July 2016
I grew up in Pennsylvania, just south of the Appalachian mountains. Our family often visited our Irish coal mining relatives in Schuylkill County. I earned an M.S. in Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Wisconsin, and have remained in the Midwest ever since. I currently teach high school African and Asian Cultural Studies, and am an advisor to breakdancers and poets. I’m also involved with the Sheboygan chapter of 100,000 Poets for Change. A Pushcart Prize nominee, my poems have appeared Midwest Prairie Review, The Journal of Creative Geography, Gyroscope Review,and elsewhere. I just published a chapbook, Staring Through My Eyes, with Finishing Line Press.
Woman…Man…Fish...Bicycle
Perfectly round ova
nested within
were formed along with the rest of the body
in the shelter of a mother’s space
from her own singular orb
round eggs round the chain of
life it clicks along
propels a forward tide
while men burrow down in furrows of
clone technologies make their
swimming cells redundant
whiplash tails
accidents of evolution
all come down to our bodies
our brains
and our inventions
like this red and gleaming two-wheeled frame
perfect fit between two legs
propulsion honed to hip and knee
press of foot and ankle flex
thumb and bell cry
we are coming
we are coming
self-satisfied we
cruise a moist planet
her many trails
-Published by Woodland Pattern Book Center National Poetry Month Blog
Magnetosphere or Pole Cat
My feline traverses the cosmic whisk
whose paleo secrets are captured
in deep subterranean stone
garnet bones of the earth
by scientists with their instruments
magnetic song resonates like notes
plucked from parallel musical strings
to orient my cat
a billowing skyward harmony
pinched from discordant poles
she flies like a carnival streamer
caught in a solar wind
down alleyways and streets
beyond unknown buildings
a charged particle
she blows across meadows
in the golden glow of dusk
voice of the magnetic field
is lost to me
my lovely lonely hours
adrift in a colossal world
-Published in Gyroscope Review
©2016 Sylvia Cavanaugh
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