Christopher Leibow

In the blowing snow flying a kite, the old monk can almost hearhis long dead mother calling him inside. The Temple Cat The incense smoke rises, in the summer heat - our eyes half closed, counting breaths while the temple cat’s paw touches each cheek gently in turn. Then she leaves us to find some shade, and the youngest monk will find her starring at the garden wall her eyes half open like Bodhidharma or in the Hall of Kuan Yin as the true lover of the Lotus Sutra, asleep on top of the open book. Christopher Leibow is a poet, a visual artist and a performer of small slights of hand. He is an MFA graduate of Antioch and has been published in numerous journals and online, including Juked, Interim, and Barrow Street and Cricket Online Review. His art has appeared in Lumina, 491 Magazine and has been a featured artist online with Cha: A Journal of Asian Writing and OFZOOs. He is a two time Pushcart Award nominee and a Utah Book Award Nominee and the winner of the Writers@Work Writers Advocate Award in 2008. He currently lives in Salt Lake City, with his cat El Guapo.