Issue > Poetry
Katherine Smith

Katherine Smith

Katherine Smith’s poetry publications include appearances in Poetry, Cincinnati Review, Missouri Review, Ploughshares, Southern Review, and many other journals. Her short fiction has appeared in Fiction International and Gargoyle. Her first book Argument by Design (Washington Writers’ Publishing House) appeared in 2003. Her second book of poems Woman Alone on the Mountain (Iris Press), appeared in 2014. She works at Montgomery College in Maryland.

The Gaze

Berthe Morisot

The vision that gave me my most quiet hours—
blossoming fruit tree, a daughter's brow—
.
flashed across the hall from Manet's
Balcony at the Salon until the startled crowds

compared my intensity to Medusa's,
and said I was a femme fatale.

I loathed and loved my weird and watchful eyes,
which frightened once a little boy. It wasn't

the darkness, but solitude that scared him,
my look a common crow perched much too high

on clouds of crinoline. A suitor's glance skipped
the polished surface of my skin

and sometimes found me sweet. But peering close
he saw a gaze return his own, the marble urn

of roses breathe and fling the flowers down.

Poetry

Rosebud Ben-Oni

Rosebud Ben-Oni
{All I Wanted Was Everything}

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Ricardo Hernandez

Ricardo Hernandez
Fast

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Joanne Diaz

Joanne Diaz
Electrocuting An Elephant