by Diane Hueter

Cicadas sing—
thrum and wheeze
from the mulberry trees,
a row of knotted trunks hugging the fence
between pole beans and dandelion lawn,
the highest, greenest leaves dusty from weeks
of our passing back and forth on the gravel drive.

I stand on our unpainted, sagging porch,
holding the baby's cup and her dress,
clean and crisp as Chinese poppies
flaming in a summer portrait.

Cicadas begin their song again
as if they had stopped
when the screen door slammed,
stopped and breathed in,
their eyes like orange beads
and their wings like chaff.

They sing even within the walls
of my human chest, they sing
in the rooms of my eyes and lungs,
in the struggling chambers of my heart,
and the trembling of the blood in my wrists.

When I stand in the sweet humid air
holding a cup of water and a red dress,
I foresee their bodies’ husks
emptied, clinging to the trees,
shells of lace,
I wonder what it will be
for my fragile daughter and me
to shrug our dresses, our skin,
like linen from our shoulders,
confused or blessed by music of our own.

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Diane Hueter is a Seattle native now living in Lubbock,Texas—a place with very blue skies and very little rain. Her poetry has appeared in The Carolina Quarterly, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, and Iron Horse Review. Her book After the Tornado (2013) was published by Stephen F. Austin University Press. Diane attended the Community of Writers poetry workshop (a truly transformative experience) and her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

by Diane Hueter

We are sitting at opposite ends of our kitchen table—your right profile, my left—
to the wide picture window, when one morning Edward Hopper comes knocking—

rap rap rapping his knuckles on the plate of our dusty, bug-specked window. He squints
against the glare. Let me in! he mouths. I have my paints, my canvas, my easel!

Cupping his face in his hands, he leans against the glass like a snoopy salesman.
Do we hear his plea? I’m not sure. Is he remembering the time he painted us

in a Chinese restaurant in NYC? We were so pale then, not even yet married. Background,
untested, of limited interest. All that was visible of me was my mouth, my white nose,

a red beret covered my hair. You held a cigarette and bent over an ashtray or a teacup.
Smoking or drinking, I can’t recall. Your visage in shadow, your dark jacket muted, your neck and wrists

framed in white cotton. Does Edward Hopper see our insignificance, once again, as he steps back into
the sunlight? His brown felt hat flies into the pecan with a sudden cold and dusty updraft. The sun

blanketed by an incredible gathering of grackles. The beacon of our bright yellow tablecloth
fades. Our empty salad bowls float, become fishing boats returning to harbor. You say, Mr. Hopper,

Mr. Hopper, please come in. Like a dog licking peanut butter, I try to explain perspective,
the vanishing point, here, the lines in our cheeks, across our foreheads, an apt analogy.

______________________________________________________________________

Diane Hueter is a Seattle native now living in Lubbock, Texas—a place with very blue skies and very little rain. Her poetry has appeared in The Carolina Quarterly, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, and Iron Horse Review. Her book After the Tornado (2013) was published by Stephen F. Austin University Press. Diane attended the Community of Writers poetry workshop (a truly transformative experience) and her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

by Diane Hueter

I paint a bowl, mounded with limes,
leaves cast shadows on the tablecloth,
candles flicker, flames draw a moth,
then another, and one more, and in time

all memories gather, listening to the moon.
I paint a bowl, steaming with stew,
potatoes, meat—I would feed to you—
peas, carrots—morsels that justify the spoon.

A painting or a dream, a wall of clay
bending to the wind, my bowl. Twigs
fill it. Lemons and limes, currants and figs.
Feathers of fledglings before they fly away.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Diane Warner (publishing as Diane Hueter) works at the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library of Texas Tech University, where she is curator of a manuscript collection concentrating on contemporary writers of place. She received a BA and MA from the University of Kansas, an MLIS from UT-Austin, and a PhD in English from Texas Tech. Her poetry has appeared in Isotope, BlueLine, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, and PMS: Poem Memoir Story. Her book, After the Tornado, was published by Stephen F. Austin UP (2013).