ISSUE EIGHTEEN: Say Yes, Mr. Tell | next poem →

Swiss

Amanda Chiado

When my parents say the circus is in town
They mean bury the body. Her eyes spiral
Green and mean, grass full of cricket song
& dew. My father’s eyes white creamy Swiss.
My mother holds sharpened belief. I laugh
Muffled mums and everything is regular again
Like cashing a check. The stones in my cheeks
Skip, ripple long lakes far from barefoot humanity,
And in the cool night a body sings of returning.
Water laps against the edges of cliffs, rush, return.
Melody: transport me. Everyone of us is wrong
In our youth, a blue dress, quiet with soft lies, always.
As I grow, I perish in small infinite booms & blasts.

Amanda Chiado is the author of Vitiligod: The Ascension of Michael Jackson (Dancing Girl Press, 2016). Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart & Best of the Net. She is the Program Manager for the San Benito County Arts Council, and is an active California Poet in the Schools. Read her work and get weird at www.amandachiado.com

ISSUE EIGHTEEN: Say Yes, Mr. Tell | next poem →











ISSUE EIGHTEEN: Say Yes, Mr. Tell

James Lindsay
   Summerland

Amanda Chiado
   Swiss

Darren C. Demaree
   Emily as a Smile Would Have Ruined the Picture

Maria Sledmere
   At the Gin Tasting

Sayward Schoonmaker
   MEETING ONE

Holly Day
   Again, Under the Sun

Adam Tedesco
   I Had No Time of Sense

Laurel Radzieski
   Review #12

Bill Neumire
   They Deep

Matthew Schmidt
   This Car Will Get You Into Ontology

William Repass
   IMPORTANT NOTICE