By Alice Owen Duggan
Featured Art: “Listening to Todd Moe’s Story of Mark Rothko’s Grandson Getting Lost In his Back Woods” By Nicholas Skaldetvind

A streak of titanium white jumped from one canvas
to the other, like a supporting beam of light.
An astonishment, even to me, the artist,

the first time I saw them hung together. He thought
he should have them both, being so cool in his cowboy hat,
flashing his cash. Of course I wanted to sell my paintings,

but not those two, with their newly discovered bond.
Not to him. Fear took over, raced through my life,
as I scrambled to keep him from taking my—what?

I’ll carry these paintings out to the barn, bury them deep
in the straw. Is it dangerous or endangered, what I have
here? What will I do—me with no barn, no straw

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Alice Owen Duggan’s poems have appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Poetry East, WaterStone Review, and elsewhere. Her chapbook is A Brittle Thing, (Green Fuse Poetic Arts). She has poems in the anthologies: The Heart of All That Is; Resist Much Obey Little; and Rocked by the Waters.