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| Acuff, Gale |
| Ahearn, Edward |
| Berriozábal, Luis Cuauhtémoc |
| Bushloper, Lida |
| Clifton, Gary |
| Costello, Bruce |
| Crist, Kenneth James |
| De Anda, Victor |
| DeGregorio, Anthony |
| Ebel, Pamela |
| Fahy, Adrian |
| Grey, John |
| Held, Shari |
| Helden, John |
| Holtzman, Bernice |
| Hubbs, Damon |
| Kirchner, Craig |
| LeDue, Richard |
| Lewis, James H. |
| Lyon, Hillary |
| Middleton, Bradford |
| Molina, Tawny |
| Newell, Ben |
| Plath, Rob |
| Radcliffe, Paul |
| Rodriquez, Albert |
| Rosmus, Cindy |
| Russell, Wayne |
| Sarkar, Partha |
| Sesling, Zvi A. |
| Sheff, Jake |
| Sheirer, John |
| Simpson, Henry |
| Snethen, Daniel G. |
| Teja, Ed |
| Tustin, John |
| Waldman, Dr. Mel |
| Al Wassif, Amirah |
| Wesick, Jon |
| Wilhide, Zach |
| Williams, E. E. |
| Wiseman-Rose, Sophia |
| Zelvin, Elizabeth |
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A
CHILD by John Tustin A child stands out on a ledge as the sun beats down In
horror and glory. He stands alone. A child kneels in the dark before a mirror And
then a windowsill, The moon not smiling, snickering Or
sneering but oblivious. He kneels alone. A child lies folded up Beneath the sky
and her endless seasons Of heat, cold, wind and rain. He
lies alone. A child listens to
music alone. A child prays to ghosts alone. A
child feels the flutter of an angel’s wings As he reaches
out and touches nothing. A child sits like
a pile of dirty laundry. The flies buzz and the heavens heave Whether
he wants them to or not. He sits alone. A child dies And no mother Cries. A child Dies And no mother cries. A child dies and no mother cries. SHROUD by John
Tustin Mozart’s
Ave verum corpus and the vultures circle this bed
where I make my shrine to you and to the
half-wanted loneliness and to the death of love and to the slumber of a living corpse. May
I ask one more thing of you, woman who has
denied my every exhortation? Can you make a
shroud for me? Can you make it strong and black? Large and all-encompassing? Can
you make a shroud for my love for you— this love
that dies and dies but will not be
dead? Don’t just forget me. Cover me up and then forget
me. I declaim that I have had enough. THE MAKE-UP MAN by John Tustin Every evening the
make-up man opens her dead eyes, touches up her dead face, makes her
appear almost alive lying there beside
me in the dark. Her hands as cold as her ocean of ice, her
eyes like coffin lids, her kisses dry and
motionless but still I hold
her hand, still I look into her eyes, still I place my lips on her lips that
remain so still. The make-up man, he lies to me with
his hands when he performs his nightly miracle with ghostly paint, opaque
fabric, the perfumes of intrigue and disguise and
I let him tell me lies as I lie there beside where she lies and I tell
her all the things she wouldn’t let
me say when she was pretending to live on her own, with me, without
the assistance of the make-up
man. John Tustin’s poetry has appeared in many
disparate literary journals since 2009. His first poetry collection from Cajun Mutt Press
is now available at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C6W2YZDP. fritzware.com/johntustinpoetry contains links to his published poetry online.
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In Association with Fossil Publications
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