Fog Truck Afternoon, Izmir, Turkey by Anna Citrino

The mechanical whirring hum alerted us.

We left our paperwork, and went to discover

what created such a commotion.

In the street below something like fog 

poured from a tank at a truck’s backend,

billowing over children’s half-obscured bodies 

as, giggling with glee, they raced behind, 

playing hide and seek inside the rolling 

gray-brown clouds. 

Pesticide, we understood, as the fumes 

drifted up and the truck rumbled from sight,

the childrens’ delighted screams 

fading in the distance.

Anna Citrino grew up in California and taught abroad in international schools in the countries of Turkey, Kuwait, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, India, and the UK for twenty-six years. Her current home is in the hills of Soquel, California. Ms. Citrino's work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and has appeared in various literary journals including, Canary, Paterson Literary Review, and The Evening Street Review, among other publications. She is the author of  A Space Between, and two chapbooks, Saudade and To Find a River.  Read more of Anna's writing at annacitrino.com

Sacrifice by Anna Citrino

The fortress she lived in had many rooms where women

moved behind screens of carved stone, veils

to peer through, walls where no words

reached--the whole of her life lived inside walls. A queen

of privilege, but she knew about locked doors,

what it was like to stand behind 

a thick barrier. The raja returned from battle, a victor no more.

10,000 lives lost, and she shut the palace door—

the red shape of women’s hands who 

took their lives when their husbands died in battle 

pushing on her mind as they pressed into 

the wall at the palace gate. 

Let him stand outside the fortress door in the feeble air 

singed with widows’ sacrifice and the crow’s 

black croak. Let him lean his body 

against the fortress wall, sun’s flame sweeping down

the long desert expanse, dust smothering

his feet. Let his hand that held the ax, 

that let go the life of so many, press with the women’s 

held up at the stony door. Let him wait, 

flies buzzing overhead.

Anna Citrino grew up in California and taught abroad for twenty-six years at international schools in the countries of Turkey, Kuwait, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, India, and the UK. Her current home is the hills of Soquel, California. A graduate of the Bread Loaf School of English in Vermont, Ms. Citrino's work has appeared in various literary journals including, Canary, Paterson Literary Review, and The Evening Street Review, among other publications. She is the author of two chapbooks, Saudade and To Find a River. Her book, A Space Between, is forthcoming in December, 2019. Read more of Anna's writing at annacitrino.com.

On My Street by Anna Citrino

Blade, bullet, rope—what he used
is not revealed. The body

ends up on my street.
Half-way across the world

I read emailed news, hear a tailgate's
metal hinge clank open.

Stifled foot tread. Branches snap.
An animal scrambles away to hide.

Beneath trees and tangled moonlight,
a man pulls a body from a truck bed,

hefts it to an embankment, shoves
the weight into brambled darkness,

down into stubbled shrubs
and leaf mulch. Done.

Inside neighborhood houses mothers,
fathers whisper last good nights.

Blankets pulled up, lights out.
No movement, music, or voice.

Owl eyes click shut.
Fog crawls in.

Truck door locked,
down the road he rolls.

Blood throbs in his ears.
Crickets cry.

Anna Citrino is the author of A Space Between, and Buoyant, Saudade, and To Find a River. You can find her going for walks near the coast or biking on paths through a forest where she lives in Sonoma County. Read more of her writing at annacitrino.com.