Dinosaur Bees

Anatomy Lesson
Rich Ives

I’m going to describe the parts of the body.
First there is the snake, which lifts me
from the alley of my thoughts,
and next the rock with a face on it.
It’s a man’s face so the rock is not a rock.
And the grass—something within. Suspect, inaudible.
It says I am no one else. It’s a long way. And the bright day
is there too, the day which breaks in the knowing,
but the knowing does not break. And the long shadows
on the sky’s wide road. And the wide road.

And the end of the road, which has no feathers, flies up
to the top of you and crows, announcing another trip
to the snake, every day into the wilderness and
every day the road open on the sky’s wide sleeping.
Already you are there where the body lives.
Old and heavy now, I would speak of its beauty.
There is your entrance, but do not go in
where you do not wish to be found,
for an open road becomes a reason
and a reason becomes a wound.

RICH IVES is the 2009 winner of the Francis Locke Memorial Poetry Award from Bitter Oleander. His story collection, The Balloon Containing the Water Containing the Narrative Begins Leaking, was one of five finalists for the 2009 Starcherone Innovative Fiction Prize. In 2010 and 2011 he has been a finalist in fiction at Black Warrior Review and Mississippi Review and in poetry at Cloudbank and Mississippi Review (twice). The Spring 2011 Bitter Oleander contains a feature including an interview and 18 of his hybrid works.

Chad Redden ::	Growing Up Baptist

Sherri Marilena Pauli ::	Translations in Rainstorms on Salt Flats

Megan Kennedy ::	Afraid

Jenni Lord ::	Five paintings

Steve Subrizi ::	Migrating to Portland
	Backstroke

Ben Segal ::	Tell It Again From Your Mouth

Russ Februaryy ::	I Put My Fingers In Your Eyes

Elizabeth Glixman ::	American Cats Are Overweight Studies Suggest
	Why Did Frankee Stein Become A Free Market Capitalist?

Nick Sturm ::	The Fences
	Three erasures

Andrew K. Peterson ::	Language, An Actress
	Steve McQueen’s Lines in The Blob

Rich Ives ::	Anatomy Lesson

Gabrielle DeMarre ::	Stan

Kristen E. Nelson ::	Song of Praise i. Him One
	Song of Praise ii. Him Two
	Song of Praise iii. Him Three
	Yvette

Acquanetta M. Sproule ::	A Nursery Rhyme