< Back to Breakthroughs Issue Rude Weather Cynthia Hardy 1. The weather changes and changes again— just when our skin has opened its pores to heat & tanned from wildfire smoke-- rain 2. Rain softens the profile of mountains, blurs the day so that everything’s as in a dream— birds flit through the overhang of eaves—delphiniums droop—the greenhouse drowses 3. In a drowse, I hear the news—some tragedy in a place where the air overheats and neighbors pass with rude stares. I nestle the cat. I do not call my neighbor to ask how her tomatoes grow 4. Tomatoes form a wall of green at the back of the greenhouse— the dark and jagged leaves hiding yellow blossoms, thumb- sized fruits. A dragon- fly beats against the translucent roof 5. A dragonfly lands on my knuckle—a skeleton of black chiton—wings iridescent paddles, mandibles moving, slowly chewing a yellow striped sweat bee 6. The bees are silent. The neighbor’s hive has swarmed—the gray sky and rain damps down their buzziness. I long for a finger full of fireweed honey—so light and clear and nectar-sweet. This poem was written as a response to a challenge I gave my poetry students: moving from one image to another, letting the poem drift. It was a poem I could have just tossed away, but didn’t. Perhaps that’s the breakthrough—or that, in its own loose way, this poem represents an attempt to add order to my usual unstructured process. Previous CINDY HARDY writes from Chena Ridge, Fairbanks, Alaska. She has published poetry and fiction, teaches occasionally, rides horses, and gardens all summer. Next

The Black Flies of Home by Brock Dethier Black flies dance in the air between my head and my brother’s, distorting the view. We sit on pinkish granite smoothed and sloped by retreating glaciers ten millennia ago. Below us, the Rocky Branch of the Saco River, then the ridge that leads from Stanton and Pickering all the way up to Davis, Isolation, and Washington itself. Farther west, the ski trail scars of Mt. Attitash, still the new ski area, though it opened in 1965. Black flies are small, hard to see, quiet. They like warm sheltered places-- behind your ear or knee. They follow the blood others have left. And bite. I react with large hard itchy welts that I scratch bloody in my sleep. Mosquitoes are everywhere but I’ve never seen black flies outside New England, so their presence is a special “welcome home!” to the region. Around us, blueberry bushes with subtle flowers-- little cream bells that will become the fruit of the New Hampshire gods-- rhodora about to brighten the ledges with cerise blossoms, grus eroded from the ledges filling the cracks between them, sweet fern. I wasn’t aware of being bitten but I find blood behind my ear. Within our view, we’ve skied both downhill and cross country, canoed, floated, kayaked, swam, hiked of course. We were born just out of sight to the left. We’ve come in search of iron mines and leave with sparkly ore, black fly bumps starting to itch, and a few crystals to take back west to what still seems after 26 years a temporary home. Share: Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Back Back to Issue 1 Few who have experienced New England’s black flies would argue that they make the world a better place, yet for people who have grown up with them, the flies mean home. Having spent half my life in New England and half in Utah, I’m interested in how we think about “home,” and this unpublished, personal poem tries to illuminate the complexities of the concept and to highlight the irony that sometimes what bugs you may come to signify home for you. .................................................................................................................................................................................... BROCK DETHIER retired from Utah State University after directing the writing composition program for 11 years. His publications include From Dylan to Donne: Bridging English and Music (Heinemann, 2003), First Time Up: An Insider’s Guide for New Composition Teachers (Utah State University Press, 2005), Twenty-One Genres and How to Write Them (Utah State University Press, 2013), and two books of poetry, Ancestor Worship (Pudding House Publications, 2008) and Reclamation (Popcorn Press, 2015). Next - Fireflies by Kevin Prufer Next

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Teddy Thompson Croons Leonard Cohen by Natalie Padilla Young tonight will be fine, will be fine, will be fine It’s not even a love song, it’s the last drop of milk on dry cereal: the I that knows small windows, bare walls, a finale of soft naked lady: a sighing stripped, a woman. (Remember that first side sway, first spinning hug with someone of possibility? A lot of sweaty skins ago.) Not just ooh-la-la slow stuff, also others with beats, a call to feet, to hips, to who must swing, must knock the head back in time—not century time, music time—4:4, two-step, whatever. (Try not to remember. You still feel a grapefruit clenched in your chest.) Maybe it’s a full room in coordinated sigh. I know from your eyes, and I know from your smile An exhale in, out of that mouth. Maybe things will work, maybe just fine. (A lot of things conjure craving, but he’s only a man, a man too thin singing sweetly.) At the end, there is plenty and not enough to be so brave and so free In this place without explanation, put Teddy on repeat. Teddy repeats Leonard and someone hums along for a while Share: Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Back Back to First Issue I must admit I have no clarity with this one—is it the poem or the song that I’m attached to? I wrote this when I heard Teddy Thompson cover Leonard Cohen’s “Tonight Will Be Fine,” initially thinking the lyrics were “tonight we’ll be fine.” I sent this little guy out quite a few times and then benched it for years, until a few months ago when I decided to revive and revise. Maybe go listen to Teddy sing Leonard and see what you think. .................................................................................................................................................................................... NATALIE PADILLA YOUNG co-founded and manages Sugar House Review . Author of All of This Was Once Under Water (Quarter Press, 2023). natalieyoungarts.com Next - The Worrier by Nancy Takacs Next

< Back to Breakthroughs Issue Bluebird Abecedarian Pamela Uschuk for Laura-Gray Street Aegean blue etches frost air a deeper indigo than river-scrubbed lapis or blue hair dye or cadmium fresh from the tube onto canvas’s deep glacial lake. Blue catches me wandering dawn song ether, where no bombs blow off freezing feathers from wings, where no random gunshots thwack red birds with the snap of their terrible teeth. Hobbling, mothers drag kids through Gaza, from unsafe to unsafe in genocide’s firestorms of missile revenge. Just when I think this Virginia sky has birthed a kite of quietude with its upswung limbs of live oak, redbud, elm and maple’s sugar hope news intrudes its list of atrocities opening old wounds that never get a chance to heal. Peace? Ceasefire? These ancient questions are tacked to my sleeve like small roses of blood leaking from a child’s forehead pixilated on screen, laptop or smart TV in your own living room where you used to lounge with your lover or your cat, both valentines of hope, that elusive word again like a ghost whale or x-ray of a leg bone shattered by a grenade or an explosion of yellow feathers. Ground Zero is war’s footprint, unseen by bluebirds the size of a human heart. I wrote this Abecedarian as a model poem for an advanced undergraduate poetry class when I was the Pearl S. Buck Visiting Writer at Randolf College in Virginia. Besides Natalie Diaz’s wonderful “Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination of Anglikan Seraphym Subjugation of a Wild Indian Rezervation,” I couldn’t find an example that was quite right for this class. This poem tries to hold all the grief and outrage I feel by the ongoing assault on Gaza, a country that is has been almost bombed out of existence by Israel whose firepower is overwhelming. I incorporated a lot of bird imagery because birding is one of my greatest joys. I dedicated the poem to Laura-Gray Street who brought me to Randolf and who I had the great privilege of going birding with. The poem turned out to be an anti-war poem. The last line was one of those gifts that come out of the blue, a lucky line. This is another breakthrough poem for me. Previous PAMELA USCHUK is the author of eight books of poems and has received many awards including the American Book Award. She is a senior fellow and board member of Black Earth Institute, as well as Editor in Chief of Cutthroat , a Journal of the Arts. www.pamelauschuk.com Next

Nancy Takacs < Back to Breakthroughs Issue A Whispering Beetle Nancy Takacs 00:00 / 01:07 A Whispering Beetle Nancy Takacs I am like this beetle, tentative and a little blue, or is that the reflection of sky on her back or is it the reflection of my cup as she wanders toward my warm hand? I sit in the frayed lawn chair before today’s winds that are supposed to rip up trees and roofs. She paces from my hand to my shoulder so easily whispering in my ear: take better care of yourself , and I feel the first breeze before the storm comes, I feel her antennae caressing my cheek, this, the second day of spring though already I’m worrying the apple tree will freeze, and she says: hush, the blossoms will come, but please carry me back on your soft palm and place me under the juniper tree where my sisters and I live, gently, gently . Published in About Place Journal , 2025. The speaker identifies with something as small as a beetle. They are both vulnerable, the speaker maybe more so than the calm, wise beetle. Fearful of what comes with climate change, and the devastation caused by sudden large storms, the speaker hears the female beetle’s words that lead her into an awakening to care better for herself first, and then to care for the beetle as well. These are gentle instructions to the self, a plea to lessen anxiety. It is the interaction that sets the speaker on a good path. We all have awakenings, interacting with creatures we are a part of. Through caring, in this case, we give each other hope, especially during these egregious times that affect both humans and animals. Previous NANCY TAKACS is an avid boater, hiker, and mushroom forager. She lives near the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore in northern Wisconsin, and in the high-desert town of Wellington, Utah. Her latest book of poems is Dearest Water (Mayapple Press, 2022) . nancytakacs.org Next

The Little House: Crystal City, Texas by Jeff Talmadge By the time my parents arrived at the prison after the War and with their first son, the 10-foot barbed wire fence was down, the towers and corner spotlights gone. The rifle-carrying guards who, around the clock, circled the perimeter on horseback, had returned to their old day jobs in that desolate place, not quite Mexico, not quite America, thirty-five miles from the border. When the Alien Enemy Detention Facility closed in the War’s shadow, the school district got most of it, opening the houses to others like that young couple and their toddler, who arrived from central Texas on a teacher’s pay, probably surprised that he, my father, was alive—and grateful, having come from nothing, to be living in what they called The Little House. If I could wish someone well who is in the past, I would wish it for them—that at least for that moment, they know some happiness in this life, believing, as they must have, inside someone else’s prison, that the worst was over, and they survived. Share: Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Back Back to First Issue After World War II, my family lived in what had been part of an internment camp for people of Japanese, German, and Italian descent in Crystal City, Texas. This was before I was born, but my brother remembers it well, and always referred to it as “the little house.” It must have seemed like a miracle for my father to have returned alive. Here they were, having come from nothing, with a young child, starting a new life in that dry and distant place. I have few memories of them being happy and like to imagine that this was a happy time for them. Some of my description is indebted to Jan Jarboe Russell’s book, The Train to Crystal City: FDR’s Secret Prisoner Exchange and America’s Only Family Internment Camp During World War II (Scribner, 2015) and her related article in Texas Monthly . .................................................................................................................................................................................... Next - The Dream by Shanan Ballam Next JEFF TALMADGE was born in Uvalde, Texas, about 70 miles from the Mexican border and grew up in small towns like Crystal City, Wharton, Boling and Big Spring. At Duke University, he won the Academy of American Poets Award, and his poems have appeared in numerous literary journals and magazines. He was a civil trial attorney in Austin before becoming a full-time musician. Jeff has received numerous awards for his songwriting. His most recent record is Sparrow . jefftalmadge.com

The First Time I Saw Snow by Jeff Talmadge It was the day I turned five and winter in Texas. My mother woke and walked me to the window at the front of the house, pointing outside, smiling. Look , she said. I asked her what it was we saw, thinking she had brought it for my birthday. She was thirty-eight. Snow , she said. Snow . Share: Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Back Back to First Issue First published in Miramar . I’m partial to short poems, which this certainly is, and I was happy with how much information and sense are conveyed in such a few lines. Only two words are quoted (one of them said twice). I wanted to convey a sense of the relationship without directly describing it. The scene, short though it is, captures that moment for me. .................................................................................................................................................................................... JEFF TALMADGE was born in Uvalde, Texas, about 70 miles from the Mexican border and grew up in small towns like Crystal City, Wharton, Boling and Big Spring. At Duke University, he won the Academy of American Poets Award, and his poems have appeared in numerous literary journals and magazines. He was a civil trial attorney in Austin before becoming a full-time musician. Jeff has received numerous awards for his songwriting. His most recent record is Sparrow . jefftalmadge.com Next - The Little House: Crystal City, Texas by Jeff Talmadge Next

Siren by Amy Gerstler I have a fish’s tail, so I’m not qualified to love you. But I do. Pale as an August sky, pale as flour milled a thousand times, pale as the icebergs I have never seen, and twice as numb—my skin is such a contrast to the rough rocks I lie on, that from far away it looks like I’m a baby riding a dinosaur. The turn of centuries or the turn of a page means the same to me, little or nothing. I have teeth in places you’d never suspect. Come. Kiss me and die soon. I slap my tail in the shallows—which is to say I appreciate nature. You see my sisters and me perched on rocks and tiny islands here and there for miles: untangling our hair with our fingers, eating seaweed. Share: Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Back Back to First Issue From Bitter Angel, (North Point Press, 1990). "Siren" is an older poem that still has a place in my heart because it dates from a time in my life when I was first realizing I wanted to write about women's lives: even mythical women, my obsession with the archetype of mermaids, etc. and I was trying to work out ways to do that in poems. .................................................................................................................................................................................... AMY GERSTLER has published ten books of poetry and received a Guggenheim Fellowship as well as the National Book Critics Circle Award. She lives in Los Angeles. poetryfoundation.org/poets/amy-gerstler Next - The Lure of the Unfinished by Amy Gerstler Next

July for Dylan, April 20, 1989 - July 7, 2013 by Shanan Ballam April isn’t the cruelest month. That would be July, the month you died, when asphalt gleamed heat and construction cones lined the lanes on the break-neck freeway— I slumped in the back like a sack of trash as our sisters and I raced tear-blind to the scene, bodies flung side-to-side as we whipped in and out of traffic, tires screeching, only to stand stunned, worthless, gagged with Dad’s cigarette smoke— oh—I can still hear him sobbing in the scorching garage. In April, crocus spear through soil, open pale purple, thin as tissue paper, lacewings luxuriating in the saffron like cats rolling on their backs in the sun. In April, the lilacs’ tiny blossoms, hard as oysters, begin to soften, and when they open, iridescent frills the color of pearls, their fragrance drifting through the windows, sheer curtains shimmering. Maybe if I’d called you to say I’m worried, I love you, You could have said Help me. Dad won’t. In the cement basement I saw the message you scrawled on the wall: Why won’t it rain? I saw your self-portrait in black spray paint. You blacked-out your own awful eyes. The anniversary creeps closer, hobbled, like a baby buggy with one wheel missing. July is cruelest because I still must drive past the hospital where the doctor pronounced you dead, past the chapel, its gold and crimson windows, past the Wal-Mart and the Maverik where you bought your beer and cigarettes, past the woman with the dead baby’s footprints tattooed on her breast, and down there near the tracks: sagebrush, vodka bottles, and a single sego lily, basin blushed ruby red. Oh July—you emergency! July with your wildfire heart. But I drive past the field silvered with sprinkler mist where the two painted horses bend their graceful faces to the grass, their black manes shining in the falling sun, shining like your black hair in the obituary picture. This time I’ll stop the car, and we will walk to horses who know only this emerald field, its musky soil, know only the sky spreading its deep indigo, and we’ll pull up clumps of silky grass. See how they move toward us, bodies glistening as the day disintegrates. Together we'll touch the sleek gloss of their manes, their velveteen noses, see deep into peace, their wet ebony eyes. We'll stand together in the lavender light as the horses pull sweet grass from our hands. Share: Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Back Back to First Issue My youngest brother Dylan Thomas drank himself to death at age 24. This poem is my favorite unpublished piece because it takes so many surprising turns and utilizes different tones—panic and calm. It contains surprising comparisons: the anniversary of his death compared to a baby buggy with one wheel missing and comparing July to a wildfire. I like how it contrasts April and July—extreme heat and early, raw spring—and uses connotations from Eliot’s famous poem, “The Wasteland.” .................................................................................................................................................................................... SHANAN BALLAM is the author of the poetry manuscripts The Red Riding Hood Papers (Finishing Line Press, 2010), Pretty Marrow (Negative Capability, 2013), Inside the Animal (Main Street Rag, 2019), and the chapbook first poems after the stroke (Finishing Line Press, 2024). shananballam.org Next - Missa Brevis by Kimberly Johnson Next

The Worrier by Nancy Takacs Now that you are her, what will you do? I’ll walk across the swinging bridge and light a clove cigarette. How will you roam? I’ll drive a Packard convertible, my man in a long dark coat beside me. In the countryside, where will you land, and what will you eat? We’ll find a bar in northern Wisconsin. We won’t eat. What are you wearing, and what do you look like? An indigo dress, a little black cloche. I’ve outlined my lips to look like a sweet maroon bow. What songs will you sing? “Heart of My Heart” And “I Don’t Want to Play in Your Yard.” Who will know you better than anyone? My silk chemise. What undergarments do you wear? None. What tree do you wear instead? The plum. Why? Because it’s a palm full of dusk. What word will you use? Flagrant. It’s time for this. Where does the word go? It rises from under my bare feet when I leave the beach. What is strange about you now? There is nothing strange. What is common? I have loved the first light. Where does the light go? It goes under the letters in captions of what I say. Where does the scent go? It goes into my eyes, my mouth, the way I turn my head so that you will imagine lilacs. Share: Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Back Back to First Issue Initially printed in The Tampa Review and The Worrier: Poems (University of Massachusetts Press, 2017). I guess this poem is a favorite of mine, as it’s the first Worrier poem I wrote, and it called me back to write more Worriers, that became a book. I like the film star because she is strong, even though she is, in a sense, voiceless. However, in the poem, she has a voice. She takes charge of where she is going, is confident about her choices, and plays with the reader a bit. .................................................................................................................................................................................... NANCY TAKACS is an avid boater, hiker, and mushroom forager. She lives near the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore in northern Wisconsin, and in the high-desert town of Wellington, Utah. Her latest book of poems is Dearest Water . nancytakacs.org Next - Junk Email by Nancy Takacs Next

Foley Catheter by Kimberly Johnson I clean its latex length three times a day With kindliest touch, Swipe an alcohol swatch From the tender skin at the tip of him Down the lumen To the drainage bag I change Each day and flush with vinegar. When I vowed for worse Unwitting did I wed this Something-other-than-a-husband, jumble Of exposed plumbing And euphemism. Fumble I through my nurse’s functions, upended From the spare bed By his every midnight sound. Unsought inside our grand romantic Intimacy Another intimacy Opens—ruthless and indecent, consuming All our hiddenmosts. In a body, immodest Such hunger we sometimes call tumor; In a marriage It’s cherish. From the Latin for cost. Share: Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Back Back to First Issue Originally published in Poem-a-Day on January 15, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets. From Fatal (Persea Books, 2022). I’m not sure this poem qualifies as a “favorite,” frankly, because it deals with such difficult material. But I think that it’s effective in its willingness to reflect honestly on the combination of tenderness and brutality that eventuates when we choose to enter into relationship with others. Love brings along with it the opportunity, the promise, of one party seeing the other into their death, bearing witness to the horrors of that inevitability as well as the intimacies it produces. .................................................................................................................................................................................... KIMBERLY JOHNSON is a poet, translator, and literary critic. Her work has appeared widely in publications including The New Yorker, Slate , The Iowa Review , PMLA , and Modern Philology . Recipient of grants and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Utah Arts Council, and the Mellon Foundation, Johnson holds an M.A. from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars, an M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and a Ph.D. in Renaissance Literature from the University of California at Berkeley. Kimberly Johnson lives in Salt Lake City, Utah. kimberly-johnson.com Next - Among by Cynthia Hardy Next