3:54

for the 13th time i’ve looked at the time
glowing back from the phone that never sleeps

and speaking of never sleeping neither do i

well
let’s not exaggerate
i sleep but not much
as you with marauding fingers
hungry tongue
snake out from wherever you are

to here

exploring all those places
soft mountains to delta
doing all those things you could never write

saying only you got hard in dangerous situations
at all the wrong times

leaving the rest to my imagination

now it’s payback as i move through the days
heavy lidded exhausted
from the waking and sleeping

the waking…

all blood pooled in that moist swollen v
that must be pacified with open palm
and inadequate fingers
as i twist in the wind of desire

RC deWinter’s poetry is anthologized, notably in Uno: A Poetry Anthology (Verian Thomas, 2002), New York City Haiku (NY Times, 2017), Cowboys & Cocktails (Brick Street Poetry, April 2019), Nature In The Now (Tiny Seed Press, August 2019), in print in 2River, Adelaide Magazine, borrowed solace, Genre Urban Arts, Gravitas, In Parentheses, Night Picnic Journal, Prairie Schooner, Reality Break Press, Southword, Variant Literature, among many others and appears in numerous online literary journals.

Judith Skillman paints expressionist works in oil on canvas. She is interested in feelings engendered by the natural world. Her art has appeared in Windmill: The Hofstra Journal of Literature and Art, Artemis, The Penn Review and other journals. Skillman has studied at McDaniel College, the Pratt Fine Arts Center and Seattle Artist League.