The Cambridge Writers’ Workshop is proud to announce that Megan Tilley’s poem, “Puddle,” is featured in the new issue of Quail Bell Magazine.  Megan Tilley, one of the one of the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop’s interns has been instrumental in planning the CWW’s upcoming Pre-Thanksgiving Yoga, Writing, and Juice Cleanse Retreat in Quail Bell Magazine (November 22-23). In the interview, the CWW shares tips on creating a creative discipline of writing, yoga, and self-care.  If you are interested in the CWW’s Pre-Thanksgiving Yoga, Writing, and Juice Cleanse Retreat, there is a limited time reduced registration fee. It will only last until Thursday, November 20th at 11 p.m., so apply now! – Jessica Reidy

Puddle
by Megan Tilley

I.
The bodies around me dream of poppies, draped half-lidded across scratchy couches. Science fiction is all that plays on the television, and I watch tin can space crafts drift in and out of stars, fingers of both hands on two different pulses to make sure there’s still life in their veins. I can feel the wet thumping through the pad of my thumb as space flashes by me and I wonder if this is how god feels.

II.
When the azaleas are in bloom we go walking among the fires of their blooms, grass soft underfoot. Golden bourbon sings in our veins, softening in the shadows and the sunlight that shines through lazy-branched oaks. There are notches in the park from the great war, where men hung like the wind chimes on my grandmother’s porch. She drinks sweet tea like it was water from Jordan, says words so gentle they melt in your mouth like rose hips.

III.
Summer closes. The trees bear heavy fruits, skin smooth under grasping palms. He takes a bite, juice running along his jaw, autumn sweet. We dangle our feet over rock edges, where fish dappled orange and yellow gape pink mouths wide. He says how sad it is that they their pond is all they know. I look to the north, at a horizon unsmudged by mountains, at the trees still summer-bleached forming a cup of its own, a puddle shimmering in unending sun where we swim day after day, pretending it’s the ocean.