A Single Rose
by Andrea M. Gratton

I was a single rose
That just didn’t fit in
With the garden of wildflowers
Where I was forced to grow
Others thought I was unique and wonderful
But inside I felt alone
And was untrue to myself
As I tried to be a wildflower too
But then you came to rescue me
And even though my thorns
Sometimes drew blood
From your caring fingers
You worked hard to carefully uproot me
Gently untangling my twisted roots
And replanting me in my own space
Where I could grow
To be the beautiful rose
You knew I was always meant to be
You nurtured me patiently
Bringing light into my life
And watering me with my own tears
Until I was no longer afraid
To reach for the sun myself
And to show the world
What a beautiful rose
I now know I am

The Fourth Wife
by Edward Fiorelli

To look at Uncle Enzo you'd be hard pressed to believe that this short mild-mannered fellow who liked to make pasta sauce in the middle of the night dressed only in his underwear had already killed three wives. That's what some family members believed.

Kith and kin were sympathetic enough at the first wife's demise, fittingly surprised and shocked with the passing of the second. But they grew suspicious and gossipy after the third so obligingly croaked, leaving Enzo the sole beneficiary of her estate: a run-down house by the lake and a secret recipe for shredded sweetbreads. The police, for their part, were convinced that Aunts Carmella and Philomena had shuffled off in ways that allayed suspicion.

Carmella, Number 1, had slipped in the bathtub and smashed her skull—the coroner reported no water in her lungs and noted that the skull was correctly crushed according to the physical laws of gravity regarding immovable objects like the hot and cold faucets; observing also that the science of forensics offered indubitable proof that the skull and faucets were a perfect match.

She had been his wife for a mere 67 days.

As for Philomena, she was run over by a grocery truck driven by an illegal alien from Korea who spoke no English and whined hysterically at the thought that his cargo of tofu, bean curd and bok choi would spoil, bringing disgrace upon him, along with the wrath of Wong Fu, his esteemed employer.

She left Enzo a bereaved widower after only 105 days, thirteen hours.

Number 3, even by the reckoning of the police, was an unusual case. Sadie perished at the circus when Flying Buster Snood miscalculated his trajectory and came aground, cannonball and all, squarely atop of her.

She and Enzo were on their honeymoon.

A select and influential segment of the family insisted privately that Uncle Enzo, if not a murderer, was certainly unlucky in his choice of partners. Such bad luck made him partly responsible; he should have known better, they said, after the second try at matrimony...

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Planned Disappearances
by Nikki Moustaki

Tonight Mars resurfaced, as if it was ever gone—
tonight I had my glasses on. I've missed
bigger planets than that.
I bought cream today that wanted to be butter;
I ran out of soap. Killed a sow. You can make butter from blood.
Lamentations: 4:3 "The daughter of my people
  is become cruel, like the ostriches
in the wilderness." And why not? If the bed
 ain't made for three,
stretch it. If the bed don't fit seven, make room on the floor.
Complaints will be tried with soap and blood. Wash thyself and thy city.
You're a filthy ostrich. Lamentations: 4:5:
    "Those who ate dainties are deserted
in the streets"; may we all rejoice under Mars
 'cause he's back and written
a book. He's been photographed all over town.
(There's ham in the fridge if you're hungry)
Soon he'll be gone, fifty-three years. That's how the sky works:
everyone gets a turn. It's what's so great about the cosmos.
What did Jesus think, and did he have time, between making birds
from tough Israeli clay and more-trout from some-trout to notice
Mars and his planned disappearances?
Typically insensitive of planet like that.
Perhaps: The red star is wandering again.
Lamentation: 3:15: "He has filled me
with bitterness"; boil blood, fill intestines, salt, gristle, sand, teeth.
Coagulation is like opening the camera's shutter to the sky,
time etches itself on the lens. We have records
of your movements. When Mars screams, pretend
you can't hear it. There's six folks in my bed, a pig's head,
and everyone's greasy with duck liver and eggs.
We're a sick little family, naked, rolling on crackers in our bed;
give unto us ham hocks in jelly, sour green peppers in Cajun sauce,
okra and tomatoes, let us be anointed with the fattest
green dollar bills, Crisco brand shortening, the
 light of living stars and cheap,
sweet port wine, for we have asked for nothing
 and received much, for we have lain
together with blood and garbage, under Mars,
 who is just a red speck
you can wipe away like sneeze on a windshield.

Seeing the Oncologist
by Charles Coté

See us at breakfast in the cancer
center café, the stained cups
and plates, wet grinds, salt grains,
and bread crumbs on the butter knife.
Antiseptic kills the smell of instant
oatmeal and Sweet'N
Low doesn't help the taste. Rotten jobs
assigned the meek, a young man
wipes up our mess with rubber gloves,
a pink sponge and Clorox, astringent,
like when we learn our boy's lymph node
has malignant cells. The doctor gives
a ten percent chance. Too shocked
to weep and weak, our faith
mutating into failure, we leave,
take our son on the way out
a cup of green tea.

Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung wrote often about an individual's need to integrate opposites within our psyche in order to become whole human beings. To recognize there are parts of us that are strong and parts that are weak, parts that are feminine and parts that are masculine, parts that may love those nearest to us and parts that do not.

The Tree of Life as described in mystical Judaism is a helpful depiction of the opposites within ourselves and even, perhaps, within God and the nature of creation itself.

Of course, the Tree of Life concept is not found only in Judaism but also in Christianity; Chinese and Egyptian mythology; science, music and art; and many other religious traditions.

Within kabbalah or Jewish mysticism, however, the tree of life is used to understand the nature of God and creation. It consists of ten interconnected nodes, called sefirot. Sefirah is the Hebrew word for number. These ten sefirot can be called portals to God, or traits of God. They include Chesed, which means LovingKindness, flowing, and its quote unquote opposite, Gevurah, which means Restraint or limits. If these two sefirot are not in balance, a person's—and even the world's—spiritual/mental/emotional/physical lives may be imbalanced as well.

There are other opposing pairs of sefirot on the Tree: Chochma and Binah, father or wisdom and mother or understanding. Hod, surrender, and Netzach, victory.

Tiferet is in the central column and has no opposing sefirot. It represents the reconciliation of opposites...the place where the physical and spiritual realms merge. It is associated with the heart, truth, and beauty...

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Our task is to say a holy yes
to the real things of our life as they exist.
—Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones