Poets in this issue:

May the First The mud dauber builds on the windowsill. Kenis, the watefhead, looks for cans along the tracks, clapping his hands at the pretty things. He is a puppet head, doddling and grinning, a happy head. It is a day to turn bicycles upside down, hoist the Chevy from the crooked beech, lean on bumpers and spit; to curse and impart wisdom on dogs and women; for girls in denim to hang rugs across the fence, tie sneakers to the clothesline and toss their braids in the yellow sun. Cecil will come—and for a box of cheese I will go down to his house where the creek runs past the rooster pen, where the flood got over Burl's bottom and the thing's still in court. We will take down stovepipes, catch the soot in a Carnation cream box We will lug the big Warm Morning, warm still from winter's ashes, to the old woodshed— grunting and laughing into the windy grass. —Gayle Compton Poets in this issue: Lisa J. Slayton, a West Virginia native, is a park ranger in Alaska . . . Gayle Compton (Pike County, Kentucky) has published in various literary magazines . . . Thomas D. Burkett (Herndon, Virginia) has appeared previously in Appalachian Heritage . . . Paul R. Drake (Charleston, West Virginia ) is a graduate of West Virginia Wesleyan College. 16 ...