by Carol Casey The path is trodden, dusty, level.You know it will take youwhere many have gone. Step off—tangles of brambles,sometimes with blackberries,more often with little clawsthat catch on clothes and skin;and tortuous tree roots—inconvenient, sacred data unearthed—subterranean snakelets somehowsifted into snarls for feet to catch.There are stems that twine…
by Adrienne Monestere She was carvedfrom wooden shaftsof blackwood and pink ivory,mulched and pulpedin collated swank.From bolted margins she’s parted from her shieldrebelling against the jotter, torn to an asphalt schoolyard,mutilated to a ball, beaten and launchedwith their wooden bats, smashed in a recess game.Humiliated, frightened, risingthrough ridicule, she lies wrinkled,rumpled and tramped. She limps towards…