Welcome to the Mother’s Day issue of the Dragonfly Press Ezine! This month, we have:
“Visitation” by Kelly Cressio-Moeller (Poem)
“Forever 21    summer, 2012” by Dixie Salazar (Poem)

Visitation

I walked along a paved road
high above the Pacific, and two

nimble deer appeared beside me on the hill.
I stopped to look at them.

They stopped to look at me.
And when they moved, their hooves

tapped a familiar code
only I could decipher.

And I imagined
those deer were my parents,

checking in to say, Your life
is not invisible to us.

And the love we always had
for you, continues –

Even now, as we nibble on low hanging branches.
Even now, as we climb higher up the hill.

Even now, as we turn our heads away –
leaving, once again.

Kelly Cressio-Moeller’s poetry is forthcoming in burntdistrict, Gargoyle, and Iodine Poetry Journal. Previously her work can be found in Crab Orchard Review, Poet Lore, Rattle, Spillway, THRUSH Poetry Journal, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and ZYZZYVA among others as well as the anthology First Water: Best of Pirene’s Fountain and Diane Lockward’s book, The Crafty Poet. In between visits from the Muse, Kelly enjoys art history, painting, music, gardening, and a weakness for fountain pens & ink. She shares her fully-caffeinated life with her tall husband, two ever-growing sons, and their immortal basset hound in Northern California.

Please visit Kelly’s website for more information.

Forever 21     summer, 2012

We’ve tramped three floors of
leggings and cheap imported synthetics,
her heart set on goth chic, cliché love
songs following us from athletic
tutus to sequined Dora Explorer socks.

Hands stuffed in pockets to keep
from parting the curtain of hair
hiding her eyes, I swallow disapproval, bleep
my own lectures: slave wages and unfair
child labor practices in Taiwan–she’s unaware.

For suicide jeans and black fishnet
she washed the car, pulled weeds half
heartedly, the half that wanted to get
stuff trumping the sleepy, perpetual-texting self
curled on the sofa, “lovely lady lumps” newly born

under her Little Mermaid t-shirt, she’s fallen
asleep, lost in pre teen acquisition
dreams, lipstick smearing the sweet, sullen
lips, pouched as if blowing kisses
to a child in the distance, blowing them back.

Dixie Salazar has published five books of poetry: Hotel Fresno by Blue Moon Press in 1988, Reincarnation of the Commonplace, (national poetry award winner) by Salmon Run Press in 1999, Blood Mysteries by University of Arizona in 2003 and Flamenco Hips And Red Mud Feet also by University of Arizona in 2010. Limbo, her novel, was published by White Pine Press in 1995. Her newest collection, Altar For Escaped Voices, was published by Tebot Bach in February of 2013. A young adult novel, Carmen And Chia Mix Magic, was published by Black Opal Books in 2014. Dixie is also a visual artist working mostly in oils with an extensive showing record in the Central Valley of California, Merced, Sacramento, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Nevada and New York.

She has also taught extensively in the California prisons and the Fresno County jail. Currently, she is involved as a homeless advocate and shows her art at the Silva/ Salazar studios at 654 Van Ness in Fresno, California. website: dixiesalazar.com