Marie Gauthier

Between last week’s food poisoning drama and today’s improved health, there was a miscarriage scare and days of bed rest.

(Evidently, food poisoning = dehydration + electrolyte imbalance = massive cramping + spotting.)

I am grateful beyond reckoning to be on the other side of it, and for my dear friends who helped me through those days.

The baby’s heartbeat, its speedy little whir, is the most reassuring sound in the universe.

RAINMAKER / by Larissa Szporluk

Victory has to be rare.
It is the unicorn of all endeavor.

I call your name, rain,
and I fail. I fail and I fail and I fail.

Words come down from wordless places,
rain from rainless air,

mirage from solid paradise,
my salary for failure.

I see muscles in the burning grass,
precipice where thought was,

a far-off purple veil–
and one raised brow, so chalked with loss

that is could be the bastard
of an answered prayer.

–from Traffic with Macbeth (Tupelo Press, 2011)