By Joe Woodward

Featured art: Soul Released From Captivity by Chloe McLaughlin

I had an aunt
From Apalachicola
Who retired from
The Kash n’ Karry

Her feet hurt and
Something about
Varicose veins
After that she just
Sang Jesus hymns

In the church choir
And worried about
Those fall storms
Coming up in the gulf

She believed in pairs
Of black cat glasses
Her hair curled
In half dollars

And particularly
The 4^th of July
When she told me
Once while we ate
Our fried chicken

Don’t write your
Whole life story
At the top of
The Ferris wheel

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Joe Woodward is the author of ALIVE INSIDE THE WRECK: A Biography of Nathanael West (O/R Books, New York). A two-time winner of a Los Angeles Press Club Award, his work has appeared or is forthcoming in Brick, Columbia Poetry Review, The Greensboro Review, Passages North, Notre Dame Review, Southern Indiana Review and elsewhere. He received his MFA from Brooklyn College, CUNY and currently lives in Claremont, California and at www.joewoodward.net.