WAR II
by Richard Brostoff
Your single eye
never closes;
nor your mouth
of gray spume.
Twilight, vortex,
your serpentine
tail whips
the sea light
to black shades
in the water.
In the spittle
of your throat,
wolfed down
when they appear,
bent driftwood
floats
like a toddler’s
severed leg,
a bit of seaweed
like a woman’s
hair,
a broken starfish:
someone’s hand
reaching up.
_____________________________________________________
Richard Brostoff is the author of two chapbooks: A Few
Forms of Love, published by Finishing Line Press in 2012,
and Momentum, published by La Vita Poetica in 2007. His
work has appeared or is forthcoming in Rattle, Cincinnati
Review, North American Review, Poetry East, Madison
Review, Folio, Alabama Literary Review, Texas Review,
Atlanta Review, Gulf Stream, Confrontation, South
Dakota Review, Cumberland River Review, Wisconsin
Review, Red Wheelbarrow, The Moth, The Louisville
Review, Southeast Review, and other journals. Brostoff
won the grand prize at the AEI International Poetry Festival,
the editor’s choice for the Robert Penn Warren Award, and
was a finalist for the Iowa Review Poetry Contest and the
Gival Book Award. In addition to writing, he has performed
new dance and contact improvisation in New York City and
throughout New England.
◄ Previous page Apple Valley Review, Fall 2019 Next page ►
Your single eye
never closes;
nor your mouth
of gray spume.
Twilight, vortex,
your serpentine
tail whips
the sea light
to black shades
in the water.
In the spittle
of your throat,
wolfed down
when they appear,
bent driftwood
floats
like a toddler’s
severed leg,
a bit of seaweed
like a woman’s
hair,
a broken starfish:
someone’s hand
reaching up.
_____________________________________________________
Richard Brostoff is the author of two chapbooks: A Few
Forms of Love, published by Finishing Line Press in 2012,
and Momentum, published by La Vita Poetica in 2007. His
work has appeared or is forthcoming in Rattle, Cincinnati
Review, North American Review, Poetry East, Madison
Review, Folio, Alabama Literary Review, Texas Review,
Atlanta Review, Gulf Stream, Confrontation, South
Dakota Review, Cumberland River Review, Wisconsin
Review, Red Wheelbarrow, The Moth, The Louisville
Review, Southeast Review, and other journals. Brostoff
won the grand prize at the AEI International Poetry Festival,
the editor’s choice for the Robert Penn Warren Award, and
was a finalist for the Iowa Review Poetry Contest and the
Gival Book Award. In addition to writing, he has performed
new dance and contact improvisation in New York City and
throughout New England.
◄ Previous page Apple Valley Review, Fall 2019 Next page ►
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Apple Valley Review:
A Journal of Contemporary
Literature
ISSN 1931-3888
Volume 14, Number 2
(Fall 2019)
Copyright © 2019
by Leah Browning, Editor.
All future rights to material
published in the Apple
Valley Review are retained
by the individual authors
and artists.
www.applevalleyreview.com
A Journal of Contemporary
Literature
ISSN 1931-3888
Volume 14, Number 2
(Fall 2019)
Copyright © 2019
by Leah Browning, Editor.
All future rights to material
published in the Apple
Valley Review are retained
by the individual authors
and artists.
www.applevalleyreview.com
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