"Love Poem"
by Phoebe Reeves

This poem appears in Issue 14 of Gertrude.

I never could
tell a joke
without spoiling
the punch line.

I'm not lean,
or full of muscled lines.
I'm not tough
though I have weathered

much, by stubbornness
more than strength.
I'm not smart,
no photographic memory,

no perfect pitch,
but I stay up late
thinking of this.
The truth is I'm

not sure of truth
not sure of anything except
you, not minding
what I'm not.

"The Behavioural Patterns of Damselflies"
by Christian Ward

This poem appears in Issue 14 of Gertrude.

They come in from the whispering rain
every time the door or window is opened:
dozens of them, sparks in the scratched dark,
riding the warm air into the kitchen.
Legs crackle with electricity, clumsy
like puppets. They closet themselves in corners,
clinging to plaster, or follow each other
in a linked chain around the lightbulb's hot glow.

Is this their heaven? Perhaps they dream
of somewhere just like this, from their hatching
to the end of their month-long lives, drawn here
like salmon, against all odds, by the mysterious
pull of home. We leave them in peace. Later,
their empty shells will litter the kitchen,
brittle as paper, mere signs of something
that passed here, light and elusive as breath.