Issue Four – June 2002

Double Wedding Ring

By Liza Franzoni

Grandmother,
what secrets did you whisper
to your quilting friends
in hushed tones, lest the menfolk hear?

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As If

By Brooks

in her sixth year
cabbage palms
and knife fights
replaced
long bike rides

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Sudden Stroke

By Brooks

had I known yesterday
how today
I would long for any part of any word
I would have sung three hosannas

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The Little Angel

By Liza Franzoni

Great grandfather Angelo dreamed
of America, the beautiful land
where Count Bettoni
could not tell him “faster!”

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From L’Italia to La Merica

By Liza Franzoni

From your mountain village
you looked this way
in a dream that filled
your whole belly
with food and children.

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Works

By Richard Singer

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Rolling Old River

By Iris Graville

Every time I sing that folk song, I think of the Stehekin River, formed by glaciers of the North Cascades and flowing into Lake Chelan in North Central Washington. That old river changed dramatically during our second winter living on its banks, and the “Flood of ’95” left its mark on me.

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Secrets and Songs

By The Editors

Stare in the morning shroud
and then the day began
I tilted your cloud,

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My Dirty Little Secret

By Lorna Reese

A beautiful young woman, Lily Grimaldi, is delivering her first baby on the kitchen floor of her grandmother’s old farmhouse in the country. Helping her is hunky first love and former husband (and uncle) Holden Snyder. Damien Grimaldi, her current and third hunky husband — and the father of the baby — is enormously jealous of Holden.

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The Family Joules

By Leta Currie Marshall

You know by now not to judge a book by its cover. You should also know not to judge a heart by its visible mechanical support system.

I may not look like your idea of a heart patient, but I am one.

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