by Mary Beth Hines

They flee, half-obliterated
faces frozen flat to paper.

Behind them, a river careens.
Mountains slice sky lit by a siege

of flailing stars, scissored strips
of cloud, no cover.

They might be anyone, these haggard
travelers, a people marked, caught,

carved by a master, his plywood
blocks, inked, pressed, reproducible,

expulsion destined to occur
over and over though never

the same way twice—undulant wood grain,
colors, frenzy of dash, strength,

and the eyes, the myriad eyes
staring straight at you from the depths

of the dead page, waiting, waiting
for you to tire, to turn away.

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Mary Beth Hines lives and writes from her home in Massachusetts. Her work appears in Cider Press Review, SWWIM Every Day, Tar River Poetry, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and elsewhere. Kelsay Books published her debut collection, Winter at a Summer House, in 2021. See marybethhines.com.

by Mary Beth Hines

Mother savored the mock
mayo, slathered it
on Wonder Bread with a leaf
of iceberg lettuce
amidst a hail
of salt and pepper.

She shredded cabbage
and drowned the tendrils,
mixed it with relish
to home-make tartar,
bought it by the jug
yet she never had enough.

I learned to crave the zing
when it first
hits your tongue—a bit
like a lemon
but without
the bitter after.

I would eat spoonfuls
after a bad day at school—
satin slipping
silver through
my angsty
teenage body.

And I understood,
without words for it,
how addictions start
with yearn then bargain
for that rush
of soothe and hearten.

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Mary Beth Hines’s debut poetry collection, Winter at a Summer House, was published by Kelsay Books in November 2021. Her poetry, short fiction, and nonfiction appear or will soon appear in Aji Magazine, Crab Orchard Review, Feral, Tar River, The MacGuffin, Valparaiso, SWWIM Every Day, and elsewhere. Visit her at www.marybethhines.com.

by Mary Beth Hines

You disappear up pull-down stairs
into cluttered gloom to search
for our mothballed cache of Halloween.

I pace below, wait for you to tender
taped up boxes, bins, bags bulging
with who knows what imagined treasures.

Nothing’s marked. For years we’ve stashed
kids’ report cards, trophies, dolls,
my mother’s hats, your great-grand’s swords.

One-by-one, you push, I pull, as our hunt-
and-retrieve job blossoms into cleanout.
We’ll tackle it now while we’re still able.

On our front steps I tear a carton open—
a jumble of frayed toe shoes, tutus, ribbons.
From inside the bin’s dank innards, silverfish

rush and reel in cold light, dart beneath
the porch, gone before I smash them, but more
come flash dashing from a bag of magazines.

Their teardrop bodies skitter, stippled pearl,
tick-tap to vanish, while we shake discarded
exoskeletons out from ancient book leaves.

Finally you find our Dollar Tree straw-strapped
scarecrows, witches, ghosts —all wrecked
but for a plastic pumpkin and one skeleton mask.

Side-by-side, on the steps, we decide we’ll toss
it all except for the one bin of fairy tales
we’d sealed up tight, the pumpkin, and the skull.

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Mary Beth Hines’s poetry and short fiction and non-fiction appear, or will soon appear, in journals such as Brilliant Flash Fiction, Crab Orchard Review, Gyroscope Review, Halfway Down the Stairs, Literary Mama, Naugatuck River Review, and Rockvale Review among many others. Following a long career as a project manager, she writes from her home in Massachusetts and is working on her first poetry collection.