Al-Khemia Poetica: A Women's Arts and Writing Journal

  Mazurka This ragged broom has been sweeping Hell for too long, its straw singed from cinders hidden in ash. When I try to whisk my bedroom...

The Woman Who Won’t Take a Lover The afternoon slowly trickles between her spread fingers, over her forehead, into her closed eyes. She lets...

  The Backward Glance I look back at myself climbing the nine mile Bright Angel trail out of the Grand Canyon: Halfway, she runs out of wate...

  Guidelines for Confusion The warnings at the edge of time’s cliff fly like arrows—whoosh whoosh— pierce heats still searching for purpose....

  By the river, hanging my camera on the plank of an Adirondack chair. Wading in the cold flow–shallow, bed of smooth rocks, slippery and ha...

  Scrapbook She sees sunlight, so quiet she can almost hear the dust. Heat wears away the edges, in life, in photographs. These memories are...

Tangelo Winter There are still tangelos on the tree, at this late date in February. Some soft large ones have fallen on the ground; some tha...