So sorry to lose our beloved, vibrant
contributor and friend,
Rochelle Ratner
1948 - 2008

Read Rochelle Ratner's contributions:
Issue 3 & Issue 7

Dress Rehearsal

I love you like wood and you laugh
with high birds I can't see.
White flat ducks wake the morning to leaves
that have slanted from night.

Talk . . . talk . . . I hear noises--
It's only the fish that are flying now,
bodies and words.

Borrowed sunlight is crossing our sleep
like a child in the woods.
It's cold and then warm in the haloes,
the dark strung together like travel.

Time was geology then.
It was summer. We always had friends.

--Rochelle Ratner

fr. A Birthday of Waters
[New York: New Rivers Press, 1971]