Tag Archives: Cider Press Review

Charmingby Laura Cherry

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To get to you I bit the apple
at its loveliest spot, drawing the poison
out and into me. I lay in my glass box,
neither sleeping nor swooning, neither
half empty nor half full, every nerve
edged in black like a mourning letter.
What the doves call song I call grief; but
I waited.
                 Your charger found me first,
nosing at my coffin, transformed
from battle steed to foal by the scent
of apples. You swung the hinged lid
slowly: one last moment to fear
my heart’s desire, all my new kingdom
in your kiss.
—
Laura Cherry is the author of the collection Haunts (Cooper Dillon Books) and the chapbooks Two White Beds (Minerva Rising) and What We Planted (Providence Athenaeum). She co-edited the anthology Poem, Revised (Marion Street Press). Her work has been published in journals including Clementine Poetry Journal, Los Angeles Review, Cider Press Review, and Hartskill Review.

Pick for June 5: Agreements by Joan Mazza

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I will not collect the hair
from your brush, nor the nail
parings you drop in the pail
to cast a spell. You won’t hear
whispered commands in your ear
while you sleep so I can have my way.
I will not call the old woman
on the mountain who sells potions
and instructs on fertility. Though
she has ways to make rain fall on you
to restrain you. We’ll keep our vows
simple, neither of us bowing.
When we sleep we’ll stay on our sides
of the bed unless beckoned. I’ll wash your
dishes, you wash mine, and deep
we’ll travel until dead.
Neither of us will iron or be ironed.
—

Joan Mazza has worked as a medical microbiologist, psychotherapist, sex therapist, writing coach and seminar leader. She is the author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self (Perigee/Penguin/Putnam), and her work has appeared in Cider Press Review, Rattle, Off the Coast, Kestrel, Permafrost, Slipstream, Timber Creek Review, The MacGuffin, Writer’s Digest, The Fourth River, the minnesota review, Personal Journaling, Free Inquiry, and Playgirl. She now writes poetry and does fabric art in rural central Virginia. www.JoanMazza.com

“By reading and writing poetry, I come to terms with my obsessions.”