The poem is still available on the magazine’s website. Print editions of the issue are still available on Amazon.
Next to an orchard in central Washington
The sign says ‘no jesus no hope’ —
plastic letters in June sun wilting,
stretching as if in prayer, a sad
salutation to the earth amened by
a woman watering dirt near her trailer.
In grief, the ground refuses to drink &
a stream divides the bank to join
the river in murmuring confirmation,
all hope abandoned because no man
ever rose the same as the sun;
all hope dispelled by graveyard dirt
& roots, the hydra’s tongues & teeth
sunk deep into a moaning vowel,
lacing the stays of generations with
telephone line, hands cupped
& colored by dishwater & blood;
hope unrecoverable in the rough
valleys of age cut by fields & parlors
& spring dances, at once young & old
& same as the last; nothing more
pointless than the agile fingers of
daughters who sewed flowers
into their petticoats to be found
by lovers needlessly sowing
tomorrow’s fields; no hope
in blooming & rotting, in becoming
like every other green & vibrant thing;
despair like the water that cuts the hill &
divides the ground that cannot hold it;
unheard like prayers spelled out in plastic,
meaningless as any other words
if we were only intended to grow
these bones before giving them up.