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By Rachel Close

Another bright, summer dawn.
A soft breeze wafts through the valley.
I mount a mower
housed in that gasoline-scented garage.
These tasks can seem dull,
but for me it becomes meditation.
I admire the big sky.
I feel the wind whip my face.
The sting against my cheeks energizes me 
in the early mornings. 
I pull the knob, thrust the choke,
and kick the machine into gear. 
I focus on the pattern,
because alignment is key.
I keep my mind focused on the trails I make,
careful not to zig and zag.
Alone for my eight hours with the open sky, 
I map the sun with my eyes to keep track of time.
Relaxation and composure help the day go by,
as I try not to focus on meanings. 
When I’m alone with my mind.

By Aaron Suranofsky

A pond-wet nose sifts air, spinning the brown strip of fur
like a dancer's wrist draws a ribbon 

into delicate loops, crisscrossing dogwood bristles 
a few feet from where I petrify myself into a tree.

Dull black eyes curl my reflection:
another tall brown blur

for the rodent who sacrificed clear sight
for fancy third eyelid goggles.

It sniffs out the perfect snack-strip of branch, pinched level 
with rubber fingers, it slides the wood through its ivory lathe,

roughing off chips of bark, sharpening raw tan
into tasty puffs of dust. For five minutes

its jaw drums the pond, quaking the sound
of flinting stone into even spaced O’s of force.

Like the beaver’s a star, the tiny splash-flicks of frogs 
have chosen to revolve,

their peeps meeting the rhythm
of water wobbling over their green noses.

I lean to the music, a twig snaps alarm– its eyes catch me,
like a sequin glimmer on a cloudy day,

and it sledges its tail paddle to the water,
thwacking a crater, and in the spray of cover

it twirls, swallowed lithe without a tremble
in the pond clean of any sign it was there.

By Aaron Suranofsky

Beetles mine your skull
for consciousness crust.
Ants sheer off blood glued wedges 
of fur.
Worms inject out the ground’s skin
to clean any splotches contrasting the ivory.

Skeleton coiled to the tip of your tail
as if asleep in a den,
you lay flat
on wide open stones.

Why’s your little leg bent
a severed yard away?
Locked in potential energy–
potential jump to safety.

Did the whistle whip your ears like a chain,
your easy, bird-catcher muscles shocked?
Petrified on a wheel-gouged cleave of steel,
did your body quake
to the pulverizing metal stomps,
heavier, louder, blasting over–

with only enough time
to internalize the danger.
With too many hours
to curl into the pain

where the tuft of fox pomp
wafted along 
a year ago;
springy meander
a hair heavier than air, floating
to a seated rest,
pluming a tail flare.
Its glance slacked on me
unimpressed.
A breath of orange igniting the tracks,
blown out by the nearby weeds.