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Gone Lawn 56
sturgeon moon, 2024

Featured artwork, Untitled, by Abbie Doll

new works

Mary Ellen Talley


Tether Ball in Ice
after In the Woods by Bouguereau

We live a dull life in this matte forest. Navy blue broadcloth skirts above bare feet. We collect mushrooms for the perimeter of a fairy garden, write rhymes on tree bark, shoot marbles on a swept path, gather twigs for a fire, wade in shallow water while bread bakes, our charmed life on the broad canvas uneventful when viewed in passing. Museum-goers’ bits of stray gossip, useless to our timeless ears. We follow diversions, a deer to a field where we catch sight of and then touch something large and clear and cold. It reminds us of the hard lake we slid across one winter under light of a full moon. Would any other painting of this gallery stay as cold? We used to wear shoes and slide across that thing our parents called ice. This box in the sunlit field is size of a privy, hard as wood, with no sound when we knock. It drips. There is a tall pole in the center, with a hanging rope attached on top. At the bottom of the rope, there’s a round rock attached. We have heard our parents talk of tossing tether balls and winning, losing, fists slamming the ball to fly, still attached, full around the pole, spiraling shorter until it stops. Such a long wait for freedom as wildflowers grow around the dripping spot. We run to ask our parents how to plant the pole when it is free of ice. They say to bring and bouquet the nearest flowers, then sink the pole and abut it with rocks. Toss the ball gently for a season, until the anchor is secure. Come summer, we wildly side-arm our swing back to fling the ball forward. One of us bats the stone ball in return. Deer stop to watch our jousting as sweat drips down our white chemises both in moonglow and sunlight.



Why There Is No (Clown) Moon

You nod your head in slow time. This clown moon should be the epitome of humor. I will not test your resiliency, set you out in the dense fog, now changing to rain, to see how raindrops funnel down the brim of you lenticular hat, sad eyes, shadow torso. We all know when saints and sinners blow their horns the poets march in yelping as their inner dog and cat peer out of neighborhood windows licking condensation off wet windows. The sad clown is always overcast at night, fishes for bottom fish at midnight with a strong muskellunge rod. If you are not prone to laughter, this weather could signal your disaster. Does an old tune still trumpet inside you? Why is there no fresh bait in your pocket?



Mary Ellen Talley’s poems have appeared in journals such as Banshee, Gyroscope and Ekphrastic Review as well as in anthologies such as Moon Water and Sing the Salmon Home. Her poems have received three Pushcart nominations. A chapbook, “Postcards from the Lilac City” was published by Finishing Line Press in 2020 and “Taking Leave” by Kelsay Press in 2024. Visit her website: maryellentalley.com.