Poetry – Issue 3 | February 2009
The Fortress
by RL Swihart
They were happy in Lübeck. They crossed out every fifth day and repeated the others twice. Instead of an onion he’d peel an orange and she’d sit and listen. Instead of a fish she’d hold up an eel or boletus and they’d end by making love.
She’d gather and wash the stones then he’d etch the Tor or lions into the stones’ flat faces and place them in the window for sale. The stones piled up, eyes shined and hands fumbled, but the door never opened.
Orange, eel, boletus. Stones piling up. Within a year—by whose measure—even sunlight failed to find an entrance. Mortar was the last step before they disappeared.
About the author
R L Swihart lives in Long Beach, California, and teaches high school mathematics in Los Angeles. His work has been published online at The Avatar Review, Blue Fifth Review, The Cafe Review, and Mimesis. He’s married to a wonderful Polish girl, and his favorite travel destination is Italy.
Read our current issue, Issue 3 | February 2009:
Poetry
Berlin by Sy Margaret Baldwin
Two Poems by Sean Edgley
After Your Funeral I Set Out to Find You in Different Time Zones by Jennifer Faylor
Painter by Ricky Garni
Other Than by Dana Guthrie Martin
Two poems by Timothy Kercher
Five Views of Guanajuato: A Mythology by Athena Kildegaard
Two poems by Mary Kovaleski Byrnes
Goya by Trent Nutting
The Changing of the Flowers by Jennifer Saunders
Two poems by Ken Turner
Postcard prose
Buttons by Jennifer Faylor
The Enemy Tree by Kirby Wright
Escape on the Canal by Addie Zierman
