Contributor: Sarah Henry

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The Army doesn’t want
the short, weak men,
the kind who gun
their motors
to impress the girls.
They fall by the wayside
at a recruiting station.
Tiger Woods had his
eyes fixed with Lasik’s
so he’s dismissed.
Facial tattoos and body
jewelry don’t rate.
The blind, paralyzed,
unhearing, alcoholic,
and those with one foot
toeing in aren’t admitted,
along with twits, jerks,
creeps and traitors,
the abnormal cases.

A normal person is rare
as normal weather,
which happens every
twenty years. Uncle
Sam doesn’t want
a woman like me.
I wrestle with billing
while bringing
up the rear. Uniforms
and camouflage aren’t
the right gear
for a workplace princess.
I fight the office wars.


- - -
Sarah Henry has published in Turtle Island Quarterly, Red Eft Review, Defenestration and journals abroad. She lives and writes without distractions in a small Pennsylvania town.

Contributor: Sarah Henry

- -
St. Helena’s Island
is a good place for him.
The oldest turtle
in the world lives
well in captivity.

Jonathan jerks along
the ground, heavily
approaching lunch.
He’s big as a garbage
can and fun to watch.

He lumbers mightily
to a pile of fruit
and bites a slice.
The turtle made it
this far from 1835.

Tourists get a wide
view of him on film
and grin. The oldest
turtle in the world
has celebrity.

The island is a zoo
for one. The turtle
lives long in captivity.
He’s older than
some countries
and making history.


- - -
Sarah Henry is a vegetarian. She has written work about animal rights.

Contributor: Sarah Henry

- -
My computer tutor
brings up
the scientific calculator
on his screen.
For the rest of the lesson,
I wonder why
he doesn’t have
a different job,
why we are always
alone on the top
floor of his quiet,
empty house at night.
There are no clocks
on the walls.
The blinds are pulled.
He says he’s retiring
so he can invent things
he can’t explain
and I’ll have to find
a new tutor,
perhaps through
want ads or schools.
Places where
the light of day
shines.

My tutor may have
been an extrovert
once. He might
laugh at desert
island cartoons
on the internet.
They wash
to his online shore.


- - -
Sarah Henry studied with two U.S. poet laureates at the University of Virginia. Today she lives near Pittsburgh, where her poetry has appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Pittsburgh Poetry Review. Sarah's work was also included in Leaves of Ink, Soundings East and The Hollins Critic, among many journals.

Contributor: Sarah Henry

- -
I remind him of a fossil.
I follow him around.
I follow him down the path
in the park which leads
to a playground.
I am imprinted like a baby
duck following its mother
in a straight line.

What has he done to
bring this on himself?
Every man knows
what he’s worth.

Leaves drop all around us.
They are thick with squirrels
and rotting hazelnuts.

A stone monument stands
at the entrance to the park.
It holds a time capsule
designed to be opened
in fifty years. I wonder
about the contents,
possibly sour, petrified,
or congealed.


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Sarah Henry lives near Pittsburgh, where she is retired from a newspaper. Her poetry has been published locally and farther afield.