Somewhere I’ll Find You

By Phebe Hanson ● 2008

So we moved from my small town in western Minnesota to St. Paul where I had to go to Murray High, a school with more people than in the entire town of Sacred Heart...

Art by Patricia Bour-Schilla

The Fruit Of Summer

By Jan Zita Grover ● 2008

My nails have been black for over a week now. This is the price I pay for picking mulberries, whose juice has a staining power the military might want to look into. Under the guilty tree, a (doomed) white car has been parked for the past nine days, and I know from experience that its hood will never be pure white again: pale pink blooms will adorn its surface, souvenirs of its time beneath that tree.

Trust

By Kevin FitzPatrick ● 2008

"You'll get a ticket parked that way," I called. A slim black woman in cleaning clothes that workers wear at Regions Hospital had parked her rusty car along the curb, but pointed south, the wrong way on that street.

Lament

2008

It's clear I've missed a few stellar odes on my way to do the laundry—cracks in the canon, Li Po and Heaney's gold.

Notes on the Winter Carnival Medallion Hunt

By Brad Yaritz ● 2008

Just about the time our Vikings' season is over, all of the grass is covered by snow. The mornings of scraping the ice off your windshield have become repetitive. It's getting to the coldest time of the year. Thanks to the great City of Saint Paul, there's a week of celebration in the snow. Parents and their families come out of their homes. It's like a Minnesota version of a hibernation break. After months of being indoors, the Saint Paul Winter Carnival and the great treasure hunt are finally here!

Poem: Landscape

2008

I drive across the High Bridge with Saint Paul sprawling before me, built on hills like Rome itself.

Poem: Riding the 16

2008

Forty-five minutes in the 2000s Is enough time to write A small book of poems But they never seem to come Until you're furthest away from a pen.