By: Stephanie McConnell To go see my young brother, I must drift in dreams until I land on our father’s land, where my brother is still blonde and my fingernails bleed but his brain is not yet bog. There where the currency in my pockets turns to compost, my crows feet fill, and it is always spring. Last night I dreamt he drove me through a field of hay, the grill of his car mowing through gold straw like a skiff propelled down inky currents into the river’s warm mouth. I told

By: Lora Berg Boat in the mist. Is this the one I’m meant to ride on, boat to heaven that whisks along Lake Chelan, knowing where to go like the salmon? The first leaves turn over the velour of water that ripples toward the far shore. I wish I could stay and just watch that boat in the distance. Lora Berg created a collaborative book with visual artist Canute Caliste (1914-2005), and has published poems in Shenandoah, Colorado Review, The Carolina Quarterly, etc. She served a

By: John Dorroh The last time I saw my father he was lying unconscious in a hospital bed. He had white wings that filled up the room. I didn’t want to let him fly away but what good would he have been with riddled lungs and blood leaking from every pore. I wanted him to stay my father. I wanted him to fill a need elsewhere, some place new. He was like an old magazine. Outdated but still with words. John Dorroh is as content sitting on his deck in Southwest Illinois reading ne

By: Jodie Baeyens A single white rose with petal tips of gold A box of Cinnamon Life Cereal A worn copy of Romeo and Juliet carried by a soldier who thought he would die without ever being in love A book of Gargoyles Two perfect boys Three tiaras and a Lapis Crystal Ball A ring of Welsh Gold and diamonds given by a mother to her son to save for the love of his life And two tiny handfuls of shells for mommy to carry home Jodie Baeyens is a single-mother, poet and teaches to su

By: Dick Altman When we climb together the steep – and I struggle to keep up – I see a side of you that – by your presence alone – goads me – spurs me to push on – beyond any measure of myself alone – How easy you make it look – wearing nothing but sandals – How sure your feet secure the terrain – while I stumble over scree – eyes glued to blades of broken rock – to spiny cactus arms eager to reach out and grab mine – to twisted stairs of granite I wrestle with – more than mo

By: Laura Plummer I searched for you in churches with their tales of virgin birth and in the savage jungle with my palms against the earth. I searched for you in ritual, reciting written prayer in temples high atop the clouds, but never found you there. I searched for you in Hebrew, which my tongue could never speak, and studied the philosophies taught by the ancient Greeks. I searched for you in prophets with their promises of glory, who took away my food, insisting hunger w

By: Chris Bevens for Hannah We rode the light rail to SeaTac leaning and alert, trying to catch a glimpse of Rainier; traveling through the land of the Duwamish rightly, to the airport, to see you off. Together, facing the center aisle, bags at your feet; you, cool and beautiful in the reflection across, reminding me of dreams and visions and other reflections entirely. About your age, a young woman stood next to the doors, two doors that would part, eventually. S

By: David A. Goodrum Aunt Who Lived with Us and followed my older sister around the house re-cleaning what had just been cleaned; and said to me, You will never drive my car as long as I’m alive. I ended up owning that Chevy Malibu for well over a decade. Aunt Visiting from Ohio who towered over me as on a balance beam with praises for older siblings, then somersaults, sticking the landing, declaring, But we’re worried about you. Brother of Holy Cross who taught high school s

By: Valerie Braylovskiy Others who deserve to live longer leave first We find a cure for the enigma of suffering I learn guitar (which I’ve been learning for two years and will not ever learn) My camera roll is organized based on importance and irrelevance The afterlife (or lack thereof) is explained by a reputable scientist I try every permutation of chocolate ice cream, including gelato and sorbet A sunrise and sunset are witnessed in one day I read all possible books perta

By: Georgia San Li reveal patterns of fossilized flowers mixed with mud-cracked seeds, pebbling rocks of brown barley, red beans, smashed leaving imprints against char-riddled rice, scraped and singed at the bottom of her copper pan, panning gold, but la la there is nothing, nothing burning bright in the cruel bubbling rivers of indelible summer heat, she slurps before she sets the table, and knows not what to call this American alien mixture of no lilacs, no tubers, with no

By: Madi Miller I wonder how life would work if we were all a little bit smaller. If we had fewer ideas, and even less opinions. If our minds didn’t take up the space meant for others. If “1 in 5” was just a myth, and we could actually walk alone at night. If we didn’t have to cover up to stop the lingered stares. And standing alone in a parking lot didn’t require a preventative text about our whereabouts. If “83 cents for every dollar” was a phrase only heard in our nightmar

By: Lina Buividavičiūtė By: James Zaferopolos Far, was our Ithaca, Far from the spirit’s Longed-for home, As though Nantucket Seaport were our version Of the shores of ancient Greece, lapped by Old Homer’s wine-dark Sea. The peg-leg’s Mind, tormented by The whited shiboleth Which, years ago, Had swum off With his limb, Became old Ahab’s Subject of revenge, Which had become for him The embodiment of nature’s Wrath, as though Whatever nature does Could be held accountable By me

By: seren mcclurken I am always religious in the summer When the wounds of childhood are freshest - where God is found in the fireflies and the forgotten children, In a little yellow house tucked invisible between round green mountains, soggy with decades-old abuse, I pray the rosary down the hall from the reason I quit my dream job. He’s here in the sweat of emptied new york, in the echoes of the beat mystics, where Patti called Robert once a west coast Saint Sebastian -- Di

By: Judith Mikesch-McKenzie As twilight deepens, up and down the street doors begin to open and figures emerge, struggling with tripods or binoculars and the straps of cameras strung around their necks. One by one they trudge up the hill to the spot in front of the blue house and begin to set up, where the view is unblocked and, for months now, the ‘Conger Street Astronomical Society’ has met most nights to watch as the bright light makes its way across their sky. Some make m

By: Brittany van der Merwe Where do you go when you depart from me, when you fade into obscurity- my sun, gradually descending towards the horizon. The sky, less impervious than I, knows when your light is ephemeral. It bids you to stay with a vibrant display donning all the hues of the blossoms as the splendor is appraised, my sun slips away allowing the sky to follow. Left behind is a world bereft f color, as a soul devoid of presence is hollow Brittany van der Merwe is an

By: Esinam Bediako I. Beyond the screen, some mothers drag children to bunkers while you, in your California queen, lie quaking cuz you’re frightened of the god- damn dark. You’re cracked, my friend, always have been but now the cleft keeps cleaving down the insides, up the outsides, through the gangliosides where sickness unlinks chains in gray matter. Nothing’s happened, yet you snap, synapse tied together in some false way to make you fear everything: ants, crows, scales o

By: Ashley Williamson It is now and always was Rolling downhill blue sky flashing grass-stained skin Again! Again, surprise electricity butterfly blue in the jungle morpho fleeting moment melting faster than tres-leches devoured Again, the milky alpine pool arresting icy turquoise tugging at the roots of my hair ecstatic diving Again, romanticizing airplanes counting hues of skies and seas counting continents and clouds spotting icebergs still fro

By: Henry Crawford One second dead. Technically alive. My algorithmic mother. A jewel. Creation. Yes. Tenderly coded. Yes. Every frequency of love. Dialed in. Smooth Vermeer skin. Yes. My HD Father in burnt umber browns. A Rembrandt self-portrait. Wrinkled lines of charcoal bitmaps. My mother’s holographic eyes. Prisms of fabricated rays of love. Yes. Sweeter than any strawberry. Dream. Lady of rainbows. Of saturated color. Brightening inside. Limitless. Lemmon yellow. Love.

By: Kelly Easton It’s a whole crew that keeps her floating, this ship from listing, sinking The captain’s missing First mate has stepped in Grand, solid grip on the wheel ‘May you have a good life!’ young boy proclaims, brandishing coiled paper sword, innocent in might The breezes are soft and sweet in this lilt, far cry from tempests of autumn’s mistral, misplaced But where does she head? A wayward breeze floats by Lifting ocean, in her stead Silent currents, rolling, trace

By: Murray Silverstein The peeling white bark of a sun-struck birch. The no-mow grass bent with rain. The wind muffling the whine of cars on the freeway but not the cawing of the crow. What is, in March, the peeling, the bending, the cawing, the flow— if words are, they are in addition to, over and above. Underscoring, maybe; understating always. Every day I place a bet on is and lose— why is there no learning here? But when they fit, the words, I feel like a man who’s been u

By: John L. Gronbeck-Tedesco (for Michael Newell) 1. In the parking lot of a Seven-Eleven, an old man dances lightly on the hood of his pick-up; sounds like overalls on a taut clothesline billowing softly in a generous breeze. He listens to his feet on metal. 2. And, he sees the August moon color of old blood— pain and beauty—luster over late season corn red summer wheat dark stemmed radish, and splinters of open prairie: shadows from gray, long-limbed Osa

By: Gerald Wagoner As a child I was at liberty to roam until we drove through a dry Montana blizzard into wind scoured wheat fields where oil derricks stood as lonely as guard towers. We drove through long Montana blizzards. Blind cattle, we plodded east, past lights grim as guard towers, dim in the night, hunted stark daybreaks sharp as knives. Blind cattle, we plod east past star lights from tiny towns warped in cat black ridges. We hunt stark daybreaks, with sharp knives.

By: J.R. Solonche I knew the man in charge of all the funerals at the NYPD. “How do you do it?” I asked him. “It’s my job. I’m in charge of all the funerals,” he said. “I understand. But how do you do it?” I said. “Isn’t this the life?” he said while looking at his pool. I looked at his pool. It was bluer than the sky. “Do you have a pool?” he said. Professor Emeritus of English at SUNY Orange, J.R. Solonche has published poetry in more than 500 magazines, journals, and antho

By: Ellen Skilton and start again from the beginning — this old cake from the back of the freezer has a rancid aftertaste, first made in a pre-reconstruction oven. I used to think the answer was finding better ingredients for the icing, but it’s a whole new cake we need with abolitionist-ground flour, reparations folded in a new genesis, a reckoning, a from-scratch remake. Those cakes in the windows of bakeries made of cardboard, glitter, and glue are make-believe monuments t