First Edition features new original works by Northern California Jewish writers. Appearing the first issue of each month, it includes a poem and an excerpt from a novel or short story.
After seven days
Stalking verbs, phrases
Nouns and similes
Like a tourist on safari
She arrives home to the tribe
Dried out plants
The cat’s bowl, empty
She hauls laundry,
Garbage, take out containers
Combats strange smells.
After a week of breathing
Mountain misery a sense
Of home in the wide open
She faces closed up rooms
Windows locked
And a certain gym sock
Aroma permeating the bedroom.
Did Odysseus suffer so?
It tries her sense of humor
As she cleans up the mess,
But after scrubbing the refrigerator,
Tossing moldy food
She loses her cool
When finally
She misses her mother
Who taught her how
To run a tight ship,
Taught her how to row.
— from “The Long Blue Room” (Benicia Literary Arts, 2014)
Joan Gelfand of San Francisco is the author of three poetry collections and an award-winning chapbook of short fiction. Her poetry movie, “The Ferlinghetti School of Poetics,” will be released in the fall. www.joangelfand.com