Amanda Tinker

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Artist statement: In this series, Small Animal, I arrange objects from my family garden, children’s books, and vintage identification guides into layered configurations. Each photograph looks at the natural world as if it were held just for our observation, suspended far from any recognizable landscape.

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Amanda Tinker (b. 1974) was raised in New Jersey and currently works and resides outside of Philadelphia. She has been teaching the history of photography and 19th c. processes in Philadelphia, Pa, since 2001. In her process, Amanda uses large analogue cameras and 19th c. photographic techniques as a way of arranging elements from nature. She uses historic photographic processes to comment on a tenuous, local biodiversity and considers plants as worthy subjects in our current moment.

Amanda has exhibited in national and international exhibitions. Selected exhibitions include the Photography Gallery at the University of Notre Dame, The Woodmere Art Museum in Philadelphia, Gallerie Lampinstrasse in Bielefeld, Germany and the Heilongjiang Art Museum in Harbin, China. Amanda has received an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and two Window of Opportunity Grants from The Leeway Foundation.

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Jeanne Julian

The Burrowers Recall Life A.G.*

Windows instead of hatchways—before the sun up and melted our glass.

We ate crunch and color, and if you didn’t want a ceiling, you didn’t have to have one.

Sometimes I caress the carpet and pretend it’s growing. Like moss. Or bark. Or those stems

crowned with lace, roadside. Named for a monarch who united two countries. I forget who and which.

When there were monarchs—queens and butterflies—and countries. And weathered red barns. 

When weather was—not benign, exactly, but gradual. Like shorelines. Marsh or dunes. Remember?

Before the reefless sea encroached. And so much fresh water we could waste it on our skins.

Frolic, wetly! Now we wander our dim warren, guide-ropes at hand, wending from

and to our hollowed-out homes. Oh, and remember No justice, No peace?—that jingle we’d chant

before former higher-ups made their deals with the devil? His hell ascended. We dug down.

*Above Ground

Of Bone and Brain

1.

That weird scream, mine. Still hanging

there, in my reruns of the rain fall.

Like a hat I didn’t recognize,

left for someone else to claim.

Over seven prior decades, no bone

ever dared betray me. In no tumbles

from bikes, no skating mishaps,

no car crashes. Not one broke

its promise to uphold my tender

innards and fragile wrapper.

Then: what a bumbling bone-

head move, a slip, a slide

on slick wet grass and in a snap

the left strut angles, fissures, cracks

like a hidden wishbone. Lower leg

useless, loose as if dangling from a nail.

2.

Now knee flesh is stitched,

a metal plate holds fracture

like Thanksgiving leftovers,

and the mind, over the matter

of such wrack and gimp,

lacks its get-up-and-go too.

It limps along blind alleys, shuffles

its fun house of cards, not yet playing

with a full deck of neural tarot to signify,

weigh, meanings, past and future.

The Tower. The Hermit. The Chariot?

No Weight Bearing—that, at least, is clear.

3.

Weeks of weakness my burden,

splintered, stabbed, stitched, stiff,

lurching, I bear waiting but find

I can’t Atlas words or the world.

Idling by the bed, the wheelchair.

I’ve learned to propel, steer it,

gripping the edge of countertops

the way I clung to the edge

of the pool when learning to swim.

Choking on swallowed mistakes

until I surfaced to gulp air anew

and arms churned and finally kicks

kicked in, and flailing became strokes

necessary to stay afloat enough to think,

to think if I just keep going I might,

thankfully, not forever flounder, sink.

Backyard Fox

These days when dead birds,

strange storms, glacier melt

work to leave her blind

to all that’s bright, watching

the fox den from her window

offers a glimpse of hope.

Where once slopes held

old growth—birch, oak,

red spruce, white pine—

now stand fine homes

like hers, where she

raised her kids, tried

to teach them to be kind.

The fox kits pounce, roll,

and flit through one last

plot of trees.

They don’t care

when she stands near

to watch them romp

or learn to tear at meat.

At times, she thinks

she should stomp

or clap or scream

to help them share

the fear she knows

could save them,

save this world. 

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Jeanne Julian is author of Like the O in Hope and two chapbooks. Her poems are in Kakalak, Panoply, RavensPerch, Ocotillo Review and elsewhere, and have won awards from Reed Magazine, Comstock Review, Naugatuck River Review, and Maine Poets’ Society. She reviews books for The Main Street Rag. www.jeannejulian.com

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Patrick Meeds

Dominoes Falling

I have a wobbly loose tooth memory.

Is it me or are things always changing?

I never thought I’d want to live in silence

but I’m haunted by a ghost who won’t stop talking.

It’s so good to see that you’re still breathing

so let’s forget that the night is cannon balling.

Every day brings a new set of bruises.

I’m not mad, I just like walking.

It’s 3 a.m. and I’m still not sleepy.

I’ll call you from the pay phone on the corner.

I remember all those school bus Fridays.

Always the last stop on a long ride home.

You were the best basement roller skater.

What was I thinking when I left you alone.

Up the stairs on hands and knees I’m crawling.

One look at you and the dominoes start falling.

I didn’t think you were ever really leaving

so forgive me if I never said goodbye.

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Patrick Meeds lives in Syracuse, NY and studies writing at the Syracuse YMCA’s Downtown Writer’s Center. He has been previously published in Stone Canoe literary journal, the New Ohio Review, Tupelo Quarterly, the Atticus Review, Whiskey Island, Guernica, The Main Street Rag, and Nine Mile Review among others.

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