Issue Thirty-Two - Summer 2018

Archery

By Sandra Kolankiewicz

The point is what allows the rest of the
arrowhead to enter the flesh of a
honey crisp apple set on the fence post
while you reach back over your shoulder toward
your quill, intent on splitting the fruit in
two, not listening when she tries to speak,
attempts to say what you don’t want to hear
as you find the notch, pull back, align in
your sight the cock and hens, the feathers trimmed
and stiff, ready to act like some kind of
keel through the air steering us toward what we’ll
find is the meaning of love: allowing
ourselves to be pierced by what we fear.

Copyright Kolanklewicz 2018

Sandra Kolankiewicz lives in Marietta, Ohio, which is in the southeast corner of the state at the confluence of the Ohio and Muskingum Rivers in the Appalachian foothills. Her poems and stories have appeared in North American Review, Confrontation, Chicago Review, Mississippi Review, and Cimarron Review. Her chapbook, Turning Inside Out, won the Black Lawrence Fall 2007 Competition. Her novel, Blue Eyes Don't Cry, won the 2008 Hackney Award for the Novel.

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