“Try Some Tenderness 2” © Edward Michael Supranowicz

 

Personals-

39 y.o. wife of workaholic with three kids
residing on hard-to-find-road in Pennsylvania
seeks daytime boyfriend for light weeding
and heavy petting. Must speak in compliments
and be able to churn up the type of heat with hips
that emperor penguins share in their arctic huddle.
About me: born upside down dangling from knee pits on a fruit-bearing tree,
fell into a life of driving kids to piano lessons and waiting for husband
          to come home.
Holding out for big break as a hand-balancer, but can’t perform evenings
          (reading stories)
open also to sudden death by rogue wave on spring break
to be reborn as a home for a hermit crab, Scorpio, left-handed,
with the flat-chested intensity of an ex-ballerina
who can fashion French toast for her kids from a lonely hot dog bun.
Come over now, say for example, Gotcha.
Pierce me to a museum placard like a rare dragonfly,
jump and catch me like the string of a balloon drifting away,
put sandbags on my limbs, crush me, spoon me into submission,
tether me to the world until I feel remembered,
wife, mother, woman—pluck away the spiny artichoke leaves,
exhume me, get to the soft urchin-heart, warm and quaking,

 

Cassie Burkhardt: “I’m a forty-year-old mom with three kids, occasional aerialist, pretzel-yoga enthusiast, German-speaking, NYU-grad Scorpio lefty who needs help with can openers but not anything else because women are not supposed to ask for help, right?”

Edward Michael Supranowicz is the grandson of Irish and Russian/Ukrainian immigrants. He grew up on a small farm in Appalachia. He has a grad background in painting and printmaking. Some of his artwork has recently or will soon appear in Fish Food, Streetlight, Another Chicago Magazine, The Door Is A Jar, The Phoenix, and The Harvard Advocate. Edward is also a published poet who has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize multiple times.