Poetry
Julie Schillinger

American Gothic In a small town newspaper this week a picture of a newlywed couple posing in their wedding clothes before a tall stand of corn. I wonder if they realize the humorous statement of fertility or just the groom's father's field he'll inherit some day. The article says he will work on the family farm, the bride a cashier at Buehler's Market. But, in 10 years they will have 3 children, live in a trailer on the farm, she becoming bovine, vacuuming the wall-to-wall, reading only the TV Guide. Mickey From the back of the house the view of the lake opens up, bare trees and snow terrace down to its banks. On the far side I see the men in their wet suits, one stands alone on shore the other's head bobbing before he descends to cold water. Ice floats in the hole that has opened. Too far away to hear words, I watch gestures and know they have found what they came for. His small frame lifted from the depths, still pink and peaceful, wearing the skates -- a present they gave him for Christmas.

Julie is a librarian assistant in a R&D library of a chemical company in northeast Ohio. Her poems have been published in Agnieszka's Dowry, Gravity: A Journal of Online Writing, The Hold, Moondance, Highbeams, Mindfire, Thought, )ism(, Pulse, and in print at Moongate de Homo Sentiens, Imps in the Inkwell, and the anthology Silhouettes In the Electric Sky, published by Newton's Baby. Julie writes poems on company time.

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