Scenes from Borders Reading October 22nd

Charles Potts (Kiot, The Portable Potts)
and Gail Pearlman

...we have no maps, but I ask you
to break out of prison, run like hell,
don't stop until you find the truth.
I promise I will ask this.

from "New Year's Promises",
by Gail Pearlman in Weathered Pages

Janelle Howell and Jim Bodeen

What I remember is this:
Your thick fingers folding
over my 5 year-old hand knuckled
like a butter clam
deep in your palm.

from "Moments", by Janelle Howell in WP

Stephen Thomas ("Perspectival" in WP)
and Doug Johnson

I knew then that no one was
braver....You had dealt with all of those
hollow trees longer than I had. You knew that the woman would
get it eventually.

from "Whale Skin", by Doug Johnson in WP.

Walter Schlect, Dustin Becker and the Coles.

Jane Schwab ("Hop Fields, 1944") Kim Nowacki,
and Keely Murphy (This Steady Place)

You worked in fields not your own
dreamed of a six foot reach,
unending twine
circling a globe you'd craft
to shade your family from the August sun.

from "Hop Fields, 1944" by Jane Schwab in WP.