M A R G I E  The American Journal of Poetry     www.margiereview.com

Published Annually in the Fall                                     MARGIE  P. O. BOX 250, CHESTERFIELD, MO 63006-0250

                               “Officials are confident that the recovery of the black box

                                will provide many answers about this tragedy.”

                                                                                              --News item

Black box, box of bees, voice box, box of voices, box of buzzing, box of answers, answer box (answer back) echo box, ghost box, box of dreams, box of the dead, coffin box, black box, death box, box of ears, listening box, witness box, blind box, jack-in-the- box, box of rain, box of screams.  We search for the black box.  Underwater box, up-in-flames box.  Box of truth, box of closure, box of wishes, box of revelation, box of coral reef and swamp grass, box of hair and bone, box of agony, box of oxygen mask dangling from its skinny umbilical, black box.  Long lost black box, unrecovered treasure chest of secrets beating beneath ribs, beneath the ocean, snagged in the branches of a tree.  Constructed to stay strong black box, to keep an open eye and ear – silent witness to ineptitude or fate or carnage.  Box of story.  Box of last words springing out like gag snakes.  Box of atmosphere, box of night fright, box of fire storm.  Wanted black box, hunted black box – the secret, the end of the story, the whole truth and nothing but.

LIZ AHL's poems, twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, have appeared in The Women’s Review of Books, The Laurel Review, Southern Poetry Review, The American Voice, Prairie Schooner, Isotope, 5AM, The Formalist, Crab Orchard Review, and other literary journals.  She lives in New Hampshire.