Poetry of Issue #4                        Page 33
Table of Contents	Listen to the Codex Did she ever use that word? You couldn’t hear the – and her sister. Her brother died – answer, or the word, but the tone was forceful. And her sister. The Mayan god kept a record. How did he decide the code? Each family’s land and crops. Was it her sister who jumped off the highway 15 and 10 crossover bridge? In Ontario at rush hour? The freeway blended from cinnamon clouds to an icy wing. She could fly to the grid. By marking an X inside each rectangle. Dashes next to the rectangle indicated adult family members. The air felt like piercing rain. Was it because her brother died? Is there a word for these emotions? Dots showed the children. Ice held her close. Have you used it? Sirens and helicopters non-stop. Propellers over your studio sounded like they would come into the vibrating room. Too cloudy and humid for a fire. With his shield and arrows he protected the land of maize. The roadway paper. Until the foreigners came in rough deception and tore his people. You couldn’t hear the answer. He kept a record. Life ended before the fates cut the thread. The rare blue pigment he used on the last page of the codex hidden in a cave survived. A forceful tone. Cindy Rinne __	Pink Claws and Red Thread        After “Strength” by Sabro Foster    Your hands grasped rusted    Bars inside the belly    Of a crow    Time    Stolen or halted    Buried in thirst    Faceless inner    Prison    Locked up    You had felt safe    Now tried to escape    And fixated    On the confusion of crow –    Shape shifter pink claws    And red thread    In beak    Controlled the golden    Key    You don’t    Know if it’s the right one         Cindy Rinne__	THE GIFT Atonement The red Madonna   washed Her journal and retrieved   the   page About her grandfather's death.    Ink bled. Clouds formed towers  Over    the columns on grandfather's grave.  Now his remains settled and    made Light for this    cemetery. Sorry, I've been  busy the last    couple of days, she said.  Placed roses    carnations across     His gravestone. The red Madonna met up with the self-healing  Robot. His cells   sparked   like city lights  On cement sun    mist   edge.  The robot had numbers    to atone    for a name.  He stored digital artifacts    and held    Her family secrets    inside his copper   cage. The red Madonna    struck A triangle. Chink.    Bang.   Ting.  Metallic    vibrations healed  the robot's    Weak   heart. A red light beamed on his     Welded hand   warning her not    to touch  The Jeffrey Pine her grandfather used  To climb. Scrape.   Swish.    Shush. He never    Broke    his bones. Did not need    a rod  In his arm of bruised and yellowstained   skin.         Cindy Rinne__