“In the Event That You Find This” by Catherine Abbey Hodges
“Try to remember the actual
moon is never less than full.
The evening cashier has a secret
sorrow and plans for the weekend.”
“Try to remember the actual
moon is never less than full.
The evening cashier has a secret
sorrow and plans for the weekend.”
“In these years of unrelenting
loss, I have practiced restoration
with you.”
“Dear eyes
like breaking stars,
some days I hear your voice
in the trees, some nights
I send you half my dreams.”
“Sometimes death
takes you by the throat, like burning leaves choke
and ochre light hangs thick as draperies across your living
room window where a slice of sky slips through
to remind you get outside, take a walk, breathe.”
“I thought it was just opening, he says. I thought
the petals were just unfurling.”
“Dress you
as you prefer, in men’s clothes—no rush
or pressure, pleasure in the long look,
the urge for color, then touch—”
“Tonight, I am going to push
the Susquehanna away with my body,
ignore the waning moon’s fractioning
of light.”
“That afternoon, I pretended
to be a cat—tabby, kinked tail.
And the finches behaved
accordingly.”
“Still awake believing our silence might leave us,
desperately needing to make ourselves heard,
every girl told a story before parents came for us.”
“I imagined us drinking tea
sugared with honesty,
laughing till we turned soft
as fallen apples.”
“Always, I begin
with nothing and too much
to say.”
“Some days
almost everything’s about sex, and maybe
this as well: groan of old boards, joists
and beams remembering, music
of breaking glass.”
“a white moth arrives rising and falling
on the warm breeze, lingers on the headstone
then on my bare arm, clinging as if
searching for moist skin or the scent of me.”
“I stare out the window
over the sink, the citrus soap promising
something pure as we shelter in place.
A rolling fog smokes the green
grass. The vixen glides her grizzled gray
between orchard and rock wall border.”
“Milk passes through me like liquid moons,
wet stars on her tongue. She sucks
till I’m emptied of all the white
cells in my celestial body.”
“Because this is endearment not indictment
I’ll say that I admire the commitment you’ve recently made
to eating your berries with the knife used to clean them
rather than using a spoon.”
“Bored, my children open me up, like a fridge,
to find out what’s inside. I glow and show them
leftovers, mostly, some of them over a week old.”
“We didn’t hear what she couldn’t say because the prairie stitches women’s mouths shut.” Enjoy this audio recording of “Soapstone” by Courtney Huse-Wika from Vol. 31:3 of CALYX Journal! Buy the
Enjoy this audio recording of “Facedown” by Sherri Levine from Vol. 31:3 of CALYX Journal! “Facedown” was the winner of the 2019 Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize. Read the full
Enjoy this audio recording of “Sausage” by Ilene Rudman from Vol. 31:3 of CALYX Journal! Buy the full issue here. Ilene Rudman is a psychotherapist and career counselor living in Maynard, MA.
Enjoy this audio recording of “The Rape of the Sabine Women” by Judith Sanders from Vol. 31:3 of CALYX Journal! Buy the full issue here. Judith Sanders’ work has been published in
Enjoy this audio recording of “The Multiverse” by Emma Bolden from Vol. 31:2 of CALYX Journal! Buy the full issue here. Emma Bolden is the author of House Is an Enigma (Southeast
Enjoy this audio recording of “Reasons for & Against Dating Tyrannosaurus Rex” by Emari DiGiorgio from issue 27:2 of CALYX Journal! Buy the full issue here. Emari DiGiorgio is the
Enjoy this audio recording of “Aubade for Dreamland” by July Westhale from Vol. 31:1 of CALYX Journal! Buy the full issue here. July Westhale is the award-winning author of Via Negativa, Trailer Trash, The Cavalcade,