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one breath before I strike the air and still one more I
before the time-obstructed fingers of the afternoon
etch salt against my blackwhite convex screen 'I

The body aready breathing in the stone
flowing palette-veined, vivid down a Florence sky

And Schumann's sorrow sings of dreams
lumined through three pairs of hands
that never touched til now
moistening jonquils in another spring
on a hillside blue-brushed softly at their rooted bulbs

as Michelangelo's chisel lets the marble bleed.

Bill Tribby

Winter Rescue
for R.B.W.D.

Vodka causes frostbite, you tell me
the Russian government proclaimed.
Will it be your poem or mine?
I ask. You cede it to me.

Imagine a transparent potato,
just cooked. It burns your throat.
You're less wary drunk,
your accent grows,
if you don't watch out
cobblies will bite off your toes.

I haven't done much with it, Beth Lengyel
I know, but better this
than leave anthing to prose. 6

Carol Poster