A Dry Leaf 
 
In the grocery store parking lot, one recent afternoon, I spotted a brown, papery item on proud display on the dashboard of an older, blue Honda Civic. At first glance it appeared to be a large, single, curled-up, dried leaf. Wondering if my eyes had deceived me, I stepped closer. Yes, it was a dry leaf, brown, rounded in on itself so tightly I could not discern maple from oak or sycamore. I wondered at first “What would make a common dead leaf  important enough to merit such prominently display? Was it from a favorite tree?” Then I stepped away, into the store, to attend to my grocery list. 
 
As I rolled through the aisles, I pondered my own relationship with dried brown leaves, curled or straight, windblown on a path or lawn. Even a single leaf blown onto my path, crackles with remembered laughter when I walk through or step on them. It’s my son’s laughter that resounds in my ears as when he ran, his feet crushing and scattering dried leaves with all the delight a toddler could effuse. 
 
When I returned to my car, I saw that the blue Civic and its curled dry leaf were gone. On subsequent visits, I’ve looked for the car, but it’s never reappeared. Recently, I’ve begun to wonder if the leaf’s significance for blue Civic was like mine, a portkey to a past (for me) when my son was alive and would run into my arms still laughing after dispersing the fallen leaves with his tiny feet. Lately, however, I’ve become skittish about  even if I do see the blue Civic again—not for fear of encountering another grieving parent but because the owner might answer,  “Leaf?  I guess the wind blew it into the car when I last opened the door.” I don’t think I could bear the weight of a dry leaf that has no meaning.
 
**

Whispering Hope
 
My father’s birth village was on a mountain in the Abruzzo. When we visited, on a late May afternoon, our car carefully climbed roads with no guardrails. Our tires hugged the part closest to the mountainside farthest from the scenic views. At last we stopped in a place where there was a cut-out that would keep us safe from passing trucks, looked down on trees, mostly bare, some still glazed with white, made and then photographed the mound of spring snowballs we’d made.
 
In Pittsburgh, we lived at the bottom of a hill, a hill I climbed when the roads were closed because of snow and ice and sledded down when there was no danger of careening into traffic. To reach the home of my Nonna, I had to climb one hundred steps (or so it seemed). Steep climbs are a part of me, so it is no surprise that I feel a kinship with mountain dwellers everywhere.
 
In our North Carolina home we lived with a river in my back yard, water that rose into the drive, penetrated the back rubber floor guard of our garage. Our rescue was easy—from large State-owned vehicles—the land was flat, easy for them to get to us. Afterwards, cleaning services came to erase the stink of foul mud from our property, even though the memory remained. Not so with the mountain folks, who have suffered the winds and ice of winter, lived through the green of spring and summer, only to be betrayed in what is normally their glorious season of ruby and citron leaves calling to visitors, betrayed by rain and wind and raging waters. Rivers that meandered through villages became behemoths, swallowing these places whole.
​
Chimney Rock and Bat Cave, Asheville, Swannanoa, places in Tennessee and southwest Virginia, places all along the misty Blue Ridge, crushed by water wielding trees and rocks and debris like weapons to take back the land from the people.

My tears push me to action for they are not distant from me—and although , as far as I know, my father’s town has never suffered so, water is everywhere and the possibility of disaster is equal to the possibility for joy no matter where one lives—so I must help in the only way I can—writing, telling stories, sending a check to those who are young enough to slough through the foul mud and bring supplies, bring out survivors. I, from here,  whisper words of hope to those whose lives were swept down the mountain that is so like the one where my father was born.

**
 
Nightmare Voices
 
Anyone who heard him call out for help as he clung to the tree while the river swirled around his place of safety, water lapping against the bark like the paws of a rabid bear trying to pull him down and into its grand maw, those who tried to save him, those who cried for him on the bank—all of these likely hear his cries in their nightmares. As for me, my body was not there but my mind traveled to him, like the dream figures in a Chagall painting, and his cries like brushes dipped in sorrowful black paint notes of screams into my ears each night, as if I had heard them with my own waking ears. I still hear the voices of the Hamas victims, of children caught int eh war in Gaza, of Holocaust victims who died before I was born, even voices of victims of Johnstown flood and the Titanic. All these still call to me in the ripples of every river, every stream, waves that roll up onto the beach. This is the poet’s blessing and curse—to be haunted by terrors in the tenor of voices in trees, in our sleep, and even in our waking hours, for as much as we fell joy, are compelled to share joy with words on paper, so we feel the pain even of voices no longer heard by others, both in our dreams and waking hours and share those voices on paper not simply for the art, but to give help others hear those voices, to ensure that they are not forgotten. We hear them all and it is our duty that with our pens we make them known.

**

Listening to Crow’s Morning Call
 
On our last morning of beach week my sunrise walk was primarily a watching  exercise.

Waves were foamy curls riding across the water from the horizon line to my toes on shore as if sent by the rising sun to meet me, carry shells to shore as gifts.

This was a calm day, ocean’s roll, the occasional call of a gull or sandpiper were expected background noise, but I hardly noticed even those as I focused on the sand in my hunt for shells.

Then an unexpected, “Caw, Caw!” sounded out and made me turn—a crow at the beach?

I turned. I saw him in his black robed majesty, sitting on the top of a rental beach chair, a visiting crow, beak still expelling his harsh call.
​
I smiled at him, turned away, and took a few more steps down the sand.
 
A songbird’s melodious trill floated over to me. Turning I saw only the crow. Had he imitated a songbird? I smiled. Walked on. Then, as plainly as one could hear such on a playground a child’s voice called, “Look at me!” “Look at me!”

Again I turned and this time I laughed. Crow, yes, crow, that consummate mimic had finally hit the language that made me listen, not simply hear, and go on.
 
I waved, smiled, walked a few steps toward him and spoke: “Hello Mr. Crow. You look very fine today.”

Acknowledging my compliment, he bobbed his head. He had wanted to be noticed and had called me until I did, choosing first his own language, then songbird speech, and finally the words of a human child. As I walked on, I wondered, how much better would the world be if like crow we could shift until we found a language that would reach another, cause us to listen, not simply hear the noise of their voices.

**

Camellias
 
I will miss my “winter’s roses.” Their profusion of pink, red, white petals scattered over mulch, grass yellowed by lack of rain, made carpets of colour that spread to the sidewalk when chilly breezes spread them about—like tea leaves swirling in my cup, in too hot water, scattered by the bubbling hot liquid, tea I drink to stave off the cold.
 
How appropriate that camellias, albeit different types than those of my North Carolina garden, are the plants that offer their leaves for tea. Now, in my Virginia home, bereft of flowering plants but enjoying snowflakes covering my lawn, I will recall the pastel and deep red beauty of those bushes in my former yard as I brew cups of tea to warm me against a more frigid clime. Cold has many faces but tea’s a constant.

**

Joan Leotta plays with words on page and stage. Internationally published as essayist, poet, short story writer, and novelist, she’s a two-time nominee (fiction and poetry) for Pushcart and Best of the Net, nominee for Western Peace Prize, and a 2022 runner-up in Robert Frost Competition. Joan also performs folk and personal tales of food, family, strong women on stages across the country, UK and Europe. She teaches classes on writing and presenting, and now offers a one woman show bringing Louisa May Alcott to today’s audiences. You can find her on Facebook contact her at [email protected]

Roadster
 
The RPM's whine rises an octave, thus I depress the clutch, slide the car into fourth without much fuss, just throaty rumble.  At 60 it can be difficult to smell anything but burning petrol, but all of today's apple pollen fills the cockpit, some resting in my hair. Dusking sky reveals the first star to the south east, and cool air rubs back of my right hand almost seductively. Home is both ahead and behind me, just numbers on a street, really just a concept. Like responsibility. Like freedom. Like love. The passenger seat remains empty. The radio's lit up but mute, static hidden in silence. There's no song but engine roar, at least not tonight, not anymore. 

**
 
In Search of Quasimodo
 
Maybe we all walk around, the heart a silent bell in the steeple of our chests, and we’re just waiting—really waiting—for someone to pull the long, strong rope to set us tolling. These days most new churches program their bell songs, we can hear them blasting over our small town every hour, as if god is in the machine. Imagine the minister swiping left for the hymns to choose.
 
And who hasn’t felt like an abandoned church out in the sticks, dilapidated and derelict, the deacons and congregants dead or moved on. White paint peeling like strips of an old poster in the wind.
 
The loneliest among us pray just to be touched, to be heard, and, yes, I’ve lived among them in my cloister, those lean years, meditating, libidinous yet alone. Or worse, those night club Saturday nights, all of us forlorn, so many beautifully monstrous individuals, the heavy ropes from their bell towers just out of reach. We weathered those nights, those long, lonely rides home. How horrible, at breakfast to hear the Sabbath bells calling.

**
 
Creeps
 
Creeps are everywhere, my mother warned.  You know them: the neighbor scowling at every kid on a bicycle (a bat with a glove angling over a shoulder), the three-card-monte dealer & his partner who whispers doubt into your left ear, breath reeking of sexuality. Even in the mirror–I’ve been the model son, boyfriend, husband: lured you in only to bust your heart, so now I can’t stand to look at my reflection.  I’ve told lies, too, & there went another one.  The creeps creep us out, as the kids used to say, like the guy in the last car of the subway smelling like stale piss & something funkier, more primal, perilous.  Sure, there are benign creeps–the over-indulgent, the false lavishers of praise, the seductive smilers (how often did I practice that gesture). I’ve prayed to survive & preyed to survive, & what has it gotten me?  I see how you shy away now, but let’s face it, even my remorse might be a ruse. Barnum (that creep) knew a rube was born every minute, & a creep, too, Darwin might insist because isn’t that survival of the fittest?  Don’t think about it too deeply, it might just give you the creeps, might just get you to forgive me.
 
**

 Achtung Katzen!!!    
 — sign outside a house in Eschen Liechtenstein
 
The notice, no doubt, meant to caution drivers about pets on the loose. Or maybe to beg birds to be vigilant, for it’s easy to believe in this Alpine town that birds can read. We’re in serious Brothers Grimm territory, and we all know how smart crows can be. The cats in the sign are cute, cartoonish. In the windows they’re ominous, scheming, purring for pets one minute, then tonguing their chops when a collared dove or plover lands on the lawn. The warblers warble out warnings. Swifts fly by swiftly. The sign reminds us the cats know how to get outside. Maybe, they’ve killed before. Wouldn’t that explain the carrion raven who roosts nearby, talking to itself, waiting.

**
 
Groceries
 
I saw a man in the market today wearing a cape and I didn’t imagine he was Batman or some magician on his way to an audition. This was no cosplayer in costume. No, I thought James Brown. That’s right the Godfather of Soul, though this man just pushed his cart among the produce, such a sorry occupation for a man in a cape. The cape should make every floor a stage. The cape says, Amen when we say, Sock it to me. The cape says, I feel good even among the headache meds and muscles balms. The cape said to Bootsy Collins, wear me when you meet George Clinton. I know what’s good for you.You got Elvis in a jumpsuit in the juice aisle. Buddy Holly glasses by the ice cream. The cape says nothing to these two. He’s no super hero, but the man in the cape is the hardest working shopper in the supermarket. He loads groceries on the conveyor, pays his bill, loads it all in a sack. To the cashier, the cape says, Papa’s got a brand new bag.

**
 
A Pearl is the Autobiography of an Oyster
 
As with so many stories, this one starts with a singular hurt—some slight or harsh words, a profound irritant that can never be spat out. Instead it remains, a sharp sand grain held against the tongue for decades. Imagine how it sits and shifts, scratchy, cutting. Imagine how it scrapes and how, too, over time it loses its edge, gets smoothed over even as it grows and calcifies. A hurt like that defies logic. It gains luster there on the sea floor, hidden and sealed shut, waiting for the young woman who can hold her breath the longest, the one who dives down to pick from the beds, plucking mollusks ‘til she gathers a whole mesh sack of them. And later, shucking them open, that smooth and simple iridescence must astound her. Picture her rolling that small orb gently between her fingers, wide-eyed by the opalescent beauty of endurance.

**
 
In the Distance
 
Smoke stack smoke roving behind the shroud of trees; the scenic railroad with its four old-fashioned carriages moving into October. At this distance it seems so diminutive, no bigger than the models I played with as a child, those HO scale boxcars and tankers. How like God I felt after a derailment, when I’d lift the locomotive back to the tracks, set it all in line. I’d pick up the plastic people, realign the cars, return the tiny trees to their places. I had built this world after all and wanted to set it right most days, wanted to be heroic, beloved. Yes, how like God I felt. And then those days of frustration and despair came, days of hormone and heartache, days when I’d knock past the puny traffic, lift the train from its rails, and roar. How like Godzilla. 
 
**
 
In the Black Square
– Vasily Kandinsky
 
I’ve been in Columbus Circle and Times Square both on the same day, well past midnight, and still been unsurprised—the taxis, the digital billboards with all those pixels, the lonely guy walking on the other side of Broadway. I was, of course, on the other side of from him, also alone, southbound. No one remembered me in Herald Square. At Union Square the city police warned against loitering. In Washington Square they fined me for littering, throwing as I was the confetti of her last love letters to the wind. Find fault with that. I believed in so much then. Someone had planted a flag on the moon, after all, and although it went unheralded, the subways moved thousands underground every day. The night sky like a hematoma. In the black square where I lived, too many sharp edges! Too many lines I could stumble over. Careful careful, I mumbled to myself. The Circle Line circled tourists around Manhattan. I circled the squares of the calendar, never figuring out what went awry. Yes, there were any number of bridges off that Island, but in that light they seemed both crooked and askew.

**
 
Found Diary of an Unknown Adolescent
 
So many entries are entertaining entreaties to a wannabe lover, a classmate he wanted to mate with apparently. Long treatises on longing: how long the evenings were, how much longer the weekends without her. Did they ever even date? Her name like a treat, written over and over for weeks, but never tasted. The dated pages of this edition don’t say, but how he treasured (his word) her comic treatment of their math teacher in the cafeteria. The rest is mundane—the names of bands and friends, a refrain of complaints and petty slights. It’s a life I remember, a life I can’t recant, even though it’s not mine, except in the slightest ways, that handwriting, for instance, that stupid sentimentality, the way he kept sentry over his secret desire deep into the suburban night. 
 
**

Gerry LaFemina is the author of numerous collections of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. His most recent collection of prose poems is Baby Steps for Doomsday Pressing and the anthology, Fantastic Imaginary Creatures, both from Madville. A noted editor, educator, and arts activist, he teaches at Frostburg State University and in the MFA program at Carlow University, and serves as President of the Board of Savage Mountain Punk Arts. In his spare time, LaFemina is also the singer and principal songwriter for Punkerton recording artists, The Downstrokes.
 
 

​When All the Buildings Depart

Every building wishes to tear off from its foundation and soar upwards. They want to rise so high that they can be confused with a star in the night. It is utterly dreadful to contain people. People emit terrible odours and sounds. People do not wipe their feet. People love to say their names along with what they do, again and again, even if their only job is to relieve other people of their jobs. Do not be surprised when all the buildings of this world depart and you are left to labour in the fields—your hands calloused and the sun blistering your face. You cannot be forgiven for circling inside a revolving door even once.

**
 
The Secret Need

Many have a secret need they know nothing of. It inhabits their subconscious like the inventions of the most revered Dr. Freud. It can remain silent a whole lifetime. In heavy sleep, it can find expression in a dream that will be unremembered upon waking. Some know the secret need but have never articulated it fully to themselves or anyone else. They live what they know out in verdant jungles rarely trespassed and spend their days in the deepest meditation. It has been said the secret need is the desire to know what the animals know.   

There are those of us stumble upon the awareness of this need but deny it, keeping track of penny stocks or mutual funds all their days as a distraction. Though alive, these people have entombed themselves in ornate skyscrapers. Others, accepting of the secret need, run to the closest collection of trees, climb up as fast as possible, and shout animal names from the crowns. They hope at least one animal will explain everything. These people can shout as much as they want but the animals will not share their secret— or even a crushed acorn.
 
**
 
I Had No Idea

My hirsute friend taught me in college that cigarettes go well with drinking. At house parties, I did it a few times, wanting so badly to be like my hero Bogart or some other detective who lived in black and white and had a stunning secretary with wonderous hair that never came undone. I had no idea where to find a dark fedora. I had no idea how to inhale without choking. I had no idea how to call one of the Jewish women around me a dame without getting that great slap I would so rightfully deserve.

Across the room, my hirsute friend would smoke away like an industrial complex and between puffs, kiss a tall girl’s neck until the two of them found the perfect darkness in a room above, leaving me in my old cage of shyness. 
 
**

One Red Koi Fish is Enough to Change Your Life

One red koi fish is enough to change your life, darting into view then taking all it has changed back into the darkness below the surface, below understanding. It has found the infinite because it is beyond sight and everything is possible. In fact, the koi fish has become Schrodinger’s cat. It is both there and gone— dead and alive. 

It might surprise you to know that koi fish have become frustrated with us because we do not think of the infinite enough and our skin lacks the great lustre of the closest star.
 
**

One Jumbo, Hold Nothing 

Jumbo laboured behind the deli counter at Murray Avenue Kosher in the Squirrel Hill section of Pittsburgh. His old skin sagged with great wisdom and his lips were large with the humor of ancient days. He was a staple of the community as a staunch guardian of coleslaw and potato salad. Every morning, I liked to say hello to him this way: “Hello Jummmmbo!” He would respond “Hey Kid!” in that suave way that only men who have worked with chicken salad and chopped liver can manage. 

I asked him one day why he was called Jumbo. He looked at me for a while then took two slices of marble rye out and put them on a plate. Their spirals twirled like an exotic universe. Jumbo splashed Dijon mustard on them and piled them high with ruby red pastrami and corned beef. I thought the two thin slices of marble rye would never be able hold all the cold meat he piled up, but Jumbo mystically made it work. He squeezed it down, took a huge bite out of it, and said, “What are you, an idiot?”

**

Baruch November’s full-length book of poems is entitled Bar Mitzvah Dreams. His collection of poems, Dry Nectars of Plenty, co-won BigCityLit’s chapbook contest. His works have been featured in Tiferet Journal, Paterson Literary Review, Lumina, NewMyths.com, and The Forward. His poem “After Esav” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Baruch hosts and organizes The Jewish Poetry Reading Series for the JCC of Buffalo. He teaches literature and writing at Touro University. He has lived in too many places to count.