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Ronda Piszk Broatch
​

When Night Comes Wrapped in Asbestos
​

disguised as clouds rushing from my hair dryer, an ancestor
prophesying worst-case scenarios, I think of the girl

who glowed for a glorious moment while blow-drying
her horse before the show, before the plug found

the puddle on the stable floor, before the volta.
I’m no more a goddess than she was, the horse’s hooves

not yet blacked and polished, mane and tail detangled,
braided, saddle waxed, silver adornments shined,

but let me diagram the universe for you, how it was before
the second expansion, before there was more to come.

Sometimes the future is served in a tin can opened
with a dull blade. Imagine the girl: golden, nervy

in her anticipation, the horse turning its head to nose
her shoulder. The calendar had its own idea, bones, flesh

and hair their own answer to the charge. What aftertaste
following lightning? After licking electricity’s sooty

stigmata? Brushfire, sage-smudge, silverware in the pot
on high boiled dry in the middle of the night. Spark

has its own kind of beauty at the watering hole,
hole in the floor collecting soap suds, hose coiled

on wet cement. What is the scent of a life lighting up so brightly
for the first and only time before it gallops on, blooming
​
like orange poppies, and who knows exactly what’s on the other side
of any turning, any plot twist in spacetime’s ominous road?

I Desire the Things Which will Destroy Me in the End
              - Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

​
Oh, damn girl, night’s gone otherworldly now.
The smoke alarm’s disengaged and gutted.

              A spider’s crawled inside, a dust mote, a flea,
              one particle too many to sleep.

The smoke alarm’s disengaged and gutted
of insectivores, boys, the bodies of wolves,

              two particles too many to sleep.
              Who plays with the prunes in the plum tree filled

with insectivores, boys, the bodies of wolves?
Your subject howls like the preacher’s son

              who drinks of the plums from a prune tree soaked
              with the Holy Spirit, with a locust tongue;

your subject preaches his revelations, howls
his falsetto chimes from a belly deep

            ​  with the Holy Spirit, and a locust tongue,
              and your throat’s gone dry, your heart, underground,

his falsetto chimes, muffled now, belie deep-
seated secrets and nightmare scenarios,
              and your throat’s gone dry, your heart, underground,
              his voice still ringing, ringing in your ear

planting secret nightmare scenarios--
Oh, damn girl, night’s gone otherworldly now,
              his voice still ringing, ringing in your ear.
              A spider’s crawled inside, a dust mote, a flea.

I Stole the Moon, and It Taught me to Glow

                                                                         I took the sun and spread it on my skin until I became a steamy
version of myself. The blackberries have dried on the vine, even the moldy ones from that overnight
moment of rain. I’m planting hopes and prayers under compost to let the worms feast on them. A past
iteration of myself lies beneath what’s left of a glacier, one toe and a breast exposed to warming air. My
ancestor freeze-dried and under glass in a museum of extinction. Sometimes I wish Jupiter would beam me
up. But Jupiter just tells me it doesn’t need me to run interference. I stole the eggs from my chickens while
they scratched great craters in their pasture. They have no interest in the moon and whether coral reefs can
be seen from outer space. Yesterday, I drove to my aunt’s house and smoke wafted from the Honda SUV
in front of me, the driver’s three dogs, heads hanging out the window, tongues dripping in the road. They
seemed to be smiling. The air in my car began to smell like weed. I really don’t know what I don’t want
my kids to know. My kids already know too much. The cockroach in the hallway to the hotel pool in
Honolulu looked the one on the wall. I flew the moon from my deck on Kauai. It told me never stop looking
up
. This is how we will survive.

--
Ronda Piszk Broatch is the author of Chaos Theory for Beginners (MoonPath Press, 2023), and Lake of Fallen Constellations, (MoonPath Press). She is the recipient of an Artist Trust GAP Grant. Ronda’s journal publications include Greensboro Review, Blackbird, 2River, Sycamore Review, Missouri Review, Palette Poetry, and NPR News / KUOW’s All Things Considered. She is a graduate student working toward her MFA at Pacific Lutheran University’s Rainier Writing Workshop.

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  • Home
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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