had done their job, 

            performed with verve, clocked out, and left my waking self to cower

in a bedroom in the northwest 
section of Detroit in the late 60s.

When the monster and hook lost
their potency, a hand beneath the bed
 
            replaced them, a horse
 
galloping away with me gripping its mane and finally, 
a siege and quiver 

of small yearnings that would leave me on waking,
wanting, or 

            not leave me at all.



May It Please the Court


No two consecutive consonants
          create words with every vowel.
I found this flaw while driving

          a therapeutic toll-road
that threatened the environs

          of the Cali gnatcatcher, bird
with an obvious purpose.

          The sign said Fog Possible Ahead
and I was not disappointed

          the way God keeps disappointing
me though I keep this in a thought

          behind a thought where it’s hard
to see. There was fog, not

          the high-beam, crawl-the-road
kind but a healthy mist and one

          good hill that, were it the end
of the flat planet, we would not

          have seen our demise coming.
Fog, in my addled cerebellum,

          went fig and I searched for
the others then ran through every

          consonant and those proximal.
It only two took exits on

          this newly constructed artery
and now I wonder where I was

          going before the morning’s
reveal as you may wonder

          where I am going with this.
Lord of Lexicon, the English

          alphabet is poorly ordered.
For your consideration: place

          b and g next to each other
resulting in bag beg big bog bug,

          five words solid as the rocks
flipped over in the ocean

          that we now stand on, admiring
the view. Five words that do

          their own work with no
connection. I leave the rest

          ​to the linguists. Their kind made
this mess at Babel. The English

          speaker coined “confounded”
and spoke with such authority,

          ​no one said, what’s up with
the two vowels? Why is one just

          along for the ride? Now we pay
for this recklessness with letters

          that do not get along with neighbors.
If they cannot, why should we?
          I pull over to wait for clarity.



Shirley at 94


The morning gave me a free carwash
with a coupon for one of those bandaged clouds
 
that temper the light and my daughter’s hair
is a fountain.
 
I took the Boba straw – I always take
the wrong straw. This one with greater capacity
 
than this beverage needs. My needs often
above average, though no better than yours.
 
I cannot defend the divine.
I cannot divine the defensible
 
but I can divide by two and know
a prime number when I see one.
 
It’s an even-number year, ma
and you would be even-numbered.
 
This is a strange habit, thinking
how old you would be.
 
The conditional a sorrowful tense
along with the pluperfect.
 
The Latin perfect is something that occurred
in the past. The pluperfect combines
 
past tense with the perfect. You and I
far from perfect, ma. Often tense: we had not
 
figured out what counted.
A very small girl with very big sunglasses
 
draws water from a ceramic tank
that looks like a map of uncharted terrain.
 
She is pre-regret, owning no past
tense. I now pull my hair back
 
from my face, as you had wanted.






--
Patty Seyburn has published five collections of poems: Threshold Delivery (Finishing Line Press, 2019); Perfecta (What Books Press, Glass Table Collective, 2014); Hilarity, (New Issues Press, 2009), Mechanical Cluster (Ohio State University Press, 2002), and Diasporadic (Helicon Nine Editions, 1998). She is a professor at California State University, Long Beach.

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  • Home
  • About
    • Our Story
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  • Issue 22 Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Art Fall 2021 >
      • Bonnie Severien Fall 2021
      • Camilla Taylor Fall 2021
      • Guilherme Bergamini Fall 2021
      • Emanuela Iorga Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Poetry Fall 2021 >
      • Maureen Alsop Fall 2021
      • Annah Browning Fall 2021
      • Romana Iorga Fall 2021
      • Natalie Hampton Fall 2021
      • Sherine Gilmour Fall 2021
      • Adam Day Fall 2021
      • Amanda Auchter Fall 2021
      • Adam Tavel Fall 2021
      • Sara Moore Fall 2021
      • Karen Rigby Fall 2021
      • Daniel Zhang Fall 2021
      • Erika Lutzner Fall 2021
      • Kindall Fredricks Fall 2021
      • Cin Salach Fall 2021
      • Andrew Zawacki Fall 2021
      • Micah Ruelle Fall 2021
      • Rachel Stempel Fall 2021
      • Haley Wooning Fall 2021
      • Rikki Santer Fall 2021
      • Evy Shen Fall 2021
      • Suzanne Frischkorn Fall 2021
      • Danielle Rose Fall 2021
      • Eric Burgoyne Fall 2021
      • John Cullen Fall 2021
      • Maureen Seaton Fall 2021
      • Hannah Stephens Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Nonfiction Fall 2021 >
      • Kevin Grauke Fall 2021
      • Courtney Justus Fall 2021
      • Amy Nicholson Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Fiction Fall 2021 >
      • Tina Jenkins Bell Fall 2021
      • David Obuchowski Fall 2021
      • Thomas Misuraca Fall 2021
      • Aiden Baker Fall 2021
      • Jenny Magnus Fall 2021
  • Issue 23 Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Art Spring 2022 >
      • Jonathan Kvassay Spring 2022
      • Karyna McGlynn Spring 2022
      • Andrea Kowch Spring 2022
      • Layla Garcia-Torres Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Poetry Spring 2022 >
      • Robin Gow Spring 2022
      • T.D. Walker Spring 2022
      • Jen Schalliol Huang Spring 2022
      • Yvonne Zipter Spring 2022
      • Carrie McGath Spring 2022
      • Lupita Eyde-Tucker Spring 2022
      • Susan L. Leary Spring 2022
      • Kate Sweeney Spring 2022
      • Rita Mookerjee Spring 2022
      • Erin Carlyle Spring 2022
      • Cori Bratty-Rudd Spring 2022
      • Jen Karetnick Spring 2022
      • Meghan Sterling Spring 2022
      • Lorelei Bacht Spring 2022
      • Michael Passafiume Spring 2022
      • Jeannine Hall Gailey Spring 2022
      • Phil Goldstein Spring 2022
      • Michael Mingo Spring 2022
      • Angie Macri Spring 2022
      • Martha Silano Spring 2022
      • Vismai Rao Spring 2022
      • Anna Laura Reeve Spring 2022
      • Jenny Irish Spring 2022
      • Marek Kulig Spring 2022
      • Jami Macarty Spring 2022
      • Sarah A. Rae Spring 2022
      • Brittney Corrigan Spring 2022
      • Callista Buchen Spring 2022
      • Issam Zineh Spring 2022
      • MICHAEL CHANG Spring 2022
      • henry 7. reneau, jr. Spring 2022
      • Leah Umansky Spring 2022
      • Cody Beck Spring 2022
      • Danyal Kim Spring 2022
      • Rachel DeWoskin Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Fiction Spring 2022 >
      • Melissa Boberg Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Nonfiction Spring 2022 >
      • Srinaath Perangur Spring 2022
      • Audrey T. Carroll Spring 2022
  • Issue #24 Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Art Fall 2022 >
      • Marsha Solomon Fall 2022
      • Edward Lee Fall 2022
      • Harryette Mullen Fall 2022
      • Jezzelle Kellam Fall 2022
      • Irina Greciuhina Fall 2022
      • Natalie Christensen Fall 2022
      • Mark Yale Harris Fall 2022
      • Amy Nelder Fall 2022
      • Bette Ridgeway Fall 2022
      • Ursula Sokolowska Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Poetry Fall 2022 >
      • William Stobb Fall 2022
      • e Fall 2022
      • Stefanie Kirby Fall 2022
      • Lisa Ampleman Fall 2022
      • Will Cordeiro Fall 2022
      • Jesica Davis Fall 2022
      • Peter O'Donovan Fall 2022
      • Mackenzie Carignan Fall 2022
      • Jason Fraley Fall 2022
      • Barbara Saunier Fall 2022
      • Chad Weeden Fall 2022
      • Nick Rattner Fall 2022
      • Cynthia Schwartzberg Edlow Fall 2022
      • Summer J. Hart Fall 2022
      • Daniel Suá​rez Fall 2022
      • Sara Kearns Fall 2022
      • Millicent Borges Accardi Fall 2022
      • Liz Robbins Fall 2022
      • john compton Fall 2022
      • Esther Sadoff Fall 2022
      • Whitney Koo Fall 2022
      • W. J. Lofton Fall 2022
      • Rachel Reynolds Fall 2022
      • Kimberly Ann Priest Fall 2022
      • Annie Przypyszny Fall 2022
      • Konstantin Kulakov Fall 2022
      • Nellie Cox Fall 2022
      • Jennifer Martelli Fall 2022
      • SM Stubbs Fall 2022
      • Joshua Bird Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Fiction Fall 2022 >
      • Otis Fuqua Fall 2022
      • Hannah Harlow Fall 2022
      • Natalia Nebel Fall 2022
      • Kate Maxwell Fall 2022
      • Helena Pantsis Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Nonfiction Fall 2022 >
      • Courtney Ludwick Fall 2022
      • Anna Oberg Fall 2022
      • Acadia Currah Fall 2022