Gnashing Teeth Publishing

| words that get in your teeth

In the Garden by Robbi Nester

In the Garden

to Richard
After “To Dorothy,” by Marvin Bell

You’re my practical potato. sprawling out
over the rocky earth. I might have sought
a bird of paradise, lofty head standing
high above the crowd. But you
will nourish me long after their stalks
have fallen, when the bright rose,
in his pomp, has lost his petals.
You have all the eyes I need,
enough to sprout a garden, under
the ground, in secret, where nobody
but me will know. I go out there
with my spade and hack away
the roots, leaving a portion of
the tuber. I couldn’t grow a weed,
except by accident. Without you,
I would starve.

~

Robbi Nester is the author of 4 books of poems, a chapbook, Balance (White Violet, 2012) and three collections–A Likely Story (Moon Tide, 2014), Other-Wise (Kelsay, 2017), and Narrow Bridge (Main Street Rag, 2019). They have also edited two anthologies, and am currently beginning another, The Plague Papers. To take part in it, visit a virtual museum of any kind online, choose an object, specimen, or work of art, and write a poem or short piece of prose. Send it to rknester@gmail.com by May 30th with a link to the object online.

Goodnight, Taj Mahal by Andre Peltier

Deep below earth, clay and sand, deep below roots and aquifers, it lies in wait. Like that silent coyote stalking her white-tailed deer through the brush, it waits patiently and

contain by Megan Cartwright

verb past tense: contained; past participle: contained 1. have or hold (someone or something) within. Similar: hold carry To have and to hold in our own microcosm, constructed of hope.

Listening to Words by Mona Mehas

Listening to words out of touch cross lily pads, one to the next my rules, a tiny picture frame debt of honor, repay the gift. Headlights illuminate the path listening

Blooming by Elizabeth Gade

Some days are easy and some days are exhausting the days you have to dig through the muck inside take more hits than a heavyweight prize fighter cling to life

Pomegranate Rose by Laura Peña

I want to feed this delicacy To my concubine A tiny spoonful at a time I want to watch the luscious sorbet Linger on the tip of her tongue Melt

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