{"id":3688,"date":"2021-03-23T13:40:25","date_gmt":"2021-03-23T17:40:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=3688"},"modified":"2026-02-04T17:14:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T22:14:07","slug":"summer-2021","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=3688","title":{"rendered":"Summer 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"

 
\n 
\n<\/a>
\n<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n\"\"
\n<\/a>Cover Art \u2014 Janice Appel<\/a><\/strong> Trickle Down Economics<\/a><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKemmer Anderson<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nBIG OTIS
\n 
\nAt a halfway house near Salem, Virginia,
\nBig Otis, the VA Counselor,
\nlooked through our fried brains
\nstill playing movies on mind screen.
\n 
\nSoundtracks whispered through jungle trees
\nwhere Joe Brown had lived
\nunder the canopy waiting in ambush for VC
\nfollowing footpaths far off Highway 1
\n 
\nor Henry back from the Middle East still drunk
\non snowy scenarios of first use to melt North Koreans
\nif they crossed the DMZ, now sees coordinates
\nthrough a desert lens for a new end game
\n 
\nor Tom Running Hawk, a two tour
\nLakota Sioux, squad leader, who dances
\nwith the ghosts from Wounded Knee
\nand the screaming souls left behind in Vietnam.
\n 
\n\u201cYou guys think you\u2019re angry?\u201d
\nOtis\u2019s eyes surveyed the room.
\nWe were his targets. \u201cYou think
\nyou lost something like your mind.
\n 
\nI lost my armor. My friend and I were
\nBlack Panthers \u2013 not what you think \u2013 761st Tank Battalion,
\nproviding fire cover for units evacuating
\nfrom the Battle of the Bulge.
\n 
\nBlack men freezing, covering white soldiers.
\nYou think you\u2019re angry?
\nWhen I got home, I still couldn\u2019t vote.
\nYou don\u2019t know nothing about rage.\u201d
\n 
\nFreed from the slack jaw, Thorazine shuffle,
\nand the rubber stamp that sealed our Fate at intake,
\nwe quit our meds, found our tears, and swallowed
\nwords from an old soldier who told us his story<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJeff Bagato<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nGETTING A TASTE OF A NEW PERSPECTIVE
\n 
\nWhen you yell up the chimney
\nthe echo your hear is a yo ho ho
\nas those pirates lower
\nyour brain in a basket;
\ntry it on for size and flip the switch
\nfor a fresh operating system
\nplus an eyeful of new apps;
\nthe internet of things could
\ninclude your soul,
\ndownloaded from the cloud
\nwith new terms of agreement;
\nyou clap, you whistle, you cheer\u2014
\nfresh graphics have that effect
\non most users swiping past the blues
\nto a whole new level of numb
\n 
\nThe creepy guy in your selfies
\ncould be some downloaded guy
\nslipped in with the upgrade
\nyou couldn\u2019t ignore;
\nflash forward, delete,
\ndouble click, and see
\nwho changes faces
\nright before your eyes,
\nor your eyes changing,
\nnow red, now grey,
\nnow blue blue blue,
\nlike your mother\u2019s, like the sky,
\nlike your neighbor\u2019s, dead
\nin the head next door<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nBenjamin Bagocius<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE CANAANITE WOMAN
\nA POEM SERIES
\n 
\nA Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to Jesus, crying out
\n\u201cLord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering
\n terribly from demon-possession.\u201d
\n\u2014Matthew 15:22<\/i>
\n 
\n 
\nWRITING WITH SARA
\n 
\nHana shows her daughter Sara again how to hold a pencil
\n 
\n     Hana cups her hand around her daughter\u2019s,
\n     dips the pencil into Sara\u2019s loosening fist
\n     like a tulip in a jar, coaxes the girl\u2019s fingers
\n     into a ballet. Every three letters
\n     Sara writes, she gets an M&M
\n 
\n     Hours ago, Hana drew Sara a picture
\n     of sitting at the table to prepare her daughter
\n     for sitting
\n     Sara screamed Fuck you, bitch! <\/i>
\n     and knocked over a chair
\n     then raced toward the paintings framed on the kitchen wall
\n     but Hana got there first so Sara could not smash them
\n     this time
\n 
\n     Hana helps Sara pick up the chair
\n 
\n     Hana has calmed Sara enough
\n     to sit at the table and look at the letter S
\n     which Hana has written with a crayon on a scrap piece
\n     of paper she grabbed from the floor where the original worksheet
\n     lies in pieces like a smashed plate
\n 
\n     Hana will worry later
\n     about the end table Sara hurled
\n     at the lamp, now broken across the floor
\n     and glittered with glass
\n     from the television screen it shattered
\n 
\n     Hana should\u2019ve documented that
\n     but Sara is now
\n 
\n     kicking through her little brother\u2019s bedroom door
\n     after he raced there and locked it<\/p>\n

 
\nHana shows Sara again how to hold a pencil
\n 
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nTHE AUNT RECEIVES A THANK YOU CARD IN THE MAIL
\n 
\nI open Sara\u2019s card
\n 
\n     Thnk yo Aunti
\n     I lov the muney and card
\n     LovSara<\/i>
\n 
\nI think of her sweat
\nand Hana\u2019s
\nmaking it up the hill of S<\/i>,
\nthen its other one to a<\/i>, hand over hand,
\nbreathless past r<\/i>, all lungs
\nand bleeding blisters, collapsing
\ninto a<\/i>, the finish line,
\nthe only place in a marathon I\u2019ve stood,
\nholding a coffee
\n 
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nSARA TRIUMPHS IN THE KITCHEN
\n 
\nMy mom asked me to set the table
\nlike I always do at 6 p.m. for dinner
\n 
\nToday I didn\u2019t want to. I was angry
\nat my brother Malachi, who had gotten gummi bears
\nfrom a friend, and he shared only one with me
\n 
\nAnd then my sister Rachel had laughed
\nwhen I fell off my bike. I stuffed this hurt
\naway in a backpack pocket you never use
\n 
\nWhen Mom said, \u201cSara, table please,\u201d
\nI could feel it
\n 
\nThe monster opened its eyes from its sleep,
\nbegan to wiggle its fingers and toes
\n 
\nI told it to stop wiggling, to go back to sleep
\n 
\nIt looked at me with its sleepy eyes
\nand obeyed
\n 
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nTHE CANAANITE WOMAN
\nSEES SARA TRIUMPH IN THE KITCHEN
\n 
\nI see her
\nstruggling to pull it together
\n 
\nI see her
\nhands leaving the plates resting on the counter
\n 
\nand not sending them like bullets
\nthrough the air, through the window
\n 
\nFor every meltdown, there are two triumphs
\nwhen Sara talks the tsunami
\n 
\ndown. Even Poseidon
\ncouldn\u2019t calm each storm
\n 
\nBy the third surge she\u2019s exhausted
\n 
\nThink of a plastic cone
\nstanding its ground
\n 
\nat the coast to hold off the sea
\nwith its unfathomable longing
\n 
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nTHE CANAANITE WOMAN READS THE EMAIL
\nFROM JESUS OF NAZARETH ASKING HER
\n TO JOIN HIS LEADERSHIP TEAM
\n 
\nI haven\u2019t answered yet
\nI\u2019m savoring the glow
\n\u2014my work seen as work,
\nfound beautiful, and sought
\n 
\nJoin Jesus\u2019s team and travel across the Mediterranean
\nWow. Akhenaten\u2019s abandoned city. Plato\u2019s Parthenon
\nIshtar\u2019s Temple in Damascus. Maybe in three years
\nwhen Sara is eighteen. Though she\u2019ll be living with me
\n 
\nA friend told me she wanted to write novels
\nbut wrote short stories instead because she\u2019s a mother
\nShe holds too many characters living countless storylines
\nto fit into one book
\n 
\nI wonder how unified Jesus\u2019s ministry would be
\nif he were a mother. Would he believe in one God
\nor several. One love or many. One ending or all of them
\n 
\nMaybe that\u2019s why he wants me on his team
\nI know a trinity he doesn\u2019t
\n 
\nMother, Daughter, and Holy Ghost<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nJohn Bartell<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nBRANSON, MISSOURI
\n 
\nI walked today
\ntoward the Yellow House
\nat the end of the street,
\nits shutters crooked
\nand paint faded to an off white,
\nwhere, in the midst of winter,
\nthe old lady who lives there
\nmakes sure the cardinals are well fed.
\nI pass the Green House,
\nit\u2019s what we call it
\neven through
\nthe McDermott\u2019s painted it blue
\nyears ago,
\nand, as I walked by,
\nthe deception of the paint
\nreminded me.
\nTomorrow I am going
\nto Forest Park Avenue,
\nwith its neatly trimmed houses
\nand smiling children.
\nI am going there to see a lawyer.
\nYou don\u2019t know this, of course.
\nYou are walking next to me, and we pass
\nthe House with the Big Trees,
\ntowering live oaks
\nthat were cut down
\nbefore the Green House was painted blue,
\nand you say
\nyou can\u2019t wait for our trip to Branson,
\nwhere you will shop
\nand dance
\nand eat.
\nYou tell me this,
\nas we walk on,
\nand I think,
\nbut don\u2019t say it,
\ndon\u2019t dare say it,
\nthe one truth in my life.
\n 
\nI can\u2019t wait for tomorrow. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nStuart Bartow<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nDRUNK ROBINS
\n 
\nI\u2019ve never seen so many robins in a flock.
\nHeavy frosts have made the crabapples ferment
\nand the robins are spinning about
\nin what looks like joy
\nwhile I watch inside the classroom.
\nOne banks into a window but still returns
\nfor another taste, so I drop the shades
\nhoping to help them navigate the party.
\n 
\nPerhaps no one else on campus sees
\nso many robins falling and rollicking
\nwith only the misplaced gravity
\nthat defends so many drunks and,
\nas I recall, occasionally saved me.
\n 
\n 
\nSTRANGERS
\n 
\nThe ancient Greeks weren\u2019t strangers to fear,
\nwhose gods and goddesses,
\nyoung, vain, sexual and cruel,
\nfourteen year-olds in movie star bodies,
\nmight descend into their front yard, appear
\nin their home, or pop out of the earth
\nand find them lacking or, still worse, just right.
\nHow odd for them, ordinary shepherds
\nencountering trees shaped human,
\ntalking fountains, streams that murmur
\nlonging to echo the human heart.
\nAnd the constellations, a photograph album
\nof passion always overhead.
\nAt any time you might stumble upon
\n 
\na goddess naked at her bath
\nor one of those shrubs once human.
\nAny moment a crone or tramp in rags
\nmight wander to your doorstep. Not
\nlong ago an old couple, stranded
\nin the Price Chopper parking lot,
\ncalled me an angel after I jumpstarted
\ntheir dilapidated pickup truck
\nthat was no chariot in disguise.
\nIf I were an angel, I\u2019d be one of
\nthe fallen, and they weren\u2019t Zeus
\nor Hera, far as I could tell.
\n 
\n 
\nINSTRUCTIONS
\n 
\nYou\u2019ve got to know how to fall.
\nYou have to let go
\nof everything, ladder, hammer, binoculars.
\nYou could land on your heels,
\nbut that\u2019s not recommended.
\nYou do not fall on your head or back
\nor ass or face down, but on your side,
\nbetter the right side, if the falling
\npermits. You land on the angle of your foot
\nat 45 degrees. Expect a hard bruise
\non your shoulder and hip. After all,
\nyou were nearer the stars.
\n 
\nYou have to walk to get there.
\nYou have to learn how to walk
\nwith no sound to go far,
\nto tread as though you\u2019re stalking
\na shadow or a voice, so if
\nyou move without breaking
\nthe stars\u2019 frequencies, without
\nstumbling thoughtlessly, there might
\nbe a chance. You might find
\nin the unlit marsh
\nthe moon bathing her naked ghost,
\nand because you know how to fall
\nyou can let yourself fall
\ninto the moon, Dante\u2019s moon,
\nwhere all the nuns who broke their vows
\nhave been waiting. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRobert Bires<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nADULT COMMUNITY
\n 
\nYou may own the home,
\nbut you do not rule
\nyour lot. You cannot
\ndig a hole, bury
\na beloved old dog
\nor plant an orange tree
\nor fig, no garden
\nout back. You do not
\neven dare to cross
\nthe grass. For you, they
\nhave other places to
\nplay. The greenest world
\nwelcomes you only
\nif you play golf holes.
\n 
\nYou will figure this
\nout later when you
\nrealize you are walk-
\ning on air, never
\nquite touching soft earth.
\nYour kempt house has no
\nbasement, you have no
\nroots. The years, feeding
\nlike orchids hanging
\nin the humid air,
\nflower and fade, then
\nthe ground comes calling.
\n 
\n 
\nVIGIL ON MAUNDY THURSDAY
\nfor Robin<\/i>
\n 
\nOften when I am alone,
\nI have to move away from places–
\nFrom rooms to town
\nTo church, from drunk to weary
\nTo empty. I skipped crusts of ice
\nAcross the snow as I waited
\nFor you. The air was too cold to taste.
\n 
\nThrough ancient glass, candles blurred
\nAnd heads bowed, but I heard nothing.
\nThe nave was dark, and a street plow
\nScraped by. I trudged into
\nThe churchyard snow, as white
\nAnd shadowed as Golgotha,
\nTo see metal sparks on the road.
\n 
\nWhen I turned back, the lights
\nGlowed softly, people stepped
\nFrom the doors, and I walked
\nPast buried graves, looking for you.
\nYou found me first and raised
\nA finger to your lips, whispering,
\n\u201cWe are supposed to be quiet.\u201d
\nYour eyes freshly-wet from prayer
\nAnd candlelight, your hand touching
\nMine lightly as ice skips over snow,
\nLeft me no need to speak–
\nThe church, the town behind us,
\nAlso bright and silent as the moon.
\n 
\n 
\nA SMALL WHITE HOUSE
\n 
\nThe last time you finished a story
\nI had written, one you hadn\u2019t fallen
\nasleep over, or forgotten, or let drop
\nto the floor where the cat slept
\non it, dotting it with flecks of flea
\nblood as if it had become the setting
\nof some small crime, we lived
\nin a small, white house.
\n 
\nThere was an L-shaped porch
\nwhere I pissed proudly into shade trees
\nto hear the sweet, beating water
\non concrete, as they razed houses
\naround us, one by one. We hid
\nthe Christmas tree into March
\nin that same corner. Summers,
\nwe\u2019d drink quickly, before
\nthe ice melted, then hole up
\nin the one cool room, its wall
\nunit drowning our love whispers.
\n 
\nI found that old cat this year, frozen
\nagainst these bricks, his white fur
\nsoiled with blood the color of door wood,
\nhis return the same mystery
\nas his leaving. John put him in a bag,
\nand he went with the trash, and we
\ntold our children when they asked, that, yes,
\nBurt buried him at the dump. It was cold
\nthat day, and we were tired, and people
\nwho clear things away are prompt.
\n 
\nTonight, I drove past where that white house
\nstood, and dreamt myself curled up
\nasleep, only your light on, and my words
\nspeaking to you from pages
\nlike these\u2014not yellowed
\nin a basement drawer, not discovered
\non a search for something else.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n 
\n  <\/a><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSHELTERING\/EACH IDENTITY IS ETERNAL \u2014 LUONGO\/BLICKLEY<\/strong>
\n 
\n <\/p>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
painting by Judith Luongo<\/a><\/strong> “Sheltering”
\n 
\nMark Blickley<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nEACH IDENTITY IS ETERNAL
\n 
\nThe invisible thread from breast to the cradle between my hips is electrified and alive, so real for me the very idea is audible and I can taste my passion tingling with the salty desire I have for him, wanting to share the lust of lovers devouring each other with our imaginations, our loneliness, as he whispers my name close and soft against my neck, not having to ask him if I am good enough and not having my heart broken when he calls me by another name.
\n 
\nLying within his embrace the shy tenderness of a mouth greets me with inquisitive tongue as his look of delight drinks in the sight of me, running his hands across my hips down my flanks squeezing and feeling my flesh as my legs automatically bend and I fold in to him with no pressure, no expectation, no pre-requisite.
\n 
\nThe rules are simple: I must allow myself the enjoyment of this place where the cushioning of dreams protect and shelter us from a world of artificial lust as I allow him to take ownership of my body, to lay beneath him and feel him breathe as our hearts beat a new rhythm of mutual surrender, a lustful joy of freedom.
\n 
\nAs he rocks me and moves his body next to mine, I feel him swollen and hungry for me as he inhales the perfume of my hair and there is such tenderness with the time he takes at each aspect of his exploration of me, such a heady feeling to see the pleasure in his eyes as he looks upon me.
\n 
\nI nestle into him as time ceases in this moment that fills me with the urge to please him because I am so proud to have ignited this desire I must give myself permission for enjoyment in this strange place where the light from the candles he has lit enhances his flickering fingers and the feelings aroused by such feather light touches.
\n 
\nMy fingers seem like thumbs as I attempt to remove his clothing but he is patient and the ever-present smile is all the assurance I need as I move the fabric down over his hips. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMoni Brar<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nCAPE BRETON
\n 
\nmy mother has never been to Cape Breton
\ndoesn\u2019t know where it is or what a Cape is
\nbut she knows what hate is
\nswims in it every day
\ncrashes off its rocks in the swelling sea
\nmy mother can\u2019t read or write
\ndoesn\u2019t know the word disenfranchisement
\nwhat it means or how it\u2019s spelled
\ncan\u2019t wrap her tongue around its taste
\nbut she knows how it feels to lose land and limb
\nshe has stood at the confluence of five rivers
\nflowing across an expanse of once arid ground
\nfive rivers that she cannot name
\nbut can feel through the corridor of her veins
\n 
\n 
\nALREADY DEAD
\n 
\nlike all our conversations
\nI enter with caution<\/p>\n

skirting landlines, anticipating mid-sentence ambush
\nbody churning beware, beware<\/i><\/p>\n

 
\nshe tells me she saw something interesting on tv today<\/p>\n

something good<\/p>\n

a story of a young boy walking along a footpath in India
\ntwo people carrying an old man on a stretcher pass by
\nthe boy asks if the man is dead
\nthey say it depends
\ndepends on what? he asks
\nthey respond:
\nif he has children, he will never die
\nfor his legacy will live on forever
\nbut if he is childless,<\/p>\n

he is already dead<\/p>\n

 
\nlike me I think, like you my mother says
\nI step on the landmine
\nand turn away<\/p>\n

body churning too late, too late<\/i><\/p>\n

<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJeff Burt<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nHISTORY CLASS
\n 
\nThe history teacher told Kenny
\nhe had a seventh-grade cock-eyed pride,
\na tilt to what he found admirable
\nprobably from the weight
\nof the chip on his shoulder
\npulling his neck to one side.
\nThe teacher laughed and the class
\nlaughed with him.
\n 
\nBut Kenny knew a wild dog
\nthat lived in the alley
\nthat skewed its head
\nto both sneak a peek
\nat who was coming
\nand to beat other dogs to scraps.
\nHe knew a stallion inclined
\nto rearing askew
\nthat kept riders off his back,
\nand old man Keller
\nwith the missing leg
\nfrom the war to defeat all tyranny,
\nhow he gamboled despite
\nhis tilt and refused assistance
\nand said he knew kind soldiers
\nhe had buried in the war
\nbut as wicked as a blue jay
\nhe\u2019d survived, leaving
\njust enough crumb on the table
\nto make me want to know more
\nof what he\u2019d never talk about.
\nSo Kenny walked up to the front,
\nhead listing like a wary goat
\nwalking up a steep slope,
\nturned and winked to the class,
\na sign that linear history
\nwas a story he could never tell. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nBill Burtis<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE BALLAD OF THE BLUE PIANO
\n 
\nTwo girls in the neighborhood made me
\na barter, really, where a glimpse
\nof my bald genitalia bought
\na view of their strange blankness.
\n 
\nIt happened several times in a playhouse
\nuntil I refused them after having a dream:
\na small boy, in a place with the cracked
\nbarrenness of a dead lake, whimpers
\n 
\nand tries vainly to raise his crumpled pants
\nabove his knees; there was a thin light,
\nas of sun through dust. The dream, of course,
\nwas not mine alone, though I thought so long enough
\n 
\nto develop a passionate insecurity.
\nWomen have their own reasons for alcohol
\nand silence, but this vision stands between men
\nwhen they try honestly to speak to one another.
\n 
\nIt is in the throat of that boy that the words stick.
\n 
\nI have had two other dreams like that,
\nboth waking: one on a cold day
\nin a forest, young and full of the damp
\nsmell of fertility, where I found
\n 
\nthe remains of an orchard, a single tree
\nwhose yellow apples shone
\nlike gold cast to rot in the decaying
\nmouths of dead leaves.
\n 
\nThe other has more history.
\nAgainst the sagging railing of a junk house
\nrested a piano, an old upright,
\npainted blue. A blue piano.
\n 
\nInside, a girl played Chopin
\nwithout sheet music, her fingers
\nslender dancers. She sees me, nods,
\nand goes on for the rest of the summer.
\n 
\n 
\nOWL
\n 
\nWhen the owl leaves the branch, he becomes
\nthe wind and the soundless dark,
\nthreads the hem of branches with a faith
\nbefore knowledge, safe in the space between things.
\n 
\nThere is a boy running through hemlocks
\nfaster than he can think, out on the windy edge
\nwhere he is only his body moving, not conscious
\nof the rough bark, the whole hurt of a tree.
\n 
\nHe makes no sound, breathes
\nbetween the pounding pulses of his heart
\nand his feet. Flying over
\nthe crest of a rocky hillock, he slows
\n 
\nslightly out of fear
\nnot that he will hit anything or fall,
\nbut that he will leave the earth
\nand the company of his kind. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRaymond Byrnes<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSPLIT SECOND
\n 
\na phone goes dead; you say hello
\na toddler teeters on a stairway step
\n 
\na buzzer sounds as a ball arcs down
\na still bobber plunges underwater
\n 
\na car door closes on little fingers
\na glass of Merlot tilts on a tablecloth
\n 
\na phantom deer appears in headlights
\na check-out display beeps \u201cDeclined\u201d
\n 
\na doctor says a tumor is in remission
\na small flame touches a candle wick. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRanney Campbell<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nIT\u2019S A BOY
\n 
\nhe slit me
\nsliced with scissors the meat of me
\nthe doctor decided this between my feet
\nwithout request, as his privilege<\/p>\n

when he saw your crown<\/p>\n

and not wanting to think women are built for it
\nto bend and curl around obstacles and impositions<\/p>\n

like liquid<\/p>\n

so you slipped through bloodied<\/p>\n

cut<\/p>\n

into the stark room
\nout of me and I would never be the same
\nwas owned by you then
\nand then your father owned me too
\n 
\nand so he settled, beside me,
\noutside on the thick of the hill
\nafter I had kept you on my breast until you slept
\nand I drew air clear,
\nturned in shocked shining
\ntold him I had never known this feeling<\/p>\n

didn\u2019t know<\/p>\n

it a thing possible<\/p>\n

he smiled back<\/p>\n

believing<\/p>\n

in ease<\/p>\n

a new confidence in him<\/p>\n

a father now; told me<\/p>\n

if I ever tried<\/p>\n

to leave him<\/p>\n

he would kill you<\/p>\n

so I stayed, of course,
\nyears, but first, at six weeks
\nthe O B stuck his finger in me
\n 
\nsaid squeeze<\/i>
\ngasped
\nwow<\/i>
\nyour husband has nothing to worry about<\/i>
\nhe should be quite pleased; good girl<\/i><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nWendy Taylor Carlisle<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nPECCATO DI GOLA
\n 
\nMy husband has peccato di gola<\/i>,
\nliterally, the sin of the throat\u2014
\nactually, the sin of gluttony,
\nwhich works out as a sort of
\nglobal lust for the best restaurants,
\nand coffee bars, and taco stands.
\nOne night in an out-of-the way
\ngostilna<\/i> in Slovenia, lush
\nwith white fish and squid,
\nsardines and clams,
\nfresh from the Adriatic,
\nbread with pumpkin oil,
\nand rocket salad, I knew
\nI\u2019d want to be that sort of sinner,
\nor travel with one forever. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSusan Cossette<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTO THE BROWN-EYED MAN IN THE BLUE PARKA AT THE SOUTHERN RAIL
\n 
\nYou came in from the ice storm,
\nOrdered a beer, then left.
\nThe fogged glass half full on the bar,
\nOn top of a crumpled ten-dollar bill.
\n 
\nI want to know what beer you were drinking.
\nI want to know why you were drinking at two in the afternoon on a snowy Tuesday.
\nI want to know what text message you read when you put your drink down,
\nAnd trembling, clutched the rail of the bar, eyes shut tight.
\n 
\nI was mustering up the courage to save this poem on my laptop,
\nLeave the high-top table in the corner, and say hello.
\n 
\nI will never know if it was a lover leaving, or word that your mother died.
\nI will never know your name.
\nI will never know you.
\n 
\n 
\nAIKIDO
\n 
\nThe morning sun streams
\nThrough cracks in the dark curtains
\nAfter a long night of wine and love.
\nOur life energy united\u2014
\nBodies floating,
\nTwo boats following the rushing river current.
\n 
\nYou take my hand and lead me
\nTo your desk,
\nBooks and black clothing strewn on the floor.
\n 
\nI have something to show you
\nThat I don\u2019t show anyone.<\/i>
\n 
\nYou open the mahogany cabinet to light a candle,
\nAwait the silence between your thoughts.
\n 
\nSomehow, this feels too private.
\n 
\nThe eggs will be ready
\nWhen your prayers are done. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJoe Cottonwood<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nI MEET JANELLE FOR COFFEE AT BROADWAY AND 116TH
\n 
\nEspresso for me because
\nI want to sample the local culture.
\nIrish Coffee for Janelle, my wife\u2019s sister,
\na look-alike except more boyish, defiant.
\n 
\nWe walk to her apartment on 91st talking
\nabout how inhumane Manhattan.
\nNew Yorkers are tough, she says.
\nThey\u2019re mean, I say.
\nI thrive on that, she says.
\n 
\nWe talk about her\u2014twice divorced, childless,
\nnot happy but not unhappy either.
\nAbout me\u2014my wife her sister pregnant, happy.
\nAbout children making one happy\u2014or not.
\nAbout the weirdness of sexual passion,
\nhow it grabs you, how irrational
\nand yet there seems to be a grand plan.
\nSpecies survival, she suggests.
\n 
\nJanelle says there\u2019s sexual tension between us,
\nIt\u2019s true. Meanwhile out her third floor window
\nwe watch the prostitutes on Broadway who are so busy,
\nJanelle says, they have a waiting list.
\n 
\nAs I leave I spread arms for an awkward hug
\nbut she steps back shaking her head No,
\nthen hands me a bag of bitter beans,
\nsouvenir of New York. Forty-four years later
\nin that same apartment Covid will drop her so fast,
\nthere\u2019s a waiting list for the morgue.
\nFrom California we make arrangements,
\nno viewing, no touch.
\n 
\n 
\nMILKMAID MOLLY
\n 
\nPlopped in a pasture like a brick turd the high school
\nsits stinking as subdivisions advance.
\nFor mockery the hotshot kids paint a cow
\non the gymnasium wall.
\n 
\nThe girl with a sun-sprinkled complexion
\nthe hotshots call Milkmaid Molly
\nbecause of her notable chest and because she
\nexplained a late assignment as she was up all night
\nwith a sick cow and yes, she handles five of them
\nbefore sunrise but she dresses nice for school.
\n 
\nSurprise \u2014 I win the Harvard Prize Book
\nand Molly asks if I\u2019m going. I say
\nit never entered my mind. She says
\n   Do it, I know you\u2019ll do well.<\/i>
\nShe stands closer than I\u2019m comfortable
\nwith breasts jutting out, almost poking me.
\nI\u2019m a loner, a high-achiever without social skill,
\nflustered I thank her and that\u2019s the end
\nexcept another day I\u2019m walking in the hallway
\nbehind a hotshot who goes Moo-oo<\/i> at Molly
\nand for a moment all I see is white hot flame
\nas my low-fashion leather Rockports
\nwithout instruction from my brain kick his ass
\nand he skids sprawling down the linoleum tiles.
\nLater I pay in bruises.
\n 
\nHarvard rejects me but\u2014wow\u2014Molly gets in.
\nWho\u2019da thunk it? I congratulate her and she says
\n    You shouldn\u2019t have kicked him.
\n    That\u2019s what kept you out.<\/i>
\nI tell her I\u2019d do it again.
\nShe\u2019s standing too close as she says
\n   My dad told me what we learn
\n   in high school we never forget.<\/i>
\nWe drive out to her farm, she shows me around,
\nconfides she really prefers girls. I confess
\nI prefer, too, that is if I ever. She says
\n   You probably want to touch my breasts,
\n    but sorry you can\u2019t.<\/i>
\nLater as we laugh, I learn to milk a cow,
\naltering forever my view of nipples.
\nGood to know, Harvard or no.
\n 
\n 
\nNATASHA SAYS:
\n 
\nEat me tender, eat me raw,
\nsuck me through a flavor straw<\/i>
\nwe chanted as children, just silly words.
\nAuntie Flo hushed me, said it was filthy.
\nAnd now I wonder: What did she know about that?
\n 
\nPeople blabber on me. A woman in the Wash \u2018N Go
\ndumped about her affair, her husband\u2019s
\nfavorite sexual position. Why me?
\nIt\u2019s my super power.
\n 
\nAt my daughter\u2019s school I volunteer.
\nI\u2019m Natasha the Talking Typewriter. They talk, I type.
\nWe pretend they\u2019re making up stories
\nbut you know it\u2019s all true. I type fast.
\nI hand them the paper. Then if they want,
\nwe burn it in a little clay oven with a funnel chimney.
\nTheir secrets turn to flame and smoke.
\n 
\nI wanted to be immortal. I\u2019d write my name,
\nthe date, my height and weight on a slip of paper
\nand stuff it in a crack in the house to remain forever.
\nOne night a chaplain came to my college dorm.
\nMy father, lighting the oven. Poof. Honestly
\nI could do without my father but now I had no home.
\n 
\nGot it all down? Good.
\nNow give me that paper. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDan Cuddy<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSOUTHERN COMFORT
\n 
\nshe dances
\nacross the South
\nhangs on the chrome pole
\ngets truck drivers
\nmumbling sweet vulgarities
\n 
\nher hair might be
\nblack or blonde
\nor any shade between
\n 
\nher breasts enhanced
\nbubbles
\nso effervescent
\nthe jello-wobble
\n 
\nand the shake of the booty
\nand the silk suggestive thong
\nstretched
\nedged aside
\nto tease
\nbeer-breathing guys
\n 
\nshe’s married
\nto a not so shy guy
\nwho was nice
\noffered her security
\nfor wearing pumps
\na private show in the kitchen
\nwhen he was home
\n 
\nshe danced
\nbecause she could
\nand she wasn’t fat
\nshe could wiggle
\na sculptured tush
\nand finger
\nthe lyre of her pleasure
\nand spin
\nlike a live wire
\naround the pole
\n 
\nas long as there is beauty
\nas long as there is desire
\nshe has a fire in the hearth
\na ring on the finger
\nand the song
\nBlack Magic Woman
\nsinging on the juke
\n 
\nit was a good life
\nif you did your thing
\nlooked in the mirror
\nstraightened the rear view
\nshifted the crease
\nand cling of it
\ndazzled them
\nwith bling and skin
\nkept the drinking
\nto a minimum<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSteven Deutsch<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nANOTHER SPRING
\n 
\nAnd in the end I knew
\nyou as well as anyone could\u2014
\nand that hardly at all.
\n 
\nIs that what we
\nmean by wisdom?
\nThe kind acquired
\n 
\nwith the years?
\nToday the English roses
\nyou planted so long ago
\n 
\nhave conspired to bloom
\nas one\u2014
\nthe well-wrought flowers
\n 
\ncoloring the quarter acre
\nlike Matisse gone mad.
\nWhat a magic to share\u2014
\n 
\nif only I could.
\nHad you some grand scheme
\nfor the planting?
\n 
\nI never thought to ask.
\nI sit in the afternoon
\nsun and open myself
\n 
\nto memory.
\nBut what comes is colorless,
\nand I settle instead
\n 
\nfor the pitched squeals
\nof the children next door.
\nAlive with their imaginations.
\n 
\n 
\nCOLLOCATION
\n 
\nI bumped into him
\nat the commuter terminal
\nat Dulles.
\nHe hadn\u2019t changed much.
\n 
\nHis name was Artie
\nbut we called him Jack\u2014
\nsince Junior High
\nhe was pinned at the hip
\n 
\nwith the Annette
\nwe knew as Jill.
\nAs a matter of fact
\nour chance encounter
\n 
\nwas less surprising
\nthan his Jill-less-ness.
\nWhere was she?
\nI longed to ask
\n 
\nbut hadn\u2019t the nerve.
\nJack and Jill
\ndid all things together
\nfrom the time they were 12
\n 
\nto the time they left
\nfor a New England
\nLaw School that wasn\u2019t
\nYale or Harvard.
\n 
\nBut there she was
\nwalking down the concourse
\ntowards us\u2014
\nthe big smile
\n 
\nI remember from forever
\nstill on her face.
\nShe was always
\na pleasure to see.
\n 
\nIt wasn\u2019t until
\nI shouted Jill
\nthat I realized
\nit wasn\u2019t her.
\n 
\nJust some pale copy
\nstamped out of old plates.
\nJack offered no explanation,
\njust a long-winded account
\n 
\nof how he came to sales.
\nAfter, I shook his hand
\nand said with an odd sense of loss,
\n\u201cGood to see you, Arthur.\u201d <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nCat Dixon<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nMINOT
\n 
\nBecause it\u2019s cold,
\nhe said, we should
\ncamp in his cabin.
\n 
\nHe had one chair, one
\nspoon, one bowl. Two
\nrooms were filled with
\n 
\nbooks and unopened
\nenvelopes which he used
\nas scratch paper:
\n 
\ngroceries lists, knock knock
\njokes, lines of poetry,
\nsoup recipes.
\n 
\nHe hogged the blankets
\nat night, napped incessantly
\nthroughout the day,
\n 
\nand wouldn\u2019t kiss
\non the lips. Yet,
\nhis riddles, spicy
\n 
\nto the tongue, kept
\nme parched. His poems,
\nwhich I thought
\n 
\nhe wrote for me, kept
\nme intrigued. In the dark
\nwe held hands.
\n 
\nHuddled in front
\nof the wood stove,
\nI was sure we\u2019d never
\n 
\ngo hungry or get bored.
\nSnow kept him in,
\nbut love drove me out.
\n 
\n 
\nYOU CAN\u2019T TEACH AN OLD DOG NEW TRICKS
\n 
\nA dozen times he emails asking
\nhow to close a Google Doc. A hundred
\ntexts ping with worry that his changes
\nare unsaved. All attempts
\nto train via phone and email
\nare in vain, and lightning
\nmust flash in my word choice
\nor punctuation for he knows
\nI\u2019m annoyed. I should shower
\nhim with respect\u2014the only thing a man
\nwants. Awkward with Google docs,
\nnervous about the drive, he demands we
\nempty the cloud\u2014now. His words may be
\nplagiarized, or god forbid read. Text
\nin this drive is set for our eyes only,
\nbut he insists. Does he imagine
\nall those words raining
\nfrom cloud to hard disk? Do clouds
\nthis dense even exist? Does he
\nbelieve that I would erase all this?
\nI click the icon of the two little gray
\npeople. His role is editor. I hit \u201cremove.\u201d
\nI say the drive is empty, but that\u2019s
\nanother lie. Our words
\nwill go unpublished, but not unheard. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nClive Donovan<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nPARTY SOUVENIR
\n 
\nI awake to flashbacks… flickers of party:
\nnibbling, shots, long beers, tricky cocktails;
\nmy wig shook to music. We were rocking.
\nA minute after midnight,<\/p>\n

climax of a golden moment<\/p>\n

\u2013 klaxons! \u2013 whistles! \u2013 bells! \u2013 fireworks!<\/p>\n

Dancing on the bar with girlies<\/p>\n

dressed in nets as angels or fairies<\/p>\n

whirling in storms of confetti…<\/p>\n

a miracle we never fell.<\/p>\n

 
\nA piece of wing detached, a muslin
\ngauzy pink thing I took home to keep
\nunder my pillow and for weeks after
\nit maddened and delighted me, to drink the smell,
\nthe scent \u2013 O most Divine Snuff \u2013
\nas if from off a distant sea swept \u2013
\nfaint ammonia \u2013 froth \u2013 the reek \u2013 the sweat!
\nOf beautiful bad girls and tobacco! <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKelly DuMar<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nMARRIAGE IN OCTOBER BARN
\n 
\nWhen the roof of our crammed
\nshed tips toward collapse
\nmy husband knocks
\nthe eyesore over.
\n 
\nIn its footprint he erects
\na pre-fab barn, two floors,
\nnot for hay, not for rakes, broken
\nbicycles, livestock\u2013\u2013
\nnot even kids to store
\nanymore.
\n 
\nThis stage is fresh blank,
\nemerald painted, the floors,
\nwalls sponged yellow-gold,
\nno mirrors, one window
\na view of red maple.
\n <\/p>\n

Where I spend<\/p>\n

 
\nhours writing in surplus
\nof silence and snack on
\nradishy roots of my craving\u2013\u2013
\nlifted last night
\nfrom a moon-lit lawn.
\n 
\nNow late afternoon
\nthis hot branch burns
\ninto my window\u2013\u2013fierce Maple,
\nto you, I confess
\n <\/p>\n

I do not want to go unpaired.<\/i><\/p>\n

 
\nFrom the smash\u2013\u2013
\nscarlet leaves at his feet\u2013\u2013
\nhe calls up my first name
\nto my window Hello? are you
\nworking?<\/i> Yes, I\u2019m in a rough
\ndraft\u2013\u2013
\n 
\nImagine\u2013\u2013all of the fallen
\nstrands of my hair over years
\nroped into stairs. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMichael Estabrook<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nCADAVERS
\n 
\nMost of these guys have money. They\u2019re slumped over in the sand, pale and pot-bellied. They run their own companies, hire and fire with a fingersnap. They extort money, commit adultery, beat their wives and children, maybe even murder them. But out here in the sun at the ocean’s edge they are like the cadavers I used to dissect in medical school. I used to think in the end we’re all the same. Now I know we’re all the same right from the start, except of course for Mozart Einstein Dante Shakespeare Leonardo Monet Cleopatra and Warren Estabrook, my great-great grandfather, who invented the sump pump. And Joan of Arc. So what’s the point? I’m not sure. I’m really not sure.
\n 
\n 
\nDOORJAMB
\n 
\nTrying to find her to ask her a question
\nabout iPads or cellphones
\nor something (not sure anymore)
\nfound her in the bedroom
\nas she was changing to meet
\nher girlfriends for coffee
\nso I asked my question
\njust as she unhooked her bra
\ndropped it nonchalantly on the bed
\nthen leaned her topless self
\nup against the doorjamb and answered me
\nI said thank you Honey turned and walked away
\nhaving no idea what she just said. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDeirdre Fagan<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSTEPPING UP
\n 
\nSome people become parents through adoption,
\nothers, by not wearing a condom.
\nSome step into it, bringing children of their own.
\nSome, like you, enter the challenge green,
\nand partway through the game.
\nThe day I knew you were becoming a father
\nwasn\u2019t the day you taught our youngest to ride a bike,
\nor held our son close for the first time.
\nIt was while we were new,
\ntheir biological father now in a box,
\na child now on your lap, at my kitchen table,
\nwhen for the first time, without hesitation,
\nor a syllable missed in your sentence,
\nyou leaned forward around the girl,
\nand with one hand slid the full milk glass
\n12 inches to the side, out of the way of her
\nenthusiasms, and, in so doing, awakened mine. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMike Farren<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nDRAMATIC SUNSETS MAY RESULT FROM MT. ST. HELENS ERUPTION
\nThe Christian Science Monitor, 20 May, 1980<\/i>
\n 
\nThere\u2019s a version of me smokes cigars
\nin a college room \u2013 wears a cravat
\nin paisley pattern \u2013 green or turquoise \u2013
\nlistens to baroque guitar
\nand watches while the setting sun
\nin the winter sky paints long white clouds
\nin mother-of-pearl \u2013 and wants to own it \u2013 all. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKrista Genevieve Farris<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nYOU CAN TELL
\n 
\nI jazz the jumbled up fractions of being spent on a
\ndime\u2019s edge, bumpity-bump, a stroke away from the
\nsmooth fearless face, unreal unwrinkled unwinking frozen mug,
\nSitting, like a tip, near a thick walled mug
\nfrom a comfort called \u201cThe Nook\u201d
\na tea\u2019s steamy whisper that radiates the snazzy sip of mint
\na zippy tea that leaves as it settles faint wisdom,
\nprognosticates on a porch that\u2019s used sometimes-
\nnot often, because of traffic- not the foot kind that kindly nods-
\nbut zooming zam jam slams of vehicles that blow halitosis-
\ngrit that sleeps in pores conceals slickness, dulls sheen
\nmakes the placid dime mound face
\ninscrutable, unskateable. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nVern Fein<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nOF MARGARET WISE BROWN:
\nGOODNIGHT MARGARET
\n 
\nLittle one as I rock you to sleep
\nyou do not yet know your world.
\nYour room is blue, not green\u2014
\nno telephone, red balloon,
\nor picture of a cow jumping over the moon,
\nno kittens or mittens, no bears, young mouse.
\nYou have a comb and a brush, a clock, a doll house
\nand your Grandmother rocking you hush.
\n 
\nYou do not know of Margaret.
\nI will tell you now and I will tell you later.
\nYou will not understand me now.
\nWill you understand me later?
\n 
\nGoodnight Brownie:
\nBeautiful, green-eyed, blonde-haired vixen,
\nextravagant, eccentric lover of King Juan Carlos,
\na John D. Rockefeller nephew,
\nMs. Michael Strange, ex-wife of John Barrymore,
\nothers.<\/i>
\n 
\nLittle one, do not kick your leg up in the air
\nwhen your doctors told you no,
\nclotting your leg and stopping your heart.
\nDo not give your inheritance to a wastrel.
\n 
\nInstead write 100 picture books
\nwith melodies you can whistle.
\n 
\nGoodnight stars
\nGoodnight air
\nGoodnight noises
\nGoodnight foolish choices
\nEverywhere.
\n 
\n 
\nDEAD BRONTES
\n 
\nOh, you think I write
\nof Emily, Charlotte, and Anne,
\ntragic young deaths,
\nlives snuffed out
\ncaring for neglectful father Patrick,
\nwastrel brother Branwell.
\n 
\nNo, I tell of older sisters
\nwith forgotten names,
\nMaria and Elizabeth, who died
\nat Cowan Bridge School
\nfrom hunger and cold.
\n 
\nPatrick spirited the surviving sisters home
\nto create Jane Eyre, Heathcliff, Agnes Gray,
\nand assorted poems by fake male authors.
\n 
\nHistory has a way of raveling.
\nAh, but that unraveling leaves life
\nfull of mystery and grief.
\n 
\nThis is for you, Maria and Elizabeth.
\nWhat might you have penned
\nhad Patrick repented sooner? <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJames Fowler<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nWHEREABOUTS UNKNOWN
\n AS LISTED IN HIS BROTHER\u2019S GENEALOGY
\n 
\nEvery darkened hour of every night, Ghost rises up the old factory wall and spins so fast he shreds himself. His body, face down in the culvert below the grate, displays an operation scar on the left side of his back, caused by the hand-grenade shrapnel that hit him as he turned to give the orders, “Take cover!” The worn soles of his combat boots show the level of his desire to do what he wanted, when he wanted, after the medical discharge. The slash across his throat made him Ghost. He had stopped to help a young woman who sat on the sidewalk beside the grate, her head down as she cried. Ghost\u2019s last sight, her blue eyes as she looked up to see her pimp\u2019s knife drip blood. Ghost\u2019s last sound, the screech of the grate as they opened it to dump him in. His last taste, stagnant water as he clunked to the bottom of the pipe. Tonight, people who stroll the pavement ignore Ghost as he begins again to spin above a grate outside a long-dead factory\u2019s wall. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMeg Freer<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nFIRST TRAIN RIDE
\n 
\n\u201cDaddy, the trees are moving!
\nWait, trees don\u2019t move.\u201d
\nThe three-year-old girl
\nwho didn\u2019t stop talking
\nfor three hours, all the way
\nto Montreal.
\n 
\n 
\nRULES OF THE ROAD
\n 
\nDon\u2019t oil your hair before you start out,
\nunless you plan to start a garden up there.
\nIn winter, abstain from alcohol. It plays tricks,
\npretends to keep you warm then freezes
\nyou lickety-split. If it\u2019s not cold, be generous,
\npass your bottle around. Don\u2019t smoke
\nyour pipe inside the coach, and know
\nwhich is the leeward side before you spit
\nso you don\u2019t get it back in your face. Don\u2019t
\nfire your gun out the window. Respect
\nyour neighbor by not swearing, sleeping
\non their shoulder, or discussing religion
\nor politics or all the sites along the road
\nwhere people have been murdered.
\nIf the horses run away, stay seated.
\nYour chances are better than if you jump.
\n 
\n* Adapted from the Omaha Herald (Nebraska), 1867
\n 
\n 
\nOAK AND BARLEY
\n 
\nDaring, reliable shaman, V\u00e4in\u00e4m\u00f6inen, eternal poet, spawned
\nby sea-foam and wind, growing and aging but trapped unborn
\nand bored for 700 years (or maybe only 30), never seeing sun
\nor moon, breaks free into the waves at last, emerges alone
\nfrom bleak inner life to a treeless land in bleaker outer world.
\n 
\nHis first desire (why wait so many years)\u2014trees: willow, pine,
\njuniper, fir, larch, rowan, birch, alder, spruce, chokecherry,
\noak, but oak won\u2019t sprout in misty meadow, needs ashes from
\nburnt grasses sown with salt, needs extra care from magic leaf.
\n 
\nThe oak tree grows and thrives, grows too tall, shears the air,
\nshuts out moon and sun, its voice, the wind through leaves, too
\nloud, and V\u00e4in\u00e4m\u00f6inen worries (even at his age), calls on his
\nmother, daughter of creation, to send him aid.
\n 
\nA man arises from the deep, just inches tall, dressed all in
\ncopper with copper ax, and V\u00e4in\u00e4m\u00f6inen wonders how one so
\nsmall could hew the oak, but tiny sea chap becomes a giant\u2014
\none step to shore, a second to turf, a third to the oak\u2014and with
\nthree strokes of his ax fells the tree, frees sun and moon
\n(he disappears, but he\u2019ll help in a later tale).
\n 
\nSacred oak leaves gifts\u2014branches for good fortune, crown
\ntips for a magic touch, sprays of leaves for faithful love\u2014
\nthe other trees grow (little do they know what is to come),
\ngrass and berries, flowers grow, but barley doesn\u2019t sprout.
\n 
\nSeeds and kernels in the sea sand, V\u00e4in\u00e4m\u00f6inen saves them,
\nscatters more seeds in a field, until that vocal songbird,
\ntitmouse, warns they still won\u2019t grow unless he clears and
\nburns the land (why would a bird wish away trees), so he
\nspares a single birch for birds to rest, become part of its song.
\n 
\nGrateful eagle conjures flames, from ashes barley grows,
\nrustles in spring rain, silver-breasted cuckoo comes to call,
\nmorning, noon and evening, from the birch, exults for life,
\nfor riches blooming, and in less than no time (as stories go),
\nV\u00e4in\u00e4m\u00f6inen, child-man of water, with fire has rushed
\nhis world into a farming age. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSteven Fregeau<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nON APRIL 13, 1972
\n 
\nRichard Nickel, photographer,
\ndied trying to save
\nthe architecture of Chicago,
\nthe Sullivans & Adlers,
\nfrom the wrecking balls
\nof politicians who owned unions
\n& the hatred of the people
\nfor anything old.
\n 
\nit was a brutal irony
\nto many people\u2014
\nan opportunity for pity\u2014
\nwhen the Stock Exchange
\ncollapsed, crushed him,
\nas if that building finally
\naccepted being hated, accepted
\nits hatred of the pity that goes
\nundistinguished from love.
\n 
\nthose buildings, snubbed & loathed\u2014
\nbeautiful things, but old
\nlike Spenser & Milton & Bront\u00eb\u2026
\nParmigianino, Carracci, Il Sodoma\u2026
\nPurcell, Sibelius, Hayden, &c.\u2014
\nknow in the heart
\nof their bricks & steel beams
\nit\u2019s getting hard to tell
\nwhat is love & what\u2019s pity these days;
\nhard to deny that
\nwhen a man does not kill
\nthe thing he loves,
\nthe thing he loves must kill him.
\n 
\ndo not dare call it \u201cingratitude\u201d:
\nit took 28 days
\nto find Nickel\u2019s body. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGerald Friedman<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nISOLATING MYSELF
\n 
\nDo I want breakfast? Was I just pacing, or did I walk in here for raisins? They were forgotten, as the flour was forgotten. Pecans on the pantry shelves. I feel strange. Maybe I\u2019d have more energy if I could hike a canyon trail in the shadow of fluttering leaves, but I don\u2019t have the energy. Breezes shake the puddle, rewording every line it quotes. A robin chirps in the serviceberry bush, repeating three slurred notes. Sleep, my child, and fever all through the night. That line\u2019s not right. Skunks in the yard. I say I flee them in terror, and people don\u2019t see it\u2019s half a joke. No offense in the world, to themselves or to us. C. S. Lewis didn\u2019t know how right he was\u2014Original Sin is shit. Have to remember that. Have to lie down and see if I can get to sleep. The room is gray as underwater. My head is too far from my shoulders, the ceiling has the wrong dimensions. My phone\u2019s flashes make faint halos on it. Dim reflections and diminuendos… R\u2019lyeh! R\u2019lyeh! A thousand deaths were not enough for R\u2019lyeh! I can\u2019t think of how to use it if I keep repeating it in my high-pressure head as I\u2019m pacing about the room again. Good thing no one\u2019s here thinking they\u2019re taking care of me. I have everything I need. Soon I\u2019ll find my raisins.
\n 
\n 
\nTHE BLUEBIRD’S WARNING
\n 
\nBlue wholly, preciously,
\nIt chirped, \u201cDon\u2019t try the key
\nTo one room. It appears
\nDeeper than sky, but shears
\nAren\u2019t more flat.\u201d With that trade
\nI\u2019m freed, I can evade
\nThe sun that makes a dust,
\nThe brothers I must trust. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJoshua Gage<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nAVEL
\n 
\nMr. President, will you sit
\nshiva for these strangers?
\nWill you fill seven days
\nwith tears? Will Kaddish cling
\nto your tongue like blood
\nand hair to a car bumper?
\n 
\nIf I tell you hate is a festering sore
\non the heart, can you calculate
\nthe amount of pus a body will hold
\nbefore it bursts with poison?
\n 
\nIf I say \u201cHolocaust,\u201d can you smell
\nthe ovens\u2019 stench and convince me
\na serpent of torches is not heat enough?
\nIf I say \u201cfascist,\u201d can you convince me
\nthat all fists are created equal,
\nthat healing is an impartial act,
\nor that history will hear the screams on many sides?
\n 
\nPOLLICIS
\n\u201cPalm, drunken father behind a wrinkled newspaper\u201d
\n-Eric Anderson<\/i>
\n 
\nAt some point, he drops the headlines
\nof scars and wrinkled box scores,
\namputates himself from the tired
\narmchair, stretches each finger. Today<\/i>,
\nhe convinces himself, will be different.<\/i>
\nHe mounts the stairs to the bedrooms
\nwhere his children sleep, tucked
\nagainst the darkness. He kisses
\nwhat\u2019s left of them goodnight,
\nthose parts that still call him
\nDaddy and long to hug him.
\nHe slopes out into the brutal
\nwrist of the evening, the door
\nlatching its cuff behind him.
\n 
\nThe freeze-dried percolations in the church
\nbasement are barely warm
\nenough to make him stop
\nshivering, let alone remember
\nthat he is powerless. Cheap
\njugs of port whisper confessions
\nto him from the sacristy. He can feel
\nthe breast of glass against him,
\nits body cradled within his body.<\/p>\n

Tonight,<\/p>\n

I will find my wife\u2019s hip
\nbeneath the lace hem of her
\npajamas. She will roll
\ninto the caress that says
\nHello. My name is… <\/i><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nChristian Garduno<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHIS HOUSE IS NOT FOR SALE
\n 
\nThis House is not for sale to the highest bidder
\nIt will not be shaken off its foundation by intimidation
\nIt not falter in its responsibilities to the health of all its citizens
\nIt will not forsake its fallen nor those who have served with honor
\n 
\nThis House will not cater to cowards who hide behind conspiracies
\nIt will hold to account all claims of fraudulence
\nThis House will never fly a flag devoted to a single man\u2014
\nIt will never offer protection to insurgents masquerading as patriots
\n 
\nThis House is tired of stepping on the poor to pander to the wealthy
\nIt will not cower to those who incite violence for their own profit
\nIt will fight the outbreak with pragmatic science and direct action
\nIt will no longer blame the hungry, but will offer a plate and a seat at the table<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMac Gay<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nON THE EUTHANASIA OF DOGS
\n 
\nLast night I dreamed a mechanical dog\u2014
\nIt could bark, beg, curl up in my lap,
\ndo everything that you guys did
\nbut die, and all we\u2019d be out ever
\nwould be just parts and labor
\nwhen it broke\u2014it\u2019d never
\nbreak our hearts. The part I
\nreally hate about the real
\nis how all life leaked out
\nof your bright, glad-to-see-us eyes,
\ninevitable as gravity that pulls
\nthe bounce right out of every
\nplayful ball. What\u2019s worse,
\nmy funny, furry family, who
\nloaned us laughs over the years
\nbut called all debt due at the end
\nin one lump sum of grief,
\nyour days that taught mortality
\nwere seven times as brief. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMarissa Glover<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nIN THE BEGINNING
\n 
\nThe curse is similar to the creation.
\n 
\nEvents repeat. The action builds,
\nculminating in a strange cycle of life,
\nthen death.
\n 
\nOn the first day there is bloating.
\nOn the second day there is blood.
\nOn the third day there are mood swings.
\nOn the fourth day there is blood.
\nOn the fifth day there are cramps.
\nOn the sixth day there is blood.
\nAlways, the promise of pain.
\n 
\nThe seventh day is set aside as a day
\nof bingeing. But grease and caffeine
\nonly make it worse, another punishment
\nfor eating what we shouldn\u2019t have. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRhiannon Grant<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nPOSTCARD TO NEWGRANGE
\n 
\nDear great-times-two-hundred-grandma:
\nIt’s raining here \u2013
\nit probably was when you were.
\nYour past seems near \u2013
\nsomeone found your beads \u2013
\nthe same sun shines \u2013 or not.
\nWe still plants seeds.
\nWe still like fire \u2013 a lot.
\nI hope you’re well.
\nDead, I know, but dry
\nwith visitors pell-mell
\nand a little view of sky.
\nPlease enjoy this letter.
\nWriting will be sent
\nwith Christ, for worse or better.
\nMuch love from your descendent.
\n 
\n 
\nVIRAL GOD
\n 
\nSupreme Multiplier
\nLord of Hosts
\n 
\nYou are beside me as I leap in a droplet
\nYou save me from Soap
\n 
\nLet me land on a friendly face
\nDance with me in the land of Lung
\n 
\nWe praise You for this perfect world
\nand You protect us in the distancing desert
\n 
\nBest Virus
\nour replications are at your command
\n 
\n 
\nARCHAEOLOGIST
\n 
\n“good teeth” she says first
\ntrowel tickling where my tongue was
\nno fillings, no artefacts
\nso my bones go in a box to a lab
\nwhere someone notes down:
\nearly twenty-first century
\nprotein sources mainly plants
\nwater from chalk \u2013 Chilterns? \u2013 and Wales
\n“they piped it” someone reminds her
\n“and added fluoride \u2013 look at those teeth!”
\n 
\n 
\nA FAMILY HOME
\n 
\nNobody makes haste
\nto Eastwood. Solid brick:
\nsteady rows climb over hills
\nstriped with streets and coal.
\nHomes echo the tap hammer tap,
\nthe foreman’s shout,
\nand in every shaft of sunlight, dust.
\nYou can uncover the cobbles,
\nrub out the satellite dish:
\nhear carts clatter past as
\nround the corner Lawrence grows
\nthrobbing teenage gristle.
\nThe miners need meat
\nbut it’s mainly bread for littles
\nwho chew with tough hunger
\nwhich is not allowed
\nin the front parlour.
\nThey go to evening classes.
\nThey set out up the slow road:
\nfive generations to a PhD. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nHank Greenspan<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nWINGLESS ANGELS
\n 
\nA nurse says she is resigned.
\nShe embraces triage
\namong the unlucky,
\nthe heedless, and the doomed.
\n 
\nWe need nurses as angels,
\nhaloes and heroes and wings.
\nWingless nurses are terrifying.
\nLike us.
\n 
\n <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJohn Grey<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nBLIND DATE
\n 
\nI jangle the medallion in my pocket.
\nIt\u2019s never brought me the luck I anticipated
\nwhen it first came into my possession.
\nBut I can\u2019t bring myself to toss it out.
\n 
\nWho knows? No luck at all may be
\nthe best that it can wangle for me.
\nThrow it away and my luck could turn out
\nevery shade of bad.
\n 
\nSo that\u2019s the sound you hear.
\nWith a constant clang, I\u2019m convincing myself
\nthat my life is one long mediocrity
\nbut it could be a lot worse.
\n 
\nLike the way you fiddle with that purse latch.
\nMaybe that\u2019s your talisman. Maybe we\u2019re the result.
\nI\u2019ll jangle. You fiddle.
\nThis may not be much but it gets no better.
\n 
\n 
\nBRIGHT RED TOENAILS
\n 
\nI went down
\nto the river where
\na woman\u2019s bright red toenails
\nwere being pulled out of the water
\nby two men in blue overalls
\nwhile mindless fishermen
\nlooked on
\nand a siren whirred in the distance –<\/p>\n

unwelcoming day,<\/p>\n

well past equinox,<\/p>\n

some of us drowning in debt,
\nbut this poor soul \u2013<\/p>\n

her knees,<\/p>\n

the threads of her dress emerging now \u2013<\/p>\n

embodied
\na different kind of payback \u2013<\/p>\n

her waistline,<\/p>\n

chest, flopping arms \u2013<\/p>\n

but my eyes looked elsewhere,
\nwhen it came to her face,
\nturned away like a township,
\nfelt as cold
\nas where she last was living. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJohn Haugh<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nCHAIN-SLACK MOMENT
\n 
\nI stare at my friend\u2019s old photo
\nof me, our last high school days
\non a creaking swing.
\nMy back parallel with the ground,
\nbaby blue high tops pointed
\nat the sky, shouting joy.
\nThat chain-slack moment
\nbefore gravity and inertia,
\nand everything else.
\n 
\n 
\nHALF TEASPOON GHOST
\n 
\nI start small, slide a pot holder under my steaming electric iron.
\nOn its left side, the iron huffs steam toward the chair next to it,
\nall inside a purple chalk circle. I chant old words, use salad tongs
\nto place a fossilized alligator\u2019s tooth on chuffing metal.
\nEverything placed just so inside the circle, except me of course.
\nA few bars sound from Michael Jackson\u2019s \u201cThriller.\u201d A sudden smell
\nof her cinnamon-nutmeg tea. Laura forms on the chair in the circle.
\nShe gathers steam and white fog. Her endearing, oversized glasses
\nwith a small side curtain of brown hair on her left, as ever.
\nShe looks puzzled. Stares for long moments. I\u2019ve aged.
\nShe rears back in the chair, shrill-screams anger and presses
\nthe back of her left hand to the hot iron, again.
\nGhost flesh bubbles, just as on the day I broke up with her
\nat college. I shout, \u201cLet the pain go\u201d as my fingers
\nscrape furrows in my worried scalp, \u201cWe were reckless
\nnineteens. I tried to do right, but saw no healthy path,
\nfound no good words.\u201d Her ghost leans in. She cocks
\nher head to her left, tilting the edge of her glasses down.
\nHer shoulders sag. My electric iron sighs to silence, its light
\ndies despite still being plugged in. She gives a small, hurt smile,
\nlike when she told stories of the cruel Tulsa rich boy she had after me.
\nI step inside the chalk circle, electric anxious-uncertain. She brightens,
\ntouches my right cheek once, same as ever. With an expression
\nclose to last kiss at the door before her dorm closes, she disintegrates.
\nThe smell of her tea lingers. I pocket her old alligator\u2019s tooth,
\nand clean up my mess, feel a half teaspoon of hope lighter.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRobin Helweg-Larsen<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nWOMAN
\n 
\nWoman is a slot machine.
\nThe man inserts his coin in the slot.
\nIf it is well-timed, a child comes out.
\nThis is the man\u2019s view.
\n 
\nNo, woman is a tree.
\nEach month she produces a red flower.
\nIf no insect fertilises it, the flower falls.
\nEven if fertilised, a fruit may start to form,
\nbut fall,
\nsometimes so early that the tree never knew it was developing.
\nSometimes the fruit grows almost to maturity
\nbut falls.
\nThese are natural events in the life of the tree.
\nIn times of drought or fire or misadventure, the tree lets
\nthe fruit fall;
\nthe tree may want to fruit, but
\nthe tree\u2019s own life is more important.
\nAnd if the fruit matures, even then it is uncertain
\nwhether it can be safely picked and delivered,
\nor will fall
\nbe bruised,
\nbe lost.
\nThis is the tree\u2019s life.
\nThis is the woman\u2019s view.
\n 
\nThis is part of her, of her process,
\nfrom hundreds of flowers which are part of her<\/i>
\nthrough several mischances which are part of her<\/i>
\nto some rare fruit which is part of her.<\/i>
\nThe insect which merely fertilises a flower
\ndoes not understand the tree.
\nLet men opine on insect tasks, not trees. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDamian Ward Hey<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nI CAN NO LONGER SAY THE MOON SHEDS TEARS
\n 
\nI can no longer say the moon sheds tears;
\nand, if I did, you might not listen.
\nYesterday was lyric\u2019s age \u2013
\ntoday, nobody sings of beauty.
\n 
\nLast week, they lauded their own youth,
\ncondemned the gray-beard for his bald spot,
\nblinked and, overnight, turned gray,
\napplying themselves to new aesthetics.
\n 
\nA month ago, I was a back-door man;
\nsnuck in, between the sheets, at moonlight.
\nNeon stands for moonlight, now,
\nand poetry snarls in the alley.
\n 
\nAnd every different day is much the same \u2013
\nthe poet finds another dwelling,
\nscrews a different patron pooch,
\nabandons the pup behind the diner.
\n 
\nBut if, tonight, I say the moon sheds tears \u2013
\nand if you hear me when I say it,
\ncan\u2019t we make one more attempt
\nto rescue tomorrow\u2019s starving mongrel?
\n 
\n 
\nWHEN AUTUMN FIRST LAID BARE ITS BONES
\n 
\nWhen Autumn first laid bare its bones,
\ndrove the fattened animal to its hole,
\n 
\nshook birdsong from the tree
\nand drew shadow from the hard earth,
\n 
\nour days were fast,
\nour nights set to the burning wood,
\n 
\nour lungs full of myth,
\nour blood made warm
\n 
\nby a different fire,
\nwhere we all once gathered.
\n 
\nIt seems to me
\nthere are too many fires, now,
\n 
\nin this new Autumn of our isolation,
\nand much less warmth as Winter looms.
\n 
\nSoon, we\u2019ll have no use for flame
\nexcept to burn through day,
\n 
\nno use for time
\nexcept to count our onward pulse,
\n 
\nno use for Autumn,
\nexcept to hope for Spring\u2019s clean breath. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nChristopher Hivner<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nBEYOND THE SUNSET
\n 
\nI was thinking
\nabout that one time
\nyou picked me up
\nat the train station
\nand stared at me dreamily
\nthe whole drive home.
\nI\u2019d been gone for three days,
\nyour soft eyes, genuine smile,
\nmade it seem like
\nI\u2019d come home from the war
\nand not Atlanta.
\nThirty varied years
\nhave passed
\nbut I still remember
\nyour look, your demeanor,
\nyour eyes lit me
\nlike a Klieg light,
\nyou held my hand
\nwith the strength
\nof desperation.
\nI felt loved in a way
\nI didn\u2019t know existed,
\nelevated to a pedestal
\nI never could have climbed
\non my own.
\nThe glow kept me warm,
\nthe heat sparked nerves under my skin
\nand I rode my high horse
\ninto the desert
\nthe long hair of my youth
\nflowing behind me
\na soft acoustic guitar
\nplaying me off
\nbeyond the sunset.
\n 
\n 
\nMOSAIC
\n 
\nThe truck wasn\u2019t there
\nI remember looking to mom
\nshe tried to look positive
\nI turned back to the window
\nmom was on the phone now
\n\u201cWhere is he?\u201d I heard her ask
\nI stared at the spot where his truck should have been by now
\nmom hung up the phone
\nI looked at her
\nher face was different
\nI went to my room
\nthe truck never came back
\nnew Saturday mornings
\nthe same as every other day<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRyn Holmes<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nATMOSPHERE
\n 
\nIn the end, he returned to his childhood home
\nonce graced with lush rose and plum perfume,
\nyet crippled by smoggy San Gabriel Valley air.
\nSummer was always a burden,
\na desert-blasted life
\ninhospitable to coolness\u2019 attempts
\nto gain entry into the valley.
\nIt\u2019s horrible to be back in the old bedroom
\nrecalling his asthmatic struggles to catch air,
\nhours spent wall-propped studying images
\nof tumbleweeds and thorny cacti
\nstrewn on faded wallpaper.
\nWanting to be elsewhere,
\nhe would have welcomed anywhere
\nexcept there in the dark begging
\nfor relief from the rock-enshrined Madonna
\nposed forever in backyard prayer. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDavid Harrison Horton<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nMODEL ANSWER (ANIMALS)
\n 
\nI finally got my VPN to work, and I asked my girlfriend what she
\nwanted to look at. She asked if we could see porn. I said, of course.
\nShe asked if we could watch a Tijuana donkey show. How the hell
\ndid she hear about that, I probed. Two and a Half Men.<\/i> You see,
\nthe internet is evil, clearly. The government should make a policy
\nto track whatever people read and see. Otherwise, first it\u2019s a
\ndonkey show, then she\u2019ll strap some IEDs to her underpants. It\u2019s a
\nclear line from one to the other. This is why I wish the internet
\nnever had been invented. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKate Hutchinson<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nPENDULUMS
\n 
\nThe new atomic clock will take 14 billion years
\nto gain or lose one second, using oscillations of atoms
\nas a pendulum. I think of a tiny swing set in a teardrop.
\n 
\nThis clock can also be used to detect dark matter,
\nI’ve been reading, but this seems strange to me
\nsince it means finding what can’t be seen.
\n 
\nWe took 13 years to decide we couldn’t live together,
\nbut gravity keeps us near enough that we may collide.
\nEach morning I see the sun drift farther north, until
\n 
\nit’s too heavy to lift itself over the horizon by the time
\nI arrive at work. I sit in the half-dark watching snowflakes
\non the windshield forming random designs, and I think
\n 
\nof the time we stayed out late by the campfire
\nwatching ashes swirl into the night. We said one day
\nwe would learn all the constellations, which barely change.
\n 
\nOne day they might name all the stars. Out in space,
\nhumans are tiny specks whirling in capsules
\nthat could soon alight on the surface of Mars.
\n 
\nWhen I return home after work the house is dark.
\nI have to feel along the wall to turn on the light.
\nSome nights it takes a whole hour just to go up the stairs.
\n 
\n 
\nHEARTTHROB
\n 
\nOh, gorgeous, of course the demons
\nfound you on the road less traveled.
\nThe clich\u00e9s of gig life have followed you
\nto this bar where a bad hip and bad credit
\noutpace your backbeats and rim shots.
\nYour beret, backward with a jazzy tilt,
\nno longer rests upon Dionysian curls
\nor adds a jaunt to your wink. Aged beyond
\nyour peers, you lean against the wall
\nand try to count the days, joints, beers
\nor blues since the last time nothing hurt.
\nYou learned long ago there’s no
\nsalvation in placing blame. Now,
\natonement comes just four nights a week,
\non the worn-out stool behind the drum set,
\nthe battered heads thinned, transparent
\nas you are. Now, there is only sleep
\nor numbness\u2014and the thrashing beat that
\npulsates through the crowd and repeats,
\na hundred hearts pumping life into yours.
\n 
\n 
\nNancy Byrne Iannucci<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nCHRISTMAS PLAYLIST
\n 
\nWe\u2019re together
\nas we are every night,
\ntogether but not together,
\nspeaking but not speaking.
\nthe coffee table is decorated
\nwith its usual cans of Lizard King,
\nsome roll across the living room.
\nthe cats chase them.
\nhe can shock me sometimes
\nwithout being shocking.
\ninstead of listening to Peter Schiff
\nor Ben Shapiro rattle on
\nabout the State of the Union,
\nhe puts on Dusty Springfield\u2019s
\nSome of your Lovin\u2019.
\nLook of Love<\/i> he selects next.
\n\u201cthissss one, thisss one\u2019sss for you.\u201d
\nwords slur and surge as breathless
\nas the ocean slaps Big Sur.
\nI do want to slap him sometimes
\nbut not now. he\u2019s making me rethink things,
\nrethink him & slamming doors.
\nhe\u2019s humming to The Doors: I look at you.
\nI look at him and see anger & kindness
\nin his blood-shot eyes- tonight, its kindness.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s Christmas!\u201d he says with a smile.
\n\u201cpass Nat King Cole,\u201d
\nChestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire<\/i>.
\nthere is something in his voice
\nthat makes me believe, believe
\neverything will be different.
\nEdward Hyde will stay hidden.
\nAfter all, isn\u2019t it Christmas,
\na time to believe, believe
\nall your wildest wishes
\nwill come true? <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nM. A. Istvan<\/a> Jr.<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nMORNING STAR
\n 
\nThe destruction of habitability
\nfor us and many others \u2013 was it
\nquickened by our need
\nfor amenities
\nexpected of the heaven
\nwe stopped believing in,
\nor by our denigration
\nof this place
\nthat is shit
\ncompared to the heaven
\nwe never really stopped
\nbelieving in?
\n 
\n 
\nBREAKER
\n 
\nTo fortune-cookie
\nthat a wave breaks only
\nwhen it gets ahead of itself
\nmay undermine
\nyour secondary purpose<\/i>
\n(before these table eyes)
\nof getting him
\nto slow down\u2014a wave,
\nafter all, gets ahead of itself
\nonly when sea floor
\nis too shallow, a fact
\nunchosen by it. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJennifer Judge<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nONE CHILDLESS MAY
\n 
\nThe May my husband got his motorcycle,<\/p>\n

that it rained almost every day, stopped<\/p>\n

 
\nto clearing and sunshine, then rained again.<\/p>\n

The May that spring arrived late, that days were terribly cold,<\/p>\n

 
\na May of downpours and green grass and a lying kind of sunshine.<\/p>\n

The May I was acutely aware of not being a mother,<\/p>\n

 
\nfelt it like a wind blowing through all my open windows.<\/p>\n

The May my daughter existed, but I didn\u2019t know it,<\/p>\n

 
\nand she wasn\u2019t even close to being mine.<\/p>\n

The May my husband went out on his bike<\/p>\n

 
\nand I felt terribly alone. Washing dishes couldn\u2019t solve it.<\/p>\n

The May I drove around with an empty carseat,<\/p>\n

 
\nadoption agency ready. Emergency numbers taped to phones,<\/p>\n

safety plugs in the outlets\u2014I had to remove them all the time.<\/p>\n

 
\n(I had a wound, I thought I would split in two.)<\/p>\n

The May that I got a speeding ticket on the highway.<\/p>\n

 
\nThe May the police officer glanced at my empty carseat,<\/p>\n

wrote my ticket, and noted my failings.<\/p>\n

 
\n(I was acutely aware.)<\/p>\n

The May we drove to a concert outside the city<\/p>\n

 
\nand we did not need a babysitter. The May<\/p>\n

I was no longer comforted by this. The May<\/p>\n

 
\nour house grew larger, emptier, neater by the hour.<\/p>\n

The May there was so much wrong and no one noticed,<\/p>\n

 
\nthe May there was so much I couldn\u2019t say,<\/p>\n

cries for help in housewife desperation:<\/p>\n

 
\ncooked meals, loaded dishwashers, organized utensil drawers.<\/p>\n

The May of cold and rain, of bright green grass that needed to be mowed<\/p>\n

 
\nevery other day. I remember that feeling, the lingering of it<\/p>\n

forever like the fumes leftover from cooking,   still,   even now.<\/p>\n

<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMollie Kindall<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSONNET
\n 
\nO ancient verse of Avon\u2019s bardic day
\nyour backward syntax and ecstatic speech
\ndo not delight my heart or help me say
\nI love thee to the depths my soul can reach.
\n 
\nPast Emerson and Yeats you journey still
\nto test the mettle of the educated scribe
\nwho cannot stand against your force of will
\nand it is you who have the final gibe.
\n 
\nI wish you nothing good. What can I find
\nto loose my pen from cobwebs of the past
\nand plumb the depths of newer heart and mind
\nfor ways of ending you forever and at last?
\n 
\nYour time will come to reach the final stage
\nand scarce be seen upon the poet\u2019s page.
\n 
\n 
\nLIBIDO
\n 
\nHello, old friend! I thought you
\ndied a thousand married years ago.
\nHow nice of you to visit me today!
\nAnd we can be alone or ask a third
\nif you prefer. I\u2019m so relieved to know
\nyou\u2019re doing well again. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nHilary King<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nMY MOTHER EATING ONION DIP
\n 
\nUnroll a reverie.
\nMother and daughter
\neating onion dip,
\ndiscussing how
\nto park money offshore.
\nA mother\u2019s job
\nis teach her children
\nto dream,
\nto secure funding,
\nto cut the dead weight.
\nFamily is what matters,
\nmy mother says,
\nand who
\nhandles your taxes.
\nWe clink our glasses,
\nand the ice rattles.
\nGo ahead, she says,
\npushing
\nthe bowl of chips towards me.
\nI select a large, perfectly oval potato chip
\nand lean deep
\nover the dip.
\nI feel her pride on me
\nlike salt.
\n 
\n 
\nSHADOW OF THE WIFE
\n 
\nDo you ever think about Ronald Reagan,<\/i>
\nmy husband asks me one morning.
\n 
\nI think of his wife, her hair fixed
\nas her loyalty, her unhappiness
\n 
\ncasting a shadow from her history.
\nI think of my own hair. Lately I\u2019ve been proud
\n 
\nof my lawless curls, the years it took
\nto unstraighten myself.
\n 
\nI can never get the comb through
\nin the back. It\u2019s forever tangled there,
\n 
\nmy pride, my desire, my selfishness,
\nmy shame. I run my finger there, measuring.
\n 
\nNo, I never think of Ronald Reagan,
\nI lie to my husband. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKoss<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSTILL LIFE NO. 1, CHERRY TOMATOES IN SINGING BOWL
\n 
\nWorms crawl out of their bins, dry up
\non the floor; a north door opens,
\nbut we know it closed years ago.
\nMax wanted a worm bin; I only missed
\nmy compost when I was in England.
\nI accumulate grievances, food scraps,
\ndeceased worms, yet honor her in each
\nritual. Every time I see the number two,
\nI remember how I nearly got there,
\nand counted us in the divide. Two is lucky
\nif there are two of them. Otherwise, not.
\nI can only type as fast as a finger runs.
\nI can only run as far as an ankle bone.
\nTomatoes taste better in my black Dickies pocket.
\nTomatoes taste better when the deer didn\u2019t eat
\nthem. They say you can feed worms dust bunnies,
\nhuman hair, and anything natural that is not an onion
\nor garlic. I am home today because my spent bones
\nlet me. It\u2019s a kind of recovery, the nothing I do. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nAllan Lake<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nGOLDILOCKS
\n 
\nHow was I to know when
\nI entered you that first time,
\nyou would become \u2018home\u2019.
\nNo question intended.
\nI\u2019d wandered feral, trying
\ndoors with skeleton keys,
\nprying window sashes.
\nPeople, like bears, are wary,
\nexpect trouble, invest in security
\nbut you, you were wide open
\nto penetration, mine at least.
\nWhen I tell it, you had been waiting
\nfor my rude intrusion but that just
\nadds emotive light and sound.
\n 
\nYours is a simple home\/nook
\nin the forest but when within
\nI don\u2019t want to be anywhere else.
\nWe eat then play bear games.
\nAfter gorging myself on your
\ntasty porridge, I could have run;
\nyou could have ejected me
\nbut that\u2019s some other story.
\nYou and I simply settled,
\ncontented, into a lazy update
\nof an old evolving tale. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRichard LeDue<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nWASTED
\n 
\nUsed to ride on the back of shopping carts,
\nbottom of sneakers worn from braking,
\nour laughter the most damning evidence
\nof loitering- mall security knew
\nus by name. Your hair always ponytailed,
\nuntil you sneaked that bottle of wine,
\na cheap one with a screw off top.
\nThe next day your mother chased us
\nwith a broom, called us \u201clazy maggots,\u201d
\nyou had to sleep in your tree-house that night.
\n 
\nOf course, none of this is true,
\nI barely ever left my room in high school,
\ntoo scared of the sound of my own voice,
\nand knowing my first kiss would only taste of spit.
\n 
\n 
\nBROKEN
\n 
\nmy friend’s mother wasn’t married to his father
\nyet i never felt bad for him
\nbecause he always had a lot of action figures
\n 
\nthen when i had a son
\ni knew what all those extra gi joes meant
\nknew somewhere there was a love
\nsplit in two
\n 
\nhaven’t talked to my friend in over twenty years
\nand statistics would likely say he’s probably on his second
\nor third wife
\nwith a kid who has a box
\nfull of broken plastic men
\nbut i hope the stats are wrong<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE CROW’S HABIT \u2014 G. LEONARD\/M. LEONARD<\/strong>
\n 
\n\"\"<\/a>
\n(photo credit: Gerald Leonard)<\/a><\/strong><\/a>
\n 
\nMare Leonard<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE CROW’S HABIT
\n 
\nThe crow\u2019s habit is to land at twilight
\n drink stale Smithwick, nasty Pub stuff.
\n 
\nToday he finds an abandoned
\n cup, takes a sip of cocoa, creamy smooth,
\n 
\nlike his sleek black feathers.
\nNo waiter in sight, no need to stop.
\n 
\nHe won\u2019t depart until his cup glows
\n 
\nlike the golden slice above.
\n 
\n 
\nMME. MATISSE IN A JAPANESE ROBE
\n 
\nWhat is this grey blue
\nsilk draped longer
\nthan my feet?<\/p>\n

If I scowl, two snakes sneak
\n across
\n my perfect oval face<\/i>
\nhiss at Henri
\n 
\nThe market closes at midi
\n I need two ripe
\napricots for dejeuner.
\n 
\nMust cater to all his needs.<\/i>
\n 
\n 
\n Henri hides behind his canvas,
\n 
\n I peel off slimy silk, escape
\n into blue sunny air<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMichael H. Levin<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHEN THERE’S THE MOMENT
\n 
\nwhen the blade snicks your rib
\nthe plane goes into a dive
\n 
\nyour wrist severs the window
\nspurting carnelian
\n 
\nan eighteen-wheeler hurtles
\ntowards your windshield
\n 
\nyou see there\u2019s no more to add
\nthat this, right now
\n 
\nis the summing up.
\n 
\n 
\nJANUARY 6
\n 
\nViolence is as American as cherry pie.<\/i> \u2013 H. Rap Brown, July 1968
\nHang Mike Pence! <\/i>\u2013 Capitol Terrace, 6 Jan. 2021
\n 
\nThe mind of the mob
\nis blank. Its swarms no
\nlonger are persons.
\nIt surges in waves
\n 
\nof gleeful hate
\nscreamed belief   a tide
\nflooding flats in snarls
\nbayed anthems   hands clenched
\n 
\nor clawed   mouths twisted
\nin rage, snaking long arms
\nlike the beast of Norse nightmares
\n 
\nslashing at innards
\nthrusting towards eyes.
\nWhatever blocks it is heaved
\nsplintered stomped to dust
\n 
\nit hears only forward<\/i>,
\ndrunk on momentum
\ncertain of right to crush
\nall that resists.
\n          Who
\n 
\nwears the flag now
\nwith an unctuous
\npride, might pause on
\nthis venomous roar
\n 
\nthese drumbeating urges
\nto rend and destroy.
\nWho thinks we are chosen
\nmight factor those in.
\n 
\nWho thinks it convenient
\nto slide back that gate
\nwill meet a dark hunger
\nthat circles and waits. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nBob MacKenzie<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSNAPS FROM THE WAR
\n 
\na woman\u2019s tear falls quiet to the road
\na young girl cries out and runs away
\nshots are fired then there is silence
\na man weeps as he falls to his knees
\n 
\nguards guide a man to a windowless van
\na woman who has no more tears falters
\na girl lies unmoving held by a woman
\na car and a van drive toward the city<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nEmily Marchment<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nDENMARK
\n 
\nMy love, tell me again about that worm
\nin Dune; how Richard, King of England, Lord
\nof Cyprus, royally dicked them over, sword
\nin hand (no play on words here, promise). Come.
\nMy darling, show me what that is, there (there),
\nyour armour slipped when you lay down, a bit,
\nI saw a secret underneath, was it
\nmuch softer than that steel you tend to wear?
\nLook up at me. I\u2019ll tell you how your face
\nfits perfectly and how your eyes somehow,
\nin this half-light, are far more blue, far more,
\nand with your head between my fingers, trace
\nyour cheekbones. Love, you shiver softly now.
\nLove, you can\u2019t be cold. You melted, I saw. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nHayley McCullough<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nWOULD YOU RATHER?
\n 
\nWould you rather\u2026 live as a crustacean or exist in perpetual gestation?<\/p>\n

\u2026 fellatio a hummingbird or sunbath with a dragon\u2019s turd?<\/p>\n

\u2026 pluck your curly hairs one by one or exfoliate with a mammoth tongue?<\/p>\n

\u2026 taste the rainbows and the stars or devour hearts from pickle jars?<\/p>\n

\u2026 hold the sun between your lips or caress the moon with fingertips?<\/p>\n

\u2026 seesaw with a zombie bride or frolic in the kraken\u2019s tide?<\/p>\n

\u2026 wear a dress of puppy tails or sleep on a bed of pig entrails?<\/p>\n

\u2026 replace your skin with wool and tweed or fill your veins with honey mead?<\/p>\n

Which would you rather? <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMaria McDonnell<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nDECEMBER 30, 2020
\n 
\nOne last walk in the woods
\nbefore this year eases its grip.
\nThe last miles in the last year
\nthat held the last breaths of my first boy.
\nTwo miles in, a trestle bridge,
\nmossy ties above the creek.
\nThree miles in, tubes of ice
\nsqueezed out from the rocky hill,
\nSteep drop to the flowing water
\non the other side of the trail.
\nFour miles to a wall, still green
\nwith rhododendron, wooden bench,
\nslant of light.
\nThe last mile marked
\nby the downhill watersong.
\nRelease and movement\u2014
\nlate afternoon ice thawing,
\ntumbling over stones.
\nDecember\u2019s last hours.
\nSunset before the last full moon\u2014the same moon
\nthat lit the night all year.
\nThe same water that has always
\nbeen moving down the hill
\n 
\n 
\nCANDLE IN THE WINDOW
\n 
\nIf I leave a candle
\nin your old bedroom window,
\ncould you see it there? Warm orange
\nglow cast on the soft blue tones
\nyou left behind.
\nIf I left a bowl on the wooden table
\nbefore I went to bed, would you
\ncome and sit in the gray sighing nighttime
\nhouse. Leave the subtle smudge of your thumb
\nbefore I wake?
\nI was told that prayer was the way
\nto reach the heavens, but the heavens have been silent,
\nand I cannot hear your voice
\nno matter how still the swirling
\nwaters become.
\nCome to the light\u2014
\nthe last crumbs from dinner, the heat
\nI leave behind me when I rise.
\nClimb the stars. Begin my nightly
\nsearch for that lost trace of you. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJennifer A. McGowan<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nEARPLUGS
\n 
\nThis is where we do not need
\na wall: where strawberries go to fuzz,
\nbetween the butter and the bread knife.
\n 
\nYou are an adult stirring tea
\nbut a child when you slurp it.
\nI drown in misophonia
\n 
\nI cannot wear earplugs all the time.
\nI cannot keep ring-fencing you\u2014
\nthe violent swearing, your perpetual shadow,
\nthe threatened fist.
\n 
\nStock by block walls build. Step by stair
\nred lines paint themselves down the middle of
\neverything.
\n 
\nThe blood says Do Not Cross.<\/i>
\n 
\n 
\nON VILLANELLES, IN SUMMER
\n 
\nI\u2019m not a villanellist. I just don\u2019t \u201cget\u201d refrains.
\nPentameter\u2019s a friend, and iambs cause no fuss,
\nBut in writing villanelles, my tears wash down like rain.
\n 
\nI\u2019ve published books of poetry. There is not one stain
\non my poetic reputation. But want to hear me cuss?
\nI\u2019m not a fucking villanellist. I just don\u2019t \u201cget\u201d refrains.
\n 
\nSonnets, now, those I can do. Sonnets cause no pain,
\nand are actually quite easy. I write in cars, on\u2019t bus,
\nbut writing villanelles? My tears wash down like rain.
\n 
\nI\u2019ve tried a triolet or two. Not good, in the main.
\nThe scansion turns out forc\u00e8d. So as sure as we is us,
\nI\u2019m not a villanellist. I just don\u2019t \u201cget\u201d refrains.
\n 
\nWrite a villanelle!<\/i> They said. It can surely be no drain
\non your copious mental talents<\/i>. I\u2019ve tried, and swear, vicious;
\nbecause in writing villanelles, my tears wash down like rain.
\n 
\nPlease don\u2019t ask me to write one. They weigh on me like chains.
\nMy pen trips over, stumbles. I may sound to you callous,
\nbut I\u2019m not a villanellist. I just don\u2019t \u201cget\u201d refrains.
\nIn writing villanelles, all my tears fall down like rain. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMaeve McKenna<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE DEATH IN OUR DAYS VERSUS THE LIFE IN OUR NIGHTS
\n 
\nSex is mine, you mutter, as your
\ndrooling tongue cavorts over my body,
\nyour slithery voice a wet-noise weapon.
\nYou snatch my breast in a pincer grip,
\nslap the receding nipple against yellow
\nenamel, promise to bite, bite, unless I squeal.
\n 
\nFiltered through the mocking sunrise, our
\nsalt dry limbs lie still, divided, captured
\nin chalky funnels of light as dawn creeps
\nover our black-night antics.
\n 
\nWe recoil amongst evidence, slink
\ninto crumpled clothes, make daytime sounds;
\nboil kettles, rattle keys, our muzzled
\nconsummation of hoarded
\nneed, wounded touch, foggy love,
\nsmeared on each breath-clouded window. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPatrick Jack Meacham<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nCLOCKWISE
\n 
\nHow do you know that you are reading this code correctly?
\nAll rules come from the inside where you can\u2019t proofread them.
\nYou compare and try to match the message with the experience.
\nBut is your definition the same as theirs?
\nIs your definition of definition the same?
\n 
\nWhere are we going?
\nAre we there yet, daddy?
\nI\u2019m hungry and I gotta pee.
\nLet\u2019s do this again soon. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJason Melvin<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nCHARCUTERIE
\n 
\nit\u2019s that moment when meeting a Hannah
\nbut you know she\u2019s an Emily
\nthe way her eyebrows peak in the middle
\nsurprise like a gift   wrapped in a purple bow
\ngiven on a Wednesday   three months before her birthday
\n        just because
\nfreckles   so many they become one
\ndefinitely an Emily   you can tell
\nby the way she tucks her hair behind one ear
\n 
\nit just can\u2019t be pepperoni   Gouda   saltines
\nit just can\u2019t be forty years of never hearing this
\nit just cannot be wasted on the deli section
\n 
\nit\u2019s too lovely to fit in its box
\ntoo big   its edges swell   they scrape
\nthe moment I realize   no hands attached
\nyanking my calf   and the laughter rolls and swirls
\nmaybe a tantric sex toy or ancient torture device
\nmaybe a rare flower that only blooms once a year
\nfor three days   each petal   a different shade of pink
\nuntil the last petal   blood red
\n 
\nit just can\u2019t be pastrami
\n 
\n 
\nTEN
\n 
\nI watched him decline daily
\nthe hair came out in clumps
\none-seventy to one-twenty
\nin just a few months
\n<\/p>\n

My dad could kick
\n your dad\u2019s ass<\/i>
\n 
\nnot anymore
\nthat was hard to admit
\n that was important
\nI was only ten<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMike Mesterton-Gibbons<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nEAT MORE VENISON?
\n 
\nE<\/b>lizabethan deer parks still endear,
\nA<\/b>s long as nightingales are heard to trill,
\nT<\/b>hough if the songbirds start to disappear,
\nM<\/b>eat eaters soon are urged: Take more deer kill!
\nO<\/b>ld hunters claim: “We must do what we can.
\nR<\/b>educing herds means does must fill game bags”\u2014
\nE<\/b>xcept all does prefer another plan,
\nV<\/b>asectomies performed on many stags!
\nE<\/b>scaping buckshot would not be a dream:
\nN<\/b>o hunters would be asked to load their guns
\nI<\/b>f snipping tubes and stitching up a seam
\nS<\/b>topped stags from saddling does with surplus sons …
\nO<\/b>f venison, must diners face a glut?
\nN<\/b>ot if they order chops before the rut!
\n 
\n 
\nSOAKY OR CRUNCHY?
\n 
\n 
\nS<\/b>ince childhood, I’ve loved soggy Weetabix:
\nO<\/b>ne hour of soaking made it right for me,
\nA<\/b>nd though I could not stomach politics,
\nK<\/b>ids often are as they’ll turn out to be …
\nY<\/b>our Weetabix was never soft to munch:
\nO<\/b>nce you had wet it, you ate right away,
\nR<\/b>eplenishing your stomach with a crunch\u2014
\nC<\/b>ould you have then imagined you today? …
\nR<\/b>emember Adler, Freud and all that jazz
\nU<\/b>pholding how we’re shaped by early years?
\nN<\/b>ow I’m a soppy liberal, whereas
\nC<\/b>onservative hard-liners are your peers …
\nH<\/b>ow breakfast augurs, politics align:
\nY<\/b>ou crunched your Weetabix, I deep-soaked mine! <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMichael Minassian<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTROTSKY IN MEXICO
\n 
\nHe wonders where the heat
\ncomes from,
\nsitting in the garden
\nwith his shirt off,
\nstroking his beard
\nand writing manifestoes
\nby candlelight.
\n 
\nSome days he meets Frida\u2014
\nremoving her skirt
\nand elaborate underwear.
\n 
\nDrinking vodka together,
\nhe writes down
\nlines of Russian poetry
\nshe says she will include
\nin her paintings
\n(but never does).
\n 
\nWhen the man with the axe
\narrives, he greets him warmly,
\npreparing soup and avocado
\nfor lunch, then escapes
\nseconds before the blade falls,
\nmissing him,
\ninstead hitting Frida\u2019s
\npainting of wild birds
\nlocked inside a cactus.
\n 
\nA few weeks later,
\na Russian speaking tailor
\nnamed Lev Davidovich
\narrived in the Bronx
\nand opened a shop
\non the corner of Tremont
\nand Third Avenues\u2014
\n 
\nlater hiring a Mexican
\nseamstress who paints
\nmurals on the side
\nof abandoned buildings
\nstrewn with slogans
\nin Russian and Spanish.
\n 
\nAt night, they sit and smoke
\ntogether on the fire escape
\ndrinking vodka and cold
\nbottles of American beer\u2014
\nthe revolution pausing
\nbetween two world wars,
\naway from Koba\u2019s reach
\nand the pyramid\u2019s gaze. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nFrank Modica<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nOUR FIRST ROAD TRIP
\n 
\nA BMW cuts me off
\nnear an off ramp to the interstate
\nand I yell at the driver,
\n\u201cyou stupid moron,
\nfools like YOU
\nshould be run off the road.\u201d
\n 
\nMy girlfriend looks at me
\nwith an expression that says,
\nWho is this stranger
\nI\u2019ve dated for almost a year?<\/i>
\nShe pleads, \u201cplease turn the car
\naround and take me back home.”
\n 
\nI cry, \u201cWe can work this out.\u201d
\nShe relents, \u201cI think I still love you.\u201d
\nWe make it to our destination,
\nstill friends, still lovers,
\nbut the wheels have already
\nstarted to come off the car. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nTom Montag<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nFROM
\n“THE WOMAN IN AN IMAGINARY PAINTING”
\n 
\nThose who watch the stars
\nknow the Great Attractor
\nis being pulled by
\n 
\nsomething greater. So
\nit is with the woman
\nin the painting. She was
\n 
\nsitting in a kitchen
\nposed and being painted,
\nand she was walking
\n 
\nthe far hills of her
\nchildhood. Now the painting
\nhas dried, yet in those hills
\n 
\nwind still moves the grasses.
\n 
\n  <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nS. M. Moore<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE FAN IS KILLING ME
\n 
\nThe soap is on the floor.
\nAnd the toenails are near the grime,
\nin the tiles.
\n 
\nAnd there is the gutter with water going into it
\nand the water floods the pipes
\nand goes somewhere.
\n 
\nThe light is sepia and warm,
\nand the paint; cracked.
\nAnd the fan hums,
\nand the sink drips.
\nAnd I watch it all unfold.
\n 
\nWhat a time it has been,
\nand what a time it will be tomorrow.
\nWith a little less paint on the walls,
\nand the sink, still dripping,
\nthe fan, still humming. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJohn David Muth<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nGREAT AUNT KATE\u2019S UNSUCCESSFUL ACCIDENT
\n 
\nKate was almost 40 in the late 1950’s,
\npregnant with her third child.
\nThe first was a boy,
\neight-years-old,
\nwho liked to shoot stray cats
\nwith a homemade bow and arrow.
\nThe second was a miscarriage at eight weeks.
\nShe convinced herself
\nit would have been a boy.
\nThe gender of the third
\nwas not then known.
\nIt was a mistake.
\n 
\nThree months before,
\nher husband Joe reached for her,
\na night when he didn’t reek of beer
\nor groan from nightmares
\nabout Kassarine Pass
\nor Omaha Beach
\nand she let her contempt subside
\ndid not turn her head away
\nas she often did
\neven when the room was black.
\n 
\nStanding at the head of the stairs
\nlaundry basket in hand
\nshe readied herself for a tumble
\nthat might be blamed on weak ankles
\nor a spell of vertigo
\nso common in women of the time
\nand hoped for that sensation
\na warm flow between her legs,
\nthe contents of a cracked honey pot
\nleft out in the sun. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRobert Nisbet<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nKILLERS
\n 
\nSix boys and six domestic dogs,
\nold Sheps, good boys, dogs from baskets,
\nleaving the Lane Saturday, for the woods,
\nand the boys got to the field, set camp,
\nthe spuds from the shed, twigs and matches,
\nroasting peacefully, when a rabbit
\n 
\nwhite-bobbed rapidly across the field
\nand two dogs went after it, sheepdog Shep
\nand Streak, a greyhound lurcher cross,
\n 
\nrunning the rabbit down and ripping at it.
\nBoys and dogs gathered. The rabbit screamed
\nand they saw the bare heart pound in fear
\n 
\nand imminent death. Two boys gloried.
\nTwo felt sick. Two blustered over the nausea.
\n 
\nBut on the Sunday, telling it,
\nit was the boasters who held sway. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nA. J. Ortega<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nPLEASE REMEMBER WHEN YOU DROWNED ME
\nfor my favorite Chicana<\/i>
\n 
\nThe cheap plastic blinds
\nleave zebra stripes of light
\non your back.
\nblack and white
\nno
\nbrown and tan.
\n 
\nyou squirm when I put my lips on
\nthe bumps of your spine
\n 
\nbut, I trace
\nmy finger along your
\nstretch marks, my personal little
\nrivers
\nthe Rio Grande, Guadalupe,
\nNueces, Frio, Colorado, and Bosque,
\nwhere the rapids were so fierce
\nI thought I would drown.
\n 
\nI hate my ____
\nI hate my ____
\nI hate my ____
\na challenge
\nto sleep on your breastbone or
\nto hold on to your butt for dear life until
\nthe rivers wash<\/p>\n

me<\/p>\n

away.<\/p>\n

<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSergio A. Ortiz<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nCELESTIAL CHORUS OF KISSES
\n 
\nI said goodbye and your lips confessed
\na tenderness long forgotten.
\n 
\nThe simplicity, magic
\nof your penetrating verbal phallus,
\nnumbed my conscience.
\n 
\nI said goodbye with a kiss.
\nWould have kidnapped you
\nbut knew you wouldn’t understand,
\nloneliness is a violent act of penitence.
\n 
\nSaid goodbye
\nto forget who
\nI had been.
\n 
\nCan still hear you
\nmoaning. I confess
\nto a new caring<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMarsha Owens<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nDIVORCE
\n 
\nit\u2019s not like stopping suddenly at a red light
\n 
\nit\u2019s easing onto the brake, tap, tap
\nthen rolling through the yellow light
\n 
\nand it\u2019s not like locking yourself
\noutside in the cold, on purpose
\n 
\nyou don\u2019t wake up one morning
\nand decide to burn the house down
\n 
\nit\u2019s more like a tree that gets worms
\nand dies slowly from within
\n 
\nor like the embers of a fire sending
\nsparks aloft that cease to be
\n 
\nlike reading the last page of a book
\nyou save to read again sometime
\n 
\nand that favorite tattered t-shirt, the one
\nyou\u2019ve always taken to the beach
\n 
\nalso the baby pictures, the Christmas wreath, cat\u2019s
\ngrave in the backyard, neighbor\u2019s house key on the hook
\n 
\nand half-burnt candles on the mantel
\nyou might light one more time. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nIlari Pass<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nLITERARY TACO BELL IS NOT WHAT YOU THINK IT IS AND EXACTLY WHAT YOU THINK IT IS
\nfor my son, Abdur-Rahmaan<\/i>
\n 
\nWhen, exactly, did I start thinking I hate Taco Bell? \u201cHey there, mom… Mama! \/ Do you (think you) hate tacos? \/ This taco is yours.\u201d I have mixed feelings about that message, and not just because it\u2019s a terrible haiku. Who the hell knows? One the one hand, I will go ahead and try it just to say that I did. On the other hand, when my son tells me, \u201cYou won\u2019t hate this taco,\u201d I wonder if he\u2019s subtly telling me that I should hate most tacos. For fun, he performs the classical parental con line, \u201cUh\u2026 mom, you might not like most tacos, but this Nacho Cheese Doritos Locos Taco is delicious\u2014try it!\u201d What\u2019s next, cheerfully singing, \u201cHere comes the airplane!\u201d before he starts reading a sonnet into my ears?
\n 
\n 
\nINLET
\n 
\nI wish I could be a child again, rapturous in the ocean, as you stand on the shore frantically waving your hands, urging me to come closer. Now I find myself loading boxes into your home, of all places, losing my last days in pill bottles and clumps of hair. While grateful that you welcome me back, I wish to close my eyes and dream of a girl who had no fear of riptides, the girl who could steal another length of the sea not yet swum. The tide came in and went out. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nAndrew Periale<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSEEKING GEN-X DUCHAMP, BRECHT, STRAVINSKY
\n 
\nThey want to make art \u2013
\nthe poseurs, the self-possessed
\ndreaming of houses
\nand spouses, but reined in
\nas adjuncts or worse
\ntheir purses are empty
\ntheir verses are competent
\nstill lifes and symphonies ripe
\nwith the journeyman\u2019s aptitude.
\n 
\nWhere is the crash
\nof a minor chord sparking
\na riot, the descending nude
\nthat peels our eyeballs,
\nor lyric that puts the corrupt on a spit?
\nToo careful choices, no asses
\nunkissed, now everything\u2019s sampled
\ncollaged, everyone\u2019s garnished
\nwith college degrees.
\n 
\nThey need to look down at their feet
\nand those muscular shoulders
\nstreaked with their sneaker treads
\nlet revolution flow up from toes.
\nWe will find the Picasso
\namong them \u2013 the Rimbaud, the Ives \u2013
\nthey are out in the streets now,
\ntaking a knee, dressed
\nin raw meat or firing
\npotshots at monsters.
\n 
\n 
\nSAGE
\n 
\na true cook         is master of zazen
\nnearby pedestrians slow their pace
\nat her mantra      of caramelizing onions
\na bone broth simmers and time expands
\ngathers anger     greed     fear in its cloud
\nand surrenders them to the West Wind
\n 
\nafter roasting vegetables
\non low heat for hours     for days
\nthe true cook adds liquid to the pan
\nreduces the stock       concentrates
\nhours become minutes
\nminutes seconds
\n 
\nthus in the fullness of thyme
\nof rosemary     a true cook bends
\nthe fabric of space     aromas
\non the lam     fill a house
\na yard     a neighborhood
\ndraw children to table
\nwith a gravity that renders
\neven grown men helpless
\nunable to rise
\nfrom their chairs
\n 
\nthe true cook\u2019s art
\nmakes science feel like magic
\nshe is up before dawn poised
\ncross-legged before the hearth
\nnot to make a meal
\nbut to forge a philosopher\u2019s stone
\na balm     a cure-all     perhaps
\nit won\u2019t stay Death     but     it might
\nmake the Reaper wish for a moment
\nhe\u2019d chosen some other career:
\nma\u00eetre d\u2019, high-end caterer\u2026<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nLinnet Phoenix<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nPERFECT 12
\n 
\nIf only your belly
\nwas smaller, tighter.
\nIf you hadn’t let yourself go.
\nWe can turn the lights off or
\nI can take you from behind
\ndoggie style.
\nYou always look best
\nviewed from the rear.
\nMove forward a smidge,
\nso I can watch myself in the mirror.
\nHold yourself in but relax.
\nThis is supposed to be fun.
\nWhy don’t you want me
\nlike the girls in the porn films?
\nYou aren’t trying hard enough
\nto please us, you gave up;
\nWhy are you crying crocodile tears?
\nYou’re not really upset, dear.
\nThat you don’t keep my erection
\nhard, that’s your fault too.
\nIf only you were slimmer
\nor wanted to let me rim you.
\nWhy are you so frigid;
\nhave you sewed your knees
\ntogether?
\nRemember when you used
\nto enjoy making love?
\nBefore I gave you a list
\nof the reasons you fail.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKenneth Pobo<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\n\u201c1,2,3 RED LIGHT”
\n 
\nGod the stop light,
\nthe don\u2019t, the you\u2019ll be sorry if you do.
\n 
\nI wait for the light to change
\nwhile you say let\u2019s get naked
\nbehind the paint store
\nwhere no one goes after closing,
\nonly a short drive. The signal
\nchanges three times
\nand I don\u2019t go until
\nsomeone honks. I head
\nto the paint store,
\nwhere we see green ferns
\n 
\nand green grass, the red sun
\nsetting behind a yellow jalopy. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKen Poyner<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nANTI-INTELLECTUALISM
\n 
\nI am not too happy
\nabout the boiling point of water.
\nIt is not only
\nthat it is one more thing to know:
\nthe matter is that it has
\nactual consequences.
\nAll these years I have been able
\nto place a pot of cold water on the stove,
\nset loose the gas flame or electric burner,
\nand at some point,
\nat no particular point,
\nthe water will be boiling.
\nI do not know how anyone
\ncould decide that in one instant
\nthe water is not boiling
\nyet in the next it is.
\nI do other things while I wait for water to boil.
\nI busy myself about the kitchen,
\npeel or clean, clean or peel,
\nchop, knead, salt, mince,
\nwhatever is in the day\u2019s plan.
\nAt some point,
\nat no particular point,
\nunobserved and without measure,
\nthe water will boil.
\nI then turn down the flame or electricity
\nto where enough is just enough.
\nYet, at some point,
\nsomeone decided to work out
\nthe whole affair of boiling contrasted
\nto not boiling:
\nto fix an instant and say
\non this side there is no boiling,
\nyet on this side there is.
\nI imagine him or her bent cunningly forward,
\nwith some instrument in hand
\nI could never fathom, yet
\nwhich stands in for a wicked thermometer,
\na week unshaven and in need of a hair cut:
\ncurled hideously over a clipboard, a number
\ntwo pencil throttled in his or her
\neager and eerily clean fingers.
\nWho has the time for that?
\nAnd with no more thought than this,
\nthe water that I put on the stove seemingly
\nonly a jot of starved instants ago,
\nis without clue boiling.
\n 
\n 
\nPENTAGON CONCESSION STAND
\n 
\nThe thing you need to know
\nabout the number one
\nnuclear missile target
\nin the world,
\n 
\nthe place where all manner
\nof single-issue maniacs
\nwant to launch themselves
\nto God
\nin a flash of random destruction,
\n 
\nthe place
\nwhere decisions are made
\nthat send the nation\u2019s wealth
\nto destroy the wealth of nations,
\n 
\nthe center of the often pictured
\nfrom above five sided
\nnexus of importance,
\nthe spot that evil imagines
\nas more evil,
\n 
\nthe one thing you want to know
\nabout the place at the naked center,
\nthe wooden building left out in the open
\nsurrounded by stone and metal and glass,
\n 
\nis that the hot dogs sold there are not bad \u2013
\nyes, I have eaten better \u2013
\nbut the sodas cannot outdo
\nwhat you can get from a simple vending machine.
\n 
\n 
\nTHE COWS
\n 
\nThey did not intend
\nto mutilate the cattle.
\nThey really did not know
\nwhat they were doing.
\nThe whole idea of how
\ncattle work was, well,
\nalien to them. The animals
\nlooked grotesque to these
\nvisitors, but seemed to be
\nso numerous as to have
\nsome importance. So they
\ntook a few up and tried
\nto communicate with them,
\nbut it turned, without meaning,
\ninto mutilation. Though
\nthat concept was, well,
\nalien. But they knew
\nsomething was not right and
\nafter every attempt to get
\nit right, the put the cattle
\nback, agreed to try again.
\nLater, another cow,
\nanother disappointment. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRamachandran<\/a> M. A.<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHAT SUMMER
\n 
\nDidn’t I tell you
\nto sit down awhile
\nin my room
\nas the scorching summer
\nwas everywhere in the plain
\n 
\nDidn’t I know
\nyou came walking all the way
\nfor a glass of water
\n 
\nIn the corner of my room
\nbirds took rest
\nin the shadow of a hibiscus
\nmoved in the wind from uphills
\n 
\nDidn’t I tell you
\nto keep silent all the while
\nbecause the words
\nin me were long lost
\n 
\nDidn’t you know
\nwith just one word
\nbirds in the shadow
\nof the hibiscus would be lost
\n 
\nDidn’t you know
\nthe red hibiscuses were flames
\nthat soothed me
\nand they too would nest
\nwith the birds in my room
\n 
\nThe cats in the corner
\nwere looking at you kindly
\nas the song of water
\nin the earthen pot
\ncasting spells in their eyes
\n 
\nAnd with the light touch
\nof the moving shadow
\nof the hibiscus
\nthe birds grew more silent
\nin the wind from uphills
\n 
\nDidn’t you know
\nthose things would be lost forever
\nif a word would in any way hurt
\nthe water in the earthen pot<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nTimothy Resau<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nNO TITLE, JUST JIVE
\n 
\nWanted to see the light
\nfrom the studio of Larry Rivers.
\nMalcolm X was selling his street poems to a woman in black silk.
\nShe laughed more than necessary, cigarette ashes on her dress, too,
\n& the drumbeats louder closer to the stage.
\n\u201cA scene for murder,\u201d Dennis Hopper shouted, tossing a bottle
\nof booze to Jackie Wilson who was weeping in the corner, while Clyde McPhatter arrived
\nsinging & swinging like a lost cherry in the bottom of a Manhattan. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nBrian Rihlmann<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nBIG PETE\u2019S NIGHT OFF
\n 
\nBig Pete and I were sitting
\nat the whorehouse bar
\ntossing back beers
\non his night off
\nwhen the on-duty
\nbouncer, Tommy,
\ncame up and said
\nOne of the girls
\nis having trouble with a trick
\nand he won’t leave
\nhe’s too big for me alone…
\ngive me a hand?
\nso Pete followed him
\ndown the hall
\n 
\nit was quiet
\nuntil I heard
\nFuck You and Fuck You
\nand then came
\none hell of a racket
\nlike a mule
\nkicking holes in the walls
\nand a minute later
\nthey came out
\ncarrying the now moaning
\nand half-conscious trick
\nby his arms and ankles
\n 
\nand just like that
\nthey took him across the parlor
\nand through the door
\nthey laid him out
\nin the parking lot
\nthen came back in and
\nbellied up to the bar
\nboth of them flushed
\ncatching their breath and saying
\nMotherfucker and Sonofabitch
\nas the bartender
\npoured a couple of shots
\nand said
\nI know you’re
\nstill on duty, Tommy
\nbut just one won’t hurt
\n 
\n 
\nODE TO THE OLD GIRL
\n 
\nI remember driving you
\nfor the first time, with Nan
\nin the passenger seat
\non that trip to St. Augustine,
\nand several years later
\nI adopted you myself.
\nShe couldn\u2019t see too well
\nanymore; kept getting lost
\nout here in Reno, despite
\nthe giant mountains looming
\nto the west. Too old to adapt
\nto a new city I guess.
\n 
\nAnd I drove you to see her
\nin hospitals and rehabs
\nduring her last few years,
\nafter that botched ankle surgery
\nand the MRSA infection
\nthat left her with a horrible
\ngaping wound.
\n 
\nEventually, she got better.
\nWent from a wheelchair
\nto a walker, to a cane…
\nbut then quickly
\nback again.
\n 
\nOnce she saw you
\nin the parking lot and asked\u2014
\nDidn\u2019t I have a car
\nlike that?
\nAnd I reminded her.
\n 
\nShe\u2019s long gone now
\nand as for you\u2014
\nyou rattle a lot.
\nAnd sometimes clunk.
\nOne of your bearings
\ngrowls over thirty, and the
\nsteering wheel shimmies
\nbetween 50 and 60.
\nPlus I know your brake shoes
\nare paper thin, and
\nyour timing belt\u2019s probably
\nfrayed under there.
\n 
\nI figure five trips round the belly
\nof the world\u2019s enough,
\nso now you\u2019re a charity case,
\ndonated to public radio.
\n 
\nSo let’s sit and wait
\nfor the tow truck together
\nand remember winding
\nalong those curves on PCH
\nthrough Big Sur and Malibu
\nand all the way down
\nto sunny LA.
\n 
\nOn second thought,
\nthe guy said fifteen minutes.
\nThere\u2019s still time.
\nLet\u2019s clunk and rattle
\nonce more around the block
\nold girl. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nCharlie Robert<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nLAST CALL
\n 
\nBarmaids.
\nFixing their face.
\nOne of these jerks could be The One.
\nThe Champagne of Bottled Beer.
\nSo they say.
\nOne of these jerks.
\nOne of these days.
\nRotate.
\nThe stools have fresh grease.
\nCreaky with ass.
\nWith whispers Beer Loud.
\nThe Deal is it on is it on is it on?<\/i>
\nTheir pistols are dicks.
\nReady like snakes.
\nReady to strike.
\nUpping the stakes.
\nTomorrow.
\nThere\u2019s a Line-Up.
\nAnd the hope that no one breaks out in a sweat.
\nThese jerks.
\nPoint at their chests like squirrels.
\nTheir memories of Last Call are just that. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMark M. Robinson<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nBEING FROM NEW ORLEANS
\n 
\nI am bona-fide late-80s born: Baptist Hospital,
\nan Uptown institution corner of Napoleon
\n 
\n& Magnolia, like all modern babies emergent
\nunder fluorescence: soft resplendent sterility,
\n 
\nthe unassuming quality of brand-new kittens,
\nof things geographically indistinct.
\n 
\nBeing young, I didn\u2019t yet know the local
\nfrom the out-of-place: St. Francis of Assisi around
\n 
\nthe corner, banging public domain songs
\nevery hour on old church bells. At 15 I got fitted
\n 
\nfor glasses, a prerequisite for a world half-
\nremembered, for things of a certain slant:
\n 
\na plane of sidewalk\u2014curdling under-foot
\n& over-root, hot sheets of rain\u2014cast sky
\n 
\nto street, an accent without an origin.
\nOne day, still young, I was in New York
\n 
\nto become ascendant, in the empirical sense
\nof the word. Time was something
\n 
\nI misplaced, coughed up days in echoes
\nof alcohol, me jangling caustic as a jammed toaster,
\n 
\nrunning in & out of beds, every which way between
\nNOLA & NYC ending pointless as the empty syringe.
\n 
\nRemember that first time getting stung by jellyfish?
\nThat\u2019s what the future is. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMary Rohrer-Dann<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nLAND OF REINVENTION, CIRCA 1953
\n 
\nLillian Robideaux claims
\nshe is the fourth Gabor sister.
\nWho\u2019s to say she is not?
\nOn this street of aproned hausfraus,
\nthick-ankled babushkas, she cooks
\nin gold toreador pants,
\ntwinkly, high-heeled sandals.
\n 
\nRoland Robideaux was colored
\nin Gainesville and Atlanta,
\nCreole in Terrebonne Parish.
\nIn the City of Brotherly Love,
\nblack neighbors find dog shit
\non their front stoop, so he is white.
\n 
\n 
\nRETAINING WALL (1955)
\n 
\nAnother miscarriage. Another failure.
\nScooped, like fruit rotted from the inside,
\nLillian Robideaux stares at the backyard
\n 
\nretaining wall, its blank reproach.
\nSilk debris of spent mimosa blossoms
\ndrop into her lap. Perhaps she will lie
\n 
\nin this chaise forever. But Roland\u2019s Pontiac
\nrumbles down the drive. She swivels Revlon\u2019s Hot
\nCoral<\/i> across her lips, opens her silver compact.
\n 
\nIt slips, shatters. Slash of blue sky, shards
\nof green eye, pink cheek, her sunflower hair,
\nglare up at her. A jay screams from the wall.
\n 
\nLater, curled into Roland, she pretends to sleep.
\nHe kisses her hair, whispers, If you want to try again,
\nwe\u2019ll try again.<\/i> He will never tell her no.
\n 
\nHow many more times before they are both in pieces?
\n 
\nAfter Roland leaves for work, she gathers
\nold cement mix from the garage, leftover
\nbathroom tiles, empty liquor bottles.
\n 
\nFrom the kitchen junk drawer, a frayed Spanish
\nfan, orphan buttons, loose string of her
\nConfirmation pearls, tiny as baby teeth.
\n 
\nEach morning, she takes bits of brokenness
\nand makes the concrete wall a breathing thing.
\nKnobbed lid of her mother\u2019s chipped teapot
\n 
\nbecomes a nippled breast. Cracked plate, a cobalt
\nface. She fashions ovaries from mother-of-pearl
\nearrings, and from a wrecked rose dish
\n 
\nshe makes a winged, light-filled uterus. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nEmalisa Rose<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nFOR THE EARS OF THE HAIRDRESSER ONLY
\n 
\nShe deposits the dye
\nmaking five rows of three,
\nparting the crown where
\nthe greys burrow like barnacles.
\nThen onto the poo, erasing
\nthe drab, introducing
\nthe “golden gate blonde.”
\n 
\nA couple of snips, then
\nshe layers the tresses, as she once
\nagain states how long they\u2019ve become —
\nway too long for a lady “of a certain age”
\nand tells me i don’t want to look like a sea witch.
\ni tell her “i like \u2018em like that,” (and tell myself
\nthat he likes \u2018em like that) and say that when
\ni think I look like a sea witch, perhaps she can
\nsnip off another two inches or so. It\u2019s
\nwhen she stacks on the spray, that
\ni give her what i know she\u2019s been waiting
\nthat hour and twenty for, as i blurt out
\necstatically “Yes, yes, i fucked that young
\nthing and he loved this old sea witch.” <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSarah Russell<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nNOVEMBER TOMATOES
\n 
\nA hard freeze is predicted tonight.
\nTime to pull out the tomatoes.
\nIt has been a summer of sauces,
\nsalads, bounty to share with neighbors.
\nI salvage several, slow to ripen
\nin this brisk fall air. My mother
\nis ninety-seven now, her season ending too.
\nShe eats little, prays death will take her soon.
\nShe has tended to farewells. I collect
\nthe vines to mulch, tug at stubborn roots.
\nHard work, letting go. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGregory Scaff<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nCATTLE-PROD CLONE DATE #1,550,003
\n 
\nScorch a tunnel through Winter\u2019s
\nsnow clad only in the
\nthermonuclear fire of passion
\ncaffeinate with me on the
\ngrown-up side of the moon\u2014
\ndecadent and encouraging
\nmiddle-yeared male artist
\non the far skyline of liberal
\nseeks a Poe-loving clothing
\noptional single female with
\nworking bits and a wicked wit
\ncontortionists welcome
\n 
\nover chocolate mousse and
\nchampagne you rambled incessantly
\nabout your ex\u2019s and your
\nlandscapes tapping me repeatedly
\non the arm for emphasis
\nyour sparkle eyes reflecting the
\nluster of the candelabrum
\nthen as I folded the tip you
\nbatted your eyelashes saying you
\nknow\u2014this isn\u2019t going to
\nwork\u2014I knew
\nthat ten minutes after we
\nmet\u2014but let\u2019s be friends
\n 
\nwhy would I want romance in my porn.
\n 
\n 
\nSLEEPING DOGS
\nFor Gomez
\n 
\nInsensible as cinderblock, the dog
\nsprawled across the couch, dangling its nose to
\nthe carpet like a snoring turnip.
\n 
\nMiddlin\u2019 size, brown & black & white, part this,
\npart that. The sleeping dog broke wind, farting
\na liquid staccato long & loud as
\na Tchaikovsky cannonade.
\n 
\nThe dog growled, sniffing wild-eyed, dumbfounded;
\nit barked, it bayed, booming deep & persistently,
\n\u201cTimmy is in the well,
\ndanger Will Robinson, danger!\u201d
\n 
\nComically oblivious, free of existence
\n\u201csolids\u201d & \u201cgases\u201d, \u201ccause\u201d & \u201ceffect\u201d,
\nsphincters\u201d & \u201cintestines\u201d, dogs can only
\nbark when confronting gaseous anomalies,
\nyet this, this same epistemological
\ndeficit, this same knowing ignorance
\nin the face of daily & opaque
\ntrivialities, this is me. I am that dog,
\neternally lost in the two-a.m. alleyway
\nof daylight.
\n 
\n 
\nFOR THE SAKE OF PIXIE WINGS
\n 
\nI will not howl in languid misery,
\nI\u2019ll wail no dirges, no agonized laments,
\nno litany of searing anguish.
\nBut, if you die first I won\u2019t relent, if
\nyou die first I will not let go.
\nI will discern the right time \u2013
\nthe right quarter of the
\nmoon, the right day, the right
\nsecond \u2013 I\u2019ll burn
\nthe right candle, dance the right
\ndance. I\u2019ll stain your marmoreal name
\nwith rendered vulture\u2019s fat and torrid rum,
\nI\u2019ll bleed black the grass with
\na slaughtered goat or throat slit
\ndog, I\u2019ll beg to the right
\ngods, chant the right spells.
\nI\u2019ll feed the earth from
\nmy own sorrow-dark veins until the
\ntenacious mud retches you
\nup, until you crawl from
\nyour grave still
\ncobwebbed in the velvet amethyst
\nof our wedding, and when
\nyou rise our eternal passion will
\nshine like moon-buffed pixie wings \u2013
\nif, that is, and only if
\nyou promise, not to
\nsnack upon my living brains. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nLynne Schmidt<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nA RECIPE FOR A BREAKUP
\n 
\nHe explains the process
\nthe way I\u2019d imagine someone else\u2019s mother
\nrecites a beloved family recipe:
\n 
\nStep one, he says,
\nis how he will peel back my fingers
\nso they stop clinging to his hand.
\n 
\nStep two
\nis removing the tangle of our tongues
\nso that our lips meet \u2013
\nclosed and formal.
\nPolite, not greedy.
\n 
\nStep three,
\nis turning our heads,
\nso that lips miss their mark
\nlike arrows sailing passed their target
\nbut still landing somewhere nearby.
\n 
\nStep four is such a large step back,
\nwe no longer see each other.
\n 
\nHe forgets to tell me,
\nthis step exists.
\n 
\nInstead he says it will happen gradually.
\nPromises up and down he won\u2019t leave me,
\nNot yet.<\/i>
\n 
\nAnd yet \u2013
\nWhen the sun shines through the windows,
\nI am left with his favorite hat
\nwhich he never comes back for.
\n 
\nON WHY I DON\u2019T SAY A LOT
\n 
\nHe doesn\u2019t look at me like I\u2019m broken yet,
\nand he doesn\u2019t touch me like he needs to be cautious.
\nHe touches me like a clumsy teenager
\nexcited, overzealous, grateful for this moment.
\nAnd I don\u2019t want to tell him
\nthat he should handle me with gloves,
\nthat at times I need to be dusted off and put on a shelf out of reach
\nso I don\u2019t push myself over and shatter on my own.
\nI don\u2019t want to tell him that my heart
\nunderstands why graves are six feet deep,
\nand how you can breathe when parts of you are missing.
\nI don\u2019t want to say, here is chaos and misery and all the things that were built into my DNA.
\nThat I came out of my mother with an irregular heartbeat that hasn\u2019t stopped hurting since.
\nBecause right now,
\nhe looks at me as though he\u2019s won the lottery,
\nand I don\u2019t want to tell him his prize money has sifted through so many hands,
\nhis will come away black.
\n 
\n 
\nRITE OF PASSAGE
\n 
\nMy sisters knew how to ride a bike,
\nduring summer, would peddle up and down the road
\nwith me watching after them until it was time to go inside.
\n 
\nI had training wheels until I didn\u2019t,
\nThe expectation that some adult would swoop in
\nAnd cheer for me as I scraped my knees.
\n 
\nOnly, the adults never put the bottle down long enough
\nTo push me forward.
\nAnd so one day as the summer fire roared
\n 
\nI mounted the bike
\nAnd struggled to keep my balance
\nFalling over like a drunk.
\n 
\nMy father laughed between sips
\nYou\u2019re doing that the hard way<\/i>
\nBut he never bothered to teach me the easy way. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nClaire Scott<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nBLUE MOUNTAIN BIKE
\n<\/p>\n

We can\u2019t know. That\u2019s what makes us keep going.<\/p>\n

Tommy Orange<\/i><\/p>\n

 
\nIf I knew my eight year old would be hit by a car on his brand new Mongoose mountain bike with shiny forks & a padded seat last Monday afternoon at five when the light was slanted & it was hard to see a child on a blue bicycle & I drove eighty to the ER ran past official looking people straight through swinging No Admittance doors to the cubicle with blue Nike sneakers poking from a gurney & the doctor said your son was lucky only bruises & a broken wrist
\n 
\nWould I have let him ride it? Even have it? Would I have kept him at home while his friends rode mountain bikes on rocky trails, skateboarded without helmets, played dodge ball in the streets, crossed railroad tracks on dares, jumped off garage roofs, shot BB guns in the woods? Would he shriveled into a wizened never-leave-the-house old man who never had a broken bone who never once sailed down the street on a blue bike with shiny forks the wind at his back? <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRemi Seamon<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTONIGHT
\n 
\nI\u2019m thinking of cities made of citrus.
\nYou\u2019re thinking of Moscow
\nand carving the night into pieces, pulling
\nyour name out by the teeth, or the soft sound
\nof a body falling off the bridge. Which bridge?
\nThese are questions we must ask ourselves.
\nI put my hands on your shoulders: tell me
\nabout the cold war.<\/i> It begins again, Rocky
\nIV, we could be 20 we could be
\nflinching in unison. But your wrists are on
\nbackwards your eyes are neat
\nand numb and filled with dead leaves.
\nYour eyes are the bottom of a river
\nbed. It\u2019s getting late, not too late. I\u2019d take you
\nwhere I\u2019m going but you can\u2019t come
\nto the mouth of the thing \u2013 the ocean
\nthat opens like a cut \u2013 I\u2019d take you to Seville
\nwhere every bowl is filled with oranges. This
\nmeans happiness. This means
\nyou can stand in a river. You can\u2019t do it twice. Still
\nin the same state we dream separately of peeling
\nskin, citrus, snow \u2013 a muscle twitches, I tighten
\nmy grip \u2013 the days, running past us
\nlike water.
\n 
\n 
\nYOU ARE HAPPY
\n 
\nGrass gurgle light. Soles slapping
\nthe sun-warmed tarmac, walking
\nwith an ice cream cone past trees slung
\nwith imaginary snakes, like
\nthe boa constrictor freed
\nin Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone
\n 
\nor the python that caused apples to roll
\nlike heads down Lovell street. I want
\ndisappearing glass, but she turns over
\na ball and reads 27. The room smells of urine
\nbecause the people in it smell
\nof urine as they run
\n 
\nfingers underneath every number. The squeak
\nof markers, snick of lids. This is (forgive me)
\na jungle, where plastic monkeys hang
\nin chains and fail at Chinese whispers.
\n 
\nOne falls so I lose. It\u2019s Fall
\n 
\nso I move mushrooms from one side of the plate
\nto the edge of a cliff. The truth about Bingo is no one
\nreally wins, I mean it doesn\u2019t matter
\nwho cried at the funeral only who
\n 
\nyelled that magic word, and suddenly
\nall our heads unscrewed and spilled
\ntheir thoughts everywhere like
\nbingo balls and they read
\n 
\n\u2026 32\u2026 14\u2026 68\u2026
\n84\u2026. which was how old she was
\nunscrunching butterscotch, 7
\nWhich was how old I was licking
\n 
\nice cream off my wrist
\noutside the empty house, outside
\nthe room full of relatives and scrunched
\ntissues but back
\n 
\nto the monkeys never falling
\noff the bed, the snake who hisses
\nad\u00edos in Spanish, obviously, the eyes rolling
\nback in the head the head rolling down
\nDiagon Alley, the book that opens just
\nas I fall over the edge of the world.
\n 
\n 
\nI\u2019M NOT SAYING HELEN WAS A FEMINIST BUT
\n 
\nBe worthy of yourself. Kill this woman!
\nThe Trojan Women, Euripides<\/i>
\n 
\nHer beauty was also a kind of loneliness:
\nthose threads of years with only
\n 
\nher breasts for company, which were like figs
\nor something. Regardless they didn’t make
\n 
\nfor very good conversation, except
\nto the men who cocked
\n 
\ntheir ears towards them as if understanding
\nthe language of fruit. Which was always
\n 
\nagreeable. Their fingers
\nlike sausages, or something else
\n 
\ninsistent. Even Margaret Atwood
\nblamed it on her charismatic vagina,
\n 
\nwhich spoke for itself, that half-breed
\nlit by flames, who sat for the length of a marriage
\n 
\nweaving watching those men
\ntheir sausages, tumble, tussle, stand up
\n 
\nscrape knees for her figs. Which
\nother men and sausages would argue
\n 
\nweren\u2019t they more like kumquats?
\nFor centuries. Hundreds
\n 
\nof them worthy of themselves \u2013 and the stone
\nlocked tighter, erasing, sculpting, reshaping
\n 
\nHelen and her beguiling figs in the candlelight
\nher white fingers twisting time into something
\n 
\nlegible, lasting, and who
\ndid they belong to, who was allowed
\n 
\nto touch them (those figs)
\nand how much and maybe
\n 
\nall this would explain eighth grade
\nand the first man who wanted to know
\n 
\ndo i make u wet. <\/i><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nYash Seyedbagheri<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nI CARRY
\n 
\nI carry a mustache, an eyebrow
\nI carry his nose
\nhawkish and weighty
\nhistory written on faces
\nand in photographs
\n 
\nI try to bury temper
\nand travesty
\nto crush the word I
\nlike snow
\nbeneath my foot
\n 
\nbut genetic invective perches in my mouth
\nand leaps
\nonto targets
\nbaseball caps, rap music, people who dislike Tchaikovsky, assholes with annoying smiles, people with big trucks
\nthe targets are different, but the same pleasure
\n 
\nrises from assessing lips, and my eyebrows dance like his
\nuntil contrition arrives
\nI try to tuck his mustache in a drawer
\nbut it all crawls out
\nI carry a mustache, an eyebrow
\nI carry<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJohn Short<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nFAIRPORT ON A PORTABLE
\nLEEDS 1976<\/i>
\n 
\nThe newness of lecture halls
\nis a fresh reality to ingest.
\nShe\u2019s braving the spine of hills
\nbut I wonder why I\u2019m here.
\n 
\nWe scrunch on cornflake leaves
\ntowards the greasy spoon
\nwhere kids in fleecy parkas
\nshoot cacti with a pin-ball ping.
\n 
\nUnder her plaid autumn skirt,
\nseamed nylons from Debenham\u2019s,
\nknee-high boots, a woollen scarf
\nthat almost touches the ground
\n 
\nand we\u2019ve missed each other.
\nEager sex in a student bedroom
\nas my pink fan heater blows
\nYorkshire through our lungs.
\n 
\nShe criticises me for slumming:
\npacket rice, unskilled vegetarianism.
\nWe sip from mugs of tea,
\nlisten to Fairport on a portable.
\n 
\nEventually she\u2019ll come for good.
\nStart a degree in engineering,
\nshape up and ditch the mandolin,
\nchoose a more ambitious guy.
\n 
\n 
\nSOME RATHER SNAZZY PYJAMAS
\n 
\nI contemplated darkness:
\nthe existential melancholy
\nof Russian Roulette,
\nthe sadness of Kalashnikovs
\nso put the kettle on
\nand decided to buy some
\nrather snazzy pyjamas.
\n 
\nDown central streets
\nI came upon the necessary
\noutlet, went inside,
\nasked to see a selection;
\nwas drawn to a pair with
\nlavish golden whorls,
\namulets and lions
\n 
\nthat seemed to invite
\na world of fluid, metallic
\novertures and ecstasy.
\nI brought them home
\nthen heard chimney noises,
\nremembering at once
\nthose pigeons who\u2019d died
\n 
\na macabre Poe-style death
\nsince gales had blown
\nthe cowl away. I moved brass
\nand one flew out from a pile
\nof feathered carcasses and rubble.
\nIt circled the room madly
\nthen settled on a high shelf. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nAlec Solomita<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nRECENT QUESTIONS
\n 
\nWhat do I feel but grief and grievance?
\nIs there anything in all of Gilead
\n 
\nto soften the grief, appease the grievance?
\nOr is this my lot in life, Lal\u00e9na?
\n 
\nJust flores para los muertos<\/i> kind of days
\nand if I could kill that fuck I would kind of nights?
\n 
\n 
\nBY THE BEAUTIFUL SEA
\n 
\nTalk about in the bottle.
\nCome into my kitchen.
\nCheck out the liquor cabinet,
\ni.e., my kitchen.
\nAnd hold the handle
\nof Dewars,
\nhalf filled and golden,
\nup to the light. Yes!
\nThat\u2019s me treading Scotch
\nuntil I tire. Then I turn
\nand float on my back
\nand even doze a bit. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nCharles Springer<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nJUNGLE IN HERE
\n 
\nErnie’s got this dive downtown where all us misfits go to have a few, make out a little, nothing heavy, because if Ernie sees it getting heavy, he shows up at our backs and tells us, take it outside, but inside where the music could deafen a deaf person, the only talk is touch usually beginning with a tap on the shoulder, then a smile, one with teeth, as many as you got, a tilt of the head, heads, then a kiss, Ernie yells because he only wants our lips goin’ down on lips of bottles and now he’s swinging hand over hand across the exposed plumbing in the ceiling he purposely never concealed, Ernie having been one of the ten TV Tarzans, hand over hand over a pile of dogs, cat in heat, parrot, parakeet, drink your drinks, he shrieks, then get out but come back, don’t forget to come back, you, you animals you. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSusan Sue<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nMAYBE, MAYBE WE
\n 
\nmaybe you would give me a glance
\nwhen your shadow melts in morning mist
\nmaybe you would give me a goodbye kiss
\non my pale cheek with lily\u2019s moisture
\nmaybe, maybe we
\ncan stay a little longer
\nmaybe, maybe I
\ncan take you to the station
\nin my old Jeep
\nyour deep brown hair would glitter under
\norange car-light in drizzle
\nyour sporadic touch would dance through
\nmy aching spine at traffic lights
\nand delve down
\ndeeply into my beating heart
\nMaybe, Maybe, Miss
\nyou would like to move closer
\nin downstream crowds at the airport
\nMaybe, Maybe, I
\ncould kiss your little dimple in that tenderness
\nwhen we are squeezed by bustling throng
\nMiss
\nI promise I will leave then
\nmaybe after you walk into the gate
\nI promise I will forget you then
\nmaybe three days after your leaving<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPaul Tanner<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nWORKING SASS HERO
\n 
\nmost of us
\nmirror whoever is in front of us
\n 
\nyou know, we copy their physical stance,
\nspeak at the same volume
\nand so on.
\n 
\nso when a customer yells,
\nyou automatically yell back.
\nwhen a customer calls you names
\nyou automatically call them names, too
\nand when a customer shoves you?
\nwell, it\u2019s hard not to shove them back.
\n 
\nit\u2019s a kneejerk survival technique of our species,
\nmaybe even a compliment:
\nmimicking your attacker
\n 
\nbut so self-loathing
\nis your fellow man
\nin a shop
\nthat they will reprimand you further
\nfor acting like them
\n 
\nand they call this \u201cbad customer service.\u201d
\n 
\nalternatively
\nyou can have such strength of character,
\nsuch a strong sense of Self
\nthat you remain calm in retaliation:
\nstand still in response to their flailing,
\nbe polite in-between their threats,
\nbe silent in the face of their volume,
\nstanding firm against their shoves:
\na zen statue
\n 
\nbut this will only threaten them
\neven more:
\n 
\nso insecure
\nis your fellow man
\nin a shop
\nthat they will reprimand you further
\nfor not rising to their bait
\n 
\nthey will accuse you of not caring
\nthey will accuse you of snobbery
\nthey will accuse and accuse
\n 
\nand this too they will call \u201cbad customer service.\u201d
\n 
\neither way,
\nyour boss will back them up:
\ncompassionate capitalism will back them up
\nfor fear of losing their money
\n 
\nso frankly
\nyou may as well
\nthrow the first punch,
\nyou may as well
\nearn your complaint:
\n 
\nafter all,
\nyou\u2019re earning sod all else
\nin this compassionate capitalism.
\n 
\n 
\nMALE, 42 YEARS
\n 
\nhe did a wheelie:
\nhe straddled the bike
\non his back wheel,
\nleaning back
\nwith the front wheel in the air
\nlike it was a bull,
\nthen slammed back down
\nonto the pavement \u2026
\n 
\nthen he looked around, smiling,
\nthe bike between his legs,
\nwaiting for a reaction
\n 
\n\u2026 and when the town
\ncarried on carrying on?
\nhe smiled less.
\n 
\nI\u2019ll say this for the smoking ban:
\nit offers you a certain voyeuristic revenge,
\nas you roll your own
\nagainst the window of the shop you work in,
\nwatching the rich, fulfilling lives
\nof the regular customers
\nwho push you around every day.
\n 
\nI\u2019d just sparked up
\nwhen he dropped the bike on the ground
\nwith a lazy clatter
\nand started marching towards the shop,
\ngetting more and more angry with every step.
\nsearching for that sweet validation. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSusan Thornton<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nWHEN THE ARCHANGEL DELIVERED YOUR LETTER
\n 
\nI ran down the stairs and saw the glint
\nof a golden wing as it disappeared beneath his postal
\njacket. I called to him to wait. He looked back
\nat me and smiled.
\nI stood on my doorstep and your
\nletter burnt my fingers.
\nI dropped it to the pavement and watched
\nas scorching letters appeared
\nin the asphalt.
\nStop
\nLook
\nListen
\nStop your aimless busy-ness. Your restless
\nwalks round and round your neighborhood.
\nLook at the light
\nfor which the ivy reaches.
\nLook at the moon
\nas it blasts itself
\ninto your window.
\nLook at the subtle
\nbrilliance of the dawn.
\nListen to the music
\nMars makes as it falls through
\nthe sky above your bed.
\nListen to the baby
\ncrying on the other side of the globe.
\nListen to your lungs
\nas they fill with air and empty.
\nBe present in the moment.
\nRemember the glint of the wing
\ndisappearing beneath
\nthe uniform coat.
\n 
\n 
\nMOVING DAY
\n 
\nAt the last minute I grab the leather case off the discard pile,
\nIt held your sunglasses. I can’t let it go. I still see it on the belt
\nof your khaki slacks. You wore these glasses in Oklahoma,
\nPennsylvania, on the job, in the car, driving the boat.
\nMaybe if I keep them you will come back. I can have one
\nmore word. Maybe if I keep them I won’t remember
\nlast days of pain but instead nights at the summer
\ncottage, days at the ski slope, dinners at home. A moth beating
\nat the window, seeking the lamp. Maybe if I keep them
\nmy daughter will keep something of mine. What will it be?
\nA book, a beret, a beaded broach.
\nMaybe she will find this leather case
\nThis wasn’t hers, she will say. I can let it go. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nLou Ventura<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nOPENING DAY
\n 
\nThe stream moves against itself
\nat the places where it changes both depth
\nand direction.
\n 
\nBrook trout tucked beneath overhanging
\nwillows perpendicular to the current, waving
\ntail fins only when necessary.
\n 
\nI swear I could scuttle down the bank,
\nreach into the clear, cold water and capture
\nthem in both hands,
\n 
\ndash their heads against a neighboring
\nrock, and watch them twitch to lifelessness.
\nInstead, remaining silent and unseen,
\n 
\nI apply everything I\u2019ve learned \u2013 all the dark
\narts of these dark woods, interrupted only by this quick,
\nfull, narrow stream in early April.
\n 
\n 
\nHAPPY HOUR
\n 
\nI\u2019m driving my shadow home from work,
\na summer job that can\u2019t end soon enough.
\nHe says he\u2019s had a difficult day.
\nWe pull off the road at a large shed
\nthat passes for a bar \u2013 no windows,
\na sign tacked to the screen door,
\n \u201cSchaefer six-packs $1.25.\u201d
\n 
\nThe parking lot is empty
\nexcept for a Buick LeSabre
\ntireless, on blocks, the trunk creased
\nbetween its shoulder blades,
\ntied closed with heavy twine,
\na \u201cFor Sale\u201d sign propped inside
\nthe rear window.
\n 
\nThe place is cool and dark.
\nThe only light the soft glow from
\na silent pinball machine, and a cooler
\nwith glass doors that don\u2019t quite shut.
\nA TV sits on the corner of the bar,
\nDavid Brinkley with the sound off.
\nMy shadow orders a Utica Club.
\nI ask for a Schlitz. The bartender,
\nwhite-haired, silent, pale as the apron
\naround his waist, sets the beers on the
\nbar in front of us. I lay a damp five next
\nto my bottle. If we want glasses we\u2019ve
\ncome to the wrong place.
\n 
\nAnd I know what my shadow is thinking.
\nI always do. I try to encourage him, tell him
\nevery shadow needs an angle, a light source
\nto work with \u2013 flashlights, candles, a campfire,
\na streetlight, a weak bulb on the corner of a
\nnightstand, even headlights against a garage \u2013
\nall of these could bring a shadow out of hiding
\nespecially if, like mine, he wants to earn a little
\ncash. I tell him in the hands of the right man,
\nhe could be anything, but he says
\nno self-respecting shadow would stand for this. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPeter Vertacnik<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nVANITY
\n\u201cLook in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest
\nNow is the time that face should form another.\u201d
\n–Wm. Shakespeare<\/i>
\n 
\nNo, no. No son was meant to be a mirror
\nfor his parents to relive their wasted youth;
\nproximity to the young just brings you nearer
\nto what you\u2019ve lost for good. And how uncouth
\nof you, an otherwise nice man, to make
\nyour gift to the world also a gift to yourself.
\nSo natural when you began, so fake
\nnow, prisoner to the bottles on the shelf
\nof your medicine cabinet, and all for what?
\nNot your old mother\u2019s joy (her mind dry rot);
\nnot for your pride (that smile more limp than strut).
\nListen, we fall apart. With kids or not,
\nsooner or later, nothing is what will be,
\nafter a life of shouting me! me! me! <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMelody Wang<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nIN THE STILL MOMENTS, I RECALL
\n 
\nthat dark flush appearing on my cheeks
\nwhen you took me hiking in the redwood grove
\nonly to mock my pronunciation of lichen,
\nlikely due to me having grown up
\nwith more books than friends <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRichard Weaver<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nBERNARD \u201cBUDDY\u201d RICH
\n 
\nThe Slingerland snare flared and the Zildjian crash and ride
\ncymbals burst free and drove the beat. Followed by Vic Firth stick
\nclicks and a breeze of brushes sweeping against a taut pigskin
\ndrumhead. Readying for a hi-hat solo. Paradiddle grooving.
\nRenamed Baby Traps, The Drum Wonder by his Vaudeville father,
\neven at four he had power with touch, technique, blurring hickory
\nsticks coupled with angelic control. Brooklyn born, his hands
\nruled his bands, demanding all follow his lead, rise to his level
\nor suffer his wrath. Asked by a nurse as he was being prepped
\nfor brain cancer surgery – Is there anything you can\u2019t take?
\nHis rimshot reply- \u201cYeah. Country music.
\n 
\n 
\nSAKI (H.H. MUNRO)
\n 
\nIt\u2019s bad enough I\u2019m trapped in a trench
\nwith you. Germans everywhere.
\nAnd the stench of this trench and your
\nincessant cigarettes are a threat worse
\nthan Nazi snipers. Have you no sense man?
\nCan\u2019t you see that your ciggy\u2019s glow
\nis a target? You\u2019re a bull\u2019s eye and a horse\u2019s ass.
\n\u201cPut out that BLOODY CIGARETTE!\u201d <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGail White<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nCHANGE OF LIFE
\n 
\nI am transitioning into a cat.
\nI\u2019ve contemplated this for quite a while.
\nI\u2019ve known since darkest adolescence that
\nthe human-being life was not my style:
\n 
\nI want to dance on rooftops in the rain,
\nride with the witches on their flying brooms,
\nfind love and lose it and ignore the pain,
\nsleep in the churchyard, cat among the tombs.
\n 
\nAlthough it might be nice to be a pet,
\nspoiled to the max, I know that very soon
\nI\u2019d shuck the collar and evade the vet
\nfor one more night of dancing at the moon,
\n 
\nWhile with ecstatic eloquence I render
\na song of love without regard to gender.
\n 
\n 
\nBUSY WITH MY MEMOIRS
\n 
\nIn week three of lockdown,
\nI begin my memoirs, version four,
\nthe first three being in a metal box
\nunder the bed, because no agent
\nwill read them even for money,
\nbut if I tell the story four times
\nit will come true, as happened with Jesus,
\nno matter that I don\u2019t remember
\neverything; the ones who knew it all
\nare dead and it\u2019s my story now,
\nand every time I tell it
\nI see the movie version,
\na transparent fish made of opal
\nthat just evades my hook. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nAllison Whittenberg<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nLAG
\n 
\nWhen you realize
\nPlease return the library books;
\nthey\u2019re on the table<\/i>
\nas her last words
\nbalances every I love you<\/i> she\u2019d given
\n 
\nInstead of goodbye
\nthe incessant familiarity of instruction
\nthe sum
\nof my mother<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPatricia Williams<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTHE MASK BEHIND THE MAN: NOT JUST ANOTHER COVID POEM
\n 
\nI wear a mask to protect myself (and others, of course, both blue and red).
\nIt covers my face….but can\u2019t cover my character…..not just another man
\nbehind another mask.
\n 
\nAt the workplace, I\u2019m late for a meeting when \u201cNature calls\u201d. I know my
\ncolleagues won\u2019t mind the wait \u2013 they depend on my unmatched genius,
\nmy knack for getting things done.
\n 
\nIt\u2019s hard to breathe in the stall so I sweep the mask aside \u2013 it hangs on one ear.
\nPaper in hand, I reach back, flush as the mask flutters past my unadorned rear
\n…. disappears.
\n 
\nA dilemma: what to do next \u2013 fishing was never my sport. Give it some extra
\nflushes, I reason, ….but what if there\u2019s an overflow, a foul-smelling trail
\nsurging under the door, my mask sitting smack in the middle …. don\u2019t want
\nmy name to gain office fame, as the man who left more than his mask behind.
\n 
\nMeeting over, I walk down the hall near the men\u2019s room \u2013 feels like the long
\ngreen mile. Here comes the maintenance guy, hauling mop and bucket \u2013
\nwonder who sent the S.O.S.?
\n 
\nHe looks at me with sly scrutiny, notes my uncovered face, his eye blinks
\na meaningful wink, \u201cSomebody\u2019s gonna\u2019 be the butt of mucky jokes” he snickers,
\nand holding up the mop, covered with unhomogenized globs, he sneers,
\n 
\n\u201cby the way….I see your mask is missing.\u201d <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nAlys Willman<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nWHITE GIRLS IN CENTRAL AMERICA
\n 
\nBecause the world insisted on protecting us
\nwe went in search of things that might kill us.
\n 
\nWe wanted
\nto sleep in a hammock among wild animals
\nto not know the way home.
\nWe wanted
\nexile.
\n 
\nBut that\u2019s the thing about skin.
\nThe welcome follows you,
\nlets you
\nwalk right in without knocking
\ntake the bed, the hot meal, someone gave up,
\nfuck the men who think they\u2019re fucking Pamela Anderson,
\njump out of a moving car<\/p>\n

at the unwanted hand on a thigh<\/p>\n

only to have the next taxi stop for you.<\/p>\n

 
\n 
\nTHE PHYSICIAN\u2019S ASSISTANT ASKS MONA IF SHE LEAKS URINE
\n 
\nTime was, I could stop a bullet with this.
\nTime was, it moved with the tide, gripped like a clam shell.
\nThis, here, held quarterbacks, soldiers,
\neven a Kentucky Derby jockey, and one
\nTurkish woman in Washington Heights so crazed for it,
\nshe left claw marks down my back.
\nThis \u2013 this! – inspired sonnets
\nnearly started a war.
\n 
\nI could name at least ten men who are still thinking about it,
\nthree in the state of New Jersey alone.
\n 
\nKegels?
\nHoney, please.
\n 
\n 
\nFITZGERALD, GEORGIA\u2019S BIG-ASS CHICKEN
\n 
\nSaid the mayor, after the hardware store closed downtown,
\nWhy don\u2019t we build a big-ass chicken?<\/i>
\nThe plan was to build a 58-foot tall topiary sculpture of vines and flowers
\nbigger than the 56-foot one in Marietta, but he saw on the Internet
\nthere was a Mickey Mouse in Dubai that was 59 feet
\nso he said
\nScrew it, we\u2019re going to 62,<\/i>
\ndeclared it\u2019d be finished
\nby the March chicken festival.
\n 
\nAll this to honor the birds, brought from Burma
\nbecause someone thought they\u2019d be fun to hunt
\nbut they are lean birds, not like yard chickens,
\ntaste like rubber.
\nThose birds went wild in Fitzgerald
\nroosting in the pines. People came from two towns over
\nto take their picture, feed them bits of biscuit outside the diner.
\nNow you can\u2019t hunt them, or even chase after them.
\nInjuring the birds is a city misdemeanor.
\n 
\nThe mayor had them put up the scaffolding next to the Harvey\u2019s parking lot.
\nThen they set up a chicken cam
\nso people around the world could watch them build the big-ass chicken.
\nThat was November, 2019. If you go to the website now,
\nyou\u2019ll see that scaffolding, naked against the south Georgia sky.
\nStill no chicken.
\nEvery now and then a plastic bag from the Harveys floats across the screen.
\nEvery now and then one of those wild, lean birds struts by. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRussel Winick<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSUPPORT \u2013 HIGH SCHOOL STYLE
\n 
\nThe strong display of their support
\neach year made Jewish kids amazed.
\nSo many Black and Catholic students
\ntook off Jewish holidays.
\n 
\n 
\nTHE HOME RUN THAT WASN\u2019T
\n 
\nIn the softball game,
\nthe batter hit a drive;
\nhe could have walked the bases,
\nbefore that ball arrived.
\n 
\nAnd as he ran past third,
\namidst his cheering horde,
\nif he had crawled in backwards,
\nhe\u2019d easily have scored.
\n 
\nBut then he looked and saw,
\njust twelve feet to home plate,
\nour large and muscled catcher
\nwho in football made All-State.
\n 
\nIt also was the case
\nour catcher happened to be Black;
\nwe had a hunch that figured in
\nthe runner\u2019s turning back.
\n 
\nHe stood on third base stranded
\nas the inning ended later.
\nRacism hurting most of all
\nthe witless perpetrator.
\n 
\n 
\nMORNING BREW
\n 
\nIf I don\u2019t have my coffee
\nI\u2019ll function quite offly. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRobin Wright<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nON THE EVE OF YOUR FUNERAL
\nIn Memory of David (Big Dave) Tingley<\/i>
\n 
\nA few days before your
\nforty-seventh birthday
\n 
\nand I do not want to order
\nlilies, roses, or carnations.
\n 
\nI do not want to make a donation
\nto the Heart Association.
\n 
\nI will eat bacon in your honor
\nand eggs tossed with garlic,
\n 
\nbuy a chocolate birthday cake
\nand consume lots of coffee,
\n 
\nmake a hot air balloon
\nwith a bag, candles, straws.
\n 
\nIt will soar high
\nthen drift away.
\n 
\n 
\nRECIPE FOR LOVE
\n 
\nToss key in moonlight,
\nadd maple syrup, stir, spoon
\nkey into mouth, swallow.
\nGrasp a sharp knife,
\nslice open your bubble.
\nNudge knife, along with
\nserrated side of tongue,
\ninto drawer. Lock drawer.
\nPlant burst bubble in yard,
\nwater, wait. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSusan J. Wurtzburg<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nA VERY BRITISH WAR
\n 
\nGreen-bound annuals rest on a table in my office,<\/p>\n

labelled 1907-1917.<\/p>\n

A familial rosetta stone, my great-grandmother\u2019s<\/p>\n

penned impressions.<\/p>\n

Her calligraphy saunters up and down pages,<\/p>\n

sometimes circles itself,<\/p>\n

an investigative challenge.<\/p>\n

 
\nLike a linguist, deciphering ancient texts,<\/p>\n

I follow her cursive route.<\/p>\n

Hieroglyphic tales of teas, walks, tennis, church<\/p>\n

attendance, and a world war.<\/p>\n

A cartouche of my grandmother\u2019s twentieth<\/p>\n

birthday, and her hospital work<\/p>\n

with battle-scarred men.<\/p>\n

 
\nIcons of troop movements and billets, interspersed<\/p>\n

with family news.<\/p>\n

Stolen moments in the village, tamped-down worry<\/p>\n

about serving sons and brothers.<\/p>\n

A whole generation of family killed in battle,<\/p>\n

determinatives between the diary\u2019s script,<\/p>\n

buried in lighter news of tea.<\/p>\n

 
\n 
\nMY DANCE FORM
\n 
\nlimbs tangle sweat slicks
\nforms of movement bodies fly
\nballet-like battles
\nmostly with ourselves
\n 
\nToronto neighborhood dojo, haunt of awkward teens<\/p>\n

guided by kind elders.<\/p>\n

We rise to the occasion and our sensei with a bow<\/p>\n

to indicate reverence.<\/p>\n

Months and years devoted to perfecting judo moves<\/p>\n

with ongoing mentorship.<\/p>\n

When travels beckon, I learn fierce self-defense actions<\/p>\n

aimed at immobilizing attackers.<\/p>\n

Predators hate girls who know how to fight and think.<\/p>\n

I battle many wolves.<\/p>\n

 
\nNow
\nlimbs tangle sweat slicks
\non my terms, baby. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGerald Yelle<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSOUND OF MUSIC
\n 
\nWe were trying to remember how it was that music lost its appeal. How it all became a series of
\ndisconnected noises we no longer had any interest in. We\u2019d heard it. It had its day, made its
\nargument, kept us under its spell for what seemed an eternity, but musical spells are not
\neverlasting, and whether it was a symptom or a cause of our losing faith in everything else is
\nsomething we never bothered to determine. Not that there\u2019s any particular reason for knowing
\nthe how and the why. It\u2019s like we\u2019re birds turning over leaves on the off-chance there\u2019s a seed
\nunder there somewhere, since that\u2019s what we do. Nor would we want to give the impression that
\nwe dislike it. It\u2019s all of a piece. Birds fly in and out of shadows. In and out of patches of sunlight.
\nThat\u2019s what it\u2019s like for us, low sun on an autumn afternoon. And while everything is
\ndisconnected, and probably because everything is disconnected, people, sounds, words; we cling
\nto memories. They\u2019re all we have. And though words fail to connect with each other, we try
\nconnecting them with our memories. We used to connect our memories with pictures, but
\npictures fail too, and our memories fail, and failure itself loses meaning, so it\u2019s not much of an
\nincentive for giving up and doing nothing. We\u2019re failures at failing which is why we carry on
\nwith our singing and dancing. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDonald Zirilli<\/a><\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTRASH ONLY
\n 
\nNo victories,
\nhowever small,
\nno wagging tongues,
\nno vitriol,
\nand definitely not your pride,
\n 
\nbut tears will do,
\nin tissues,
\nbites not taken
\nof a disappointing dinner,
\nfree buttons,
\ndull toys,
\nthe usual unfinished lists,
\na moth that flew into your fist,
\n 
\nonly what remains,
\nonly what is finished,
\njust the bones
\nof plans and prizes,
\nonly shapes
\nof living, active things,
\na taste,
\nand not a pleasant one,
\nalmost like shadows,
\nimitations posed to honor or mock
\nwhat disappeared.
\n 
\nThat\u2019s all you\u2019re going to find here.
\n 
\n 
\nLIFE CYCLE MANAGEMENT
\n 
\nIt was during a 27 year fever that I composed the life of John Keats. It started with a sniffle
\nextending to my pen, which often I would hold under my tongue as a thermometer. I knew that I
\nhad to make birds important, and I did have that feeling in my head of being at a high altitude,
\nconsistently, for several months at a time. I found that by ripping the page open at the center I
\ncould relieve a certain amount of sinus congestion and writer’s block. To be honest, it was not
\nthat interesting a life, but it contained several amazing sonnets. There was this moment where he
\nwas sitting by a brook and Dear Lord I almost composed it again. That’s the danger of lives, a
\ntendency \u2013 a longing? A claw? towards repetition. They occur, after all, somewhere near the
\ncircumference. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nThe Poets<\/strong>
\n 
\nKemmer Anderson<\/a><\/strong> taught English for 40 years at McCallie School, in Chattanooga, Tennessee where he was faculty advisor to the Amnesty International Chapter. He recently published a collection of essays: Milton at Monticello: Thomas Jefferson’s Reading of John Milton.<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJanice Appel<\/a><\/strong>, a NC artist, graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Southern Maine where she received a BFA in visual arts with concentrations in painting, sculpture, and drawing in 1986. Her work has been exhibited throughout Maine and she continues to do commercial and portrait commissions. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nA writer and artist based in San Antonio, Jeff Bagato<\/a><\/strong> produces poetry and prose as well as electronic music and glitch video. His published books include Savage Magic (poetry) and Computing Angels (fiction). A blog about his writing and publishing efforts can be found at http:\/\/jeffbagato.wordpress.com. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nBenjamin Bagocius<\/a><\/strong> (he, him, his) writes and teaches broadly across literature and spirituality. His writing appears or is forthcoming in a range of venues, including On Being, Tiferet, The Other Journal, Pensive, Soul-Lit, Dark Moon Lilith, After the Pause, and others. A member of the literature faculty at Bard High School Early College in Cleveland, Ohio, Ben holds a Ph.D. in English from Indiana University, an M.F.A. in creative writing from The New School, and a B.A. in English from Kenyon College. He facilitates Soul Salon, an online spiritual writing-and-conversation workshop. Join us! Reach out at benjaminbagocius.com or IG @benjaminbagocius. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJohn Bartell<\/a><\/strong> is an east coast transplant trying to make it Texas, drinking Shiner beer and enjoying the Austin music scene, though he hasn\u2019t taken to wearing cowboy boots. His poetry has been published in The Orchards Poetry Review, Canyon Voices, The Loch Raven Review and Muddy River Poetry Review. He also has short stories published in several journals, including the Manhattanville Review, Sanitarium Magazine, and in A. Lee Martinez\u2019s Strange Afterlives Anthology. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nStuart Bartow<\/a><\/strong> lives in rural New York state and teaches writing and literature at SUNY Adirondack. He also chairs the Battenkill Conservancy, an environmental group working along the New York-Vermont border. His most recent book of haiku, One Branch, is published by Red Moon Press, and longer poems, Green Midnight, Dos Madres Press. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRobert Bires<\/a><\/strong> lives, writes, grows figs, plays in a band, and makes a mean gumbo in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He has published poetry in the Ghost City Review, The Penn Review, ERA, Happy, and The Poetic Page, among other journals. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMark Blickley<\/a><\/strong> is a proud member of the Dramatist Guild and PEN American Center. His latest book is the text-based art collaboration with fine arts photographer Amy Bassin, Dream Streams. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMoni Brar<\/a><\/strong> is an uninvited settler on unsurrendered territories of the Treaty 7 region and Syilx Okanagan Nation. Her writing explores diasporan guilt, cultural identities, religious violence, and intergenerational trauma. Her most recent work is forthcoming in Passages North, Prairie Fire, Vallum, Hart House Review, Rock & Sling, Avalon Literary Review, and Marias at Sampaguita. She believes in the possibility of healing through literature. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJeff Burt<\/a><\/strong> lives in Santa Cruz County, California and works in mental health. He has contributed to Heartwood, Williwaw Journal, Sheila-na-Gig, Tar River Poetry Review, and Red Wolf Journal. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nBill Burtis<\/a><\/strong> is a seasoned poet and writer living in New Hampshire. His publication credits include, but are not limited to, Paris Review, Sou’wester, Seneca Review, Three-Quarter Review, Nine Mile and Aurorean. He has one chapbook, Villains, and an MFA from Iowa, both from a long time ago. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRaymond Byrnes<\/a><\/strong>: For many years he managed communications for the U.S. Geological Survey\u2019s National Land Imaging Program. His recent work has been read on The Writer\u2019s Almanac and accepted\/published in Main Street Rag, Third Wednesday, Shot Glass Journal, Typishly, Split Rock Review, and numerous other journals. He lives in Virginia. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRanney Campbell<\/a><\/strong> is from St. Louis, Missouri, where she earned BS and MFA degrees from the University of Missouri at St. Louis and now lives in Southern California. Her poetry has been published in Misfit Magazine, Shark Reef, Silver Birch Press, The Main Street Rag and accepted for an upcoming issue of Haight Ashbury Literary Journal. Her chapbook, “Pimp,” is published by Arroyo Seco Press. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nWendy Taylor Carlisle<\/a><\/strong> lives and writes barefoot in the Arkansas Ozarks. She is the author of books and chapbooks. Her work appears on line and in print and has been anthologized most recently in Dead of Winter from Milk and Cake Press. For more information, check her web site at www.wendytaylorcarlisle.com. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSusan Cossette<\/a><\/strong> lives and writes in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Author of Peggy Sue Messed Up (2017), she is a two-time recipient of the University of Connecticut\u2019s Wallace Stevens Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Rust and Moth, Vita Brevis, Adelaide, Clockwise Cat, Anti-Heroin Chic, The Amethyst Review, Ariel Chart, Poetica Review, Crow & Cross Keys, Loch Raven Review, and in the anthologies Tuesdays at Curley\u2019s and After the Equinox. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nJoe Cottonwood<\/a><\/strong> has repaired hundreds of houses to support his writing habit in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California. His latest book is Random Saints. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDan Cuddy<\/a><\/strong> is currently an editor of the Loch Raven Review. Most recently he has had poems published in The End of 83, Broadkill Review, Welter, The Twisted Vine Literary Journal, Pangolin Review, Horror Sleaze Trash,<\/i> and work forthcoming in Gargoyle.<\/i><\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSteve Deutsch<\/a><\/strong> lives in State College, PA. Some of his recent publications have or will appear in Boston Literary Magazine, Rat\u2019s Ass Review, RavensPerch, MacQueen\u2019s, 8 Poems, Louisiana Lit, Burningword Literary Journal, Third Wednesday, and the Muddy River Poetry Review. He was nominated for Pushcart Prizes in 2017 and 2018. His Chapbook, “Perhaps You Can,” was published in 2019 by Kelsay Press. His full length book, Persistence of Memory was just published by Kelsay. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nCat Dixon<\/a><\/strong> is the author of Eva and Too Heavy to Carry (Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2016, 2014) and The Book of Levinson and Our End Has Brought the Spring (Finishing Line Press, 2017, 2015), and the chapbook, Table for Two (Poet’s Haven, 2019). Website: www.catdix.com. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nClive Donovan<\/a><\/strong> devotes himself full-time to poetry and has published in a wide variety of magazines including The Journal, Agenda, Acumen, Poetry Salzburg Review, Prole, Rats Arse Review, Sentinel Literary Quarterly and Stand. He lives in the creative atmosphere of Totnes in Devon, U.K. often walking along the River Dart for inspiration. He is hoping to entice a publisher to print a first collection. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nKelly DuMar<\/a><\/strong> is a poet, playwright and workshop facilitator from Boston. She\u2019s author of three poetry chapbooks, ‘girl in tree bark’ (Nixes Mate, 2019), ‘Tree of the Apple,’ (Two of Cups Press), and ‘All These Cures,’ (Lit House Press). Her poems, prose and photos are published in many literary journals including Bellevue Literary Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Crab Fat, Storm Cellar, Corium & Tiferet. Kelly serves on the Board of the International Women\u2019s Writing Guild (IWWG), and produces the Bi-Monthly Open Mic Writer Series attended by women worldwide. She blogs her daily nature photos & creative writing at kellydumar.com\/blog<\/a>
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\nMichael Estabrook<\/a><\/strong>: Retired now writing more poems and working more outside just noticed two Cooper\u2019s hawks staked out in the yard or rather above it which explains the nerve-wracked chipmunks. The Poet\u2019s Curse, A Miscellany (The Poetry Box, 2019) is a recent collection. <\/a>
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\nDeirdre Fagan<\/a><\/strong> is a widow, wife, mother of two, and the author of the forthcoming memoir, Find a Place for Me, Regal House Publishing (2022), a collection of short stories, The Grief Eater, Adelaide Books (2020), a chapbook of poetry, Have Love, Finishing Line Press (2019), and a reference book, Critical Companion to Robert Frost, Facts on File (2007). She is the poetry editor for Orange Blossom Review. Meet her at deirdrefagan.com<\/a>
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\nMike Farren<\/a><\/strong> is a UK-based writer and editor whose poems have appeared widely in journals and anthologies. He has been placed and commended in several competitions, including as \u2018canto\u2019 winner for Poem of the North (2018) and winner of both the Saltaire Festival and the Ilkley Literature Festival poetry competitions in 2020. His pamphlets are \u2018Pierrot and his Mother\u2019 (Templar) and \u2018All of the Moons\u2019 (Yaffle), with \u2018Smithereens\u2019 (4Word) forthcoming. <\/a>
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\nKrista Genevieve Farris<\/a><\/strong> writes poetry, essays and stories about whatever the hell she wants or needs to write about from her perch at the top of Virginia in Winchester. But, she also freelances to pay some bills. Links to her published work can be found at her writer’s website. <\/a>
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\nA retired special education teacher, Vern Fein<\/a><\/strong> has published over one hundred fifty poems on over sixty sites, a few being: *82 Review, Bindweed Magazine, Gyroscope Review, Courtship of Winds, Young Raven’s Review, Rat\u2019s Ass Review, Fevers Of The Mind, and Corvus Review. <\/a>
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\nJames Fowler<\/a><\/strong> retired from the Navy in 1994 and returned to school to graduate with a Master\u2019s in Environmental Science. His final practicum was to edit the poetry anthology, “Heartbeat of New England” (Tiger Moon Production 2000) Finishing Line Press published his chapbook “Connection to this World” 2012. “Falling Ashes” was published in the Hobblebush Press Granite State Poetry Series as volume VII in 2013.<\/a>
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\nMeg Freer<\/a><\/strong> grew up in Missoula, Montana, went to school in Minnesota and New Jersey, and now lives in Ontario. Her poems have won awards and have been published in anthologies and journals such as Vallum, Eastern Iowa Review and Rat\u2019s Ass Review. In 2017 she won a writing fellowship and attended the Summer Literary Seminars in Tbilisi. She enjoys taking photos and being active outdoors year-round, and wishes she had more time for writing poetry. <\/a>
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\nSteven Fregeau<\/a><\/strong> grew up the first half of his life northwest of Chicago; the second half he has lived in Ohio. He prefers listening to people in bars, being drunk. It has been a few years, but he has had poetry published in Burningwood, Harbinger Asylum, and a couple others, as well as visual art published in Wilde and St. Sebastian Review. <\/a>
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\nGerald Friedman<\/a><\/strong> grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, and now teaches physics at Santa Fe Community College in New Mexico. He has published poems in various journals, recently Rat’s Ass Review, Panoply, Entropy, and Bombfire. <\/a>
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\nJoshua Gage<\/a><\/strong> is an ornery curmudgeon from Cleveland. His newest chapbook, Origami Lilies, is available on Poet\u2019s Haven Press. He is a graduate of the Low Residency MFA Program in Creative Writing at Naropa University. He has a penchant for Pendleton shirts, Ethiopian coffee, and any poem strong enough to yank the breath out of his lungs. <\/a>
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\nChristian Garduno<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s work can be read in over 55 literary magazines. He is the recipient of the 2019 national Willie Morris Award for Southern Poetry. Christian Garduno is a Finalist in the 2020-2021 Tennessee Williams & New Orleans Writing Contest. He lives and writes along the South Texas coast with his wonderful wife Nahemie and young son Dylan. <\/a>
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\nMac Gay<\/a><\/strong>‘s most recent collection is FARM ALARM, runner up for Texas Review Press’s 2018 Robert Phillips Poetry Prize. His poems have appeared in The American Journal of Poetry, E-Verse Radio, Maple Leaf Rag, and Atlanta Review. He teaches at Perimeter College of Georgia State University. <\/a>
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\nMarissa Glover<\/a><\/strong> lives in Florida, where she teaches at Saint Leo University. Marissa is co-editor of Orange Blossom Review and a senior editor at The Lascaux Review. Her poetry was recently published in Louisiana Literature, The Opiate, Gyroscope Review, Psaltery & Lyre, and Muddy River Poetry Review, among other journals. Marissa\u2019s poetry collection, Let Go of the Hands You Hold, was released by Mercer University Press in April 2021. You can follow her on Twitter @_MarissaGlover_.<\/a>
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\nRhiannon Grant<\/a><\/strong> lives, writes, and teaches in Birmingham, UK, with her partner and robot vacuum cleaner. As well as academic and popular nonfiction on religion and philosophy, her writing includes lesbian and queer historical romance fiction and poetry which looks at life from alternative angles, turning time and power upside down. Her poems have previously appeared in Poethead, Blue Mountain Review, A New Ulster, Last Leaves, and The Emma Press Anthology of Illness. <\/a>
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\nHank Greenspan<\/a><\/strong> is a retiring academic (from the University of Michigan), an expiring psychologist, an inspiring playwright, and an aspiring poet. Despite once being Fulbright, his writing tends dark. He is currently working on a play about the \u201cmad jester\u201d of the Warsaw Ghetto. That about sums it up. henrygreenspan.com<\/a><\/a>
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\nJohn Grey<\/a><\/strong> is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Orbis, Dalhousie Review and Connecticut River Review. Latest book, “Leaves On Pages” is available through Amazon. <\/a>
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\nJohn Haugh<\/a><\/strong> lives in Greensboro, NC where he works in finance and is assembling a chapbook, Repurposed Ghosts and Baba Yaga. Recent other publishing credits include writing appearing in Rat\u2019s Ass Review, As it Ought to Be, Main Street Rag, Kackalack, the Roanoke Review, Peregrine, North Carolina Literary Review, and The Tipton Poetry Review. Mr. Haugh was a finalist for the Applewhite award recently, was a NCAA national champion in fencing years ago, and spent untold hours browsing Oxford Books in Atlanta and Powell\u2019s City of Books in Oregon when young. He has a small, but growing presence on Facebook. <\/a>
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\nRobin Helweg-Larsen<\/a><\/strong>‘s poems, mostly formal, have been published in Rat’s Ass Review and other magazines in the US and elsewhere. He is Series Editor for Sampson Low’s ‘Potcake Chapbooks – form in formless times’ and blogs at formalverse.com from his hometown of Governor’s Harbour in the Bahamas. <\/a>
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\nDamian Wade Hey<\/a><\/strong> lives on Long Island and is a professor of English at Molloy College. His poems have appeared, most recently, in Black Flowers. His work has also appeared in Madness Muse Press; Formidable Woman Sanctuary; and Rye and Whiskey Review. More poems will be published in Cajun Mutt Press, and in the upcoming anthologies: They\u2019re Conspiring against the Alien Buddha; Poets with Masks On; and Birth – Lifespan Vol. 1. <\/a>
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\nChristopher Hivner<\/a><\/strong> writes from a small town in Pennsylvania surrounded by books (a little bit of everything) and the echoes of music (mostly hard rock\/heavy metal and blues). His poetry collection \u201cIn the Blood\u201d was recently published by Cyberwit.net. Facebook: Christopher Hivner – Author, Twitter: @Your_screams<\/a>
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\nEntering her ninth decade, award-winning poet and mixed-media artist Ryn Holmes<\/a><\/strong> originated from the bottom and top of California before finding her way to the Florida Gulf Coast. A partner in K & K Writing Services and co-editor of Panoply zine, her written work and visual art have appeared in galleries as well as print and online journals. <\/a>
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\nDavid Harrison Horton<\/a><\/strong> is a Beijing-based writer, artist, editor and curator. He is author of the chapbooks Pete Hoffman Days (Pinball) and BeiHai (Nanjing Poetry). His poetry has recently appeared in In Parentheses, swifts & slows, Spittoon and Otoliths, among others. <\/a>
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\nKate Hutchinson<\/a><\/strong> recently retired from teaching English to teenagers (just dodging the bullet of the Pandemic Zoom Teaching Era) and is thrilled to have more time to read and write. She’s had many poems and creative essays published in journals and anthologies and has received two Pushcart nominations. Kate has also had two books published, The Gray Limbo of Perhaps and Map Making: Poems of Land and Identity. Find more of her work at her site, “Life on Both Sides of the Window:” https:\/\/poetkatehutchinson.wordpress.com\/<\/a>
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\nNancy Byrne Iannucci<\/a><\/strong> is the author of Temptation of Wood (Nixes Mate Review 2018). Her poems have appeared in a number of publications including Gargoyle, Ghost City Press, Clementine Unbound, Three Drops from a Cauldron, Dodging the Rain, 8 Poems, Glass: A Journal of Poetry (Poets Resist), Hobo Camp Review, and Typehouse Literary Magazine. Nancy is a Long Island, NY native who now resides in Troy, NY where she teaches history at the Emma Willard School. <\/a>
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\nM. A. Istvan<\/a> Jr.<\/strong>\u2014poet, philosopher, provocateur\u2014is an instructor of philosophy at Austin Community College and the current editor of Safe Space Press. His interests and publication history are wide-ranging, but a unifying focus of both his creative and scholarly work has been to describe and defend what he calls \u201cthe hive Being\u201d: a neo-Spinozistic conception of reality according to which absolutely everything is a necessary expression of a self-necessary wellspring (a wellspring perhaps best described as \u201cGod\u201d). Visit michaelistvan.com or pw.org\/directory\/writers\/m_a_istvan_jr_phd<\/a>
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\nJennifer Judge<\/a><\/strong> is a poet, a professor at King\u2019s College, and coordinator of the Luzerne County Poetry in Transit program. Her poem \u201c81 North\u201d was selected for permanent inclusion in the Jenny Holzer installation For Philadelphia 2018. Her work has also appeared in Rhino, Literary Mama, Blueline, Under the Gum Tree, The Comstock Review, Gyroscope Review, and Rhino, among others. She earned her MFA from Goddard College. Learn more at jenniferjudgepoet.com. <\/a>
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\nMollie Kindall<\/a><\/strong> is a retired nurse with a talent for visual art and a degree in creative writing. She is the mother of two grown children, a cat lover, a college football fan, and a voracious reader of philosophy and history. A native of Ohio, she now makes her home in middle Tennessee. <\/a>
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\nOriginally from Virginia, Hilary King<\/a><\/strong> now lives in Northern California. Her poems have appeared in Minerva Rising, Fourth River, SWIMM, PANK, The Cortland Review, Blue Fifth Review, and other publications. She is the author of the book of poems, The Maid’s Car. <\/a>
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\nKoss<\/a><\/strong> is a queer writer and artist with an MFA from SAIC. She has work published (or forthcoming) in Diode Poetry, Chiron Review, Cincinnati Review, Hobart, Spillway, Rogue Agent, Anti-Heroin Chic, Rough Beast, and others. Her hybrid book, One for Sorrow, is due out in late 2020\/early 2021 by Negative Capability Press. She also has work forthcoming in Best Small Fictions 2020 anthology. Keep up with Koss on Twitter @Koss51209969 and Instagram @koss_singular. Her website is http:\/\/koss-works.com. <\/a>
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\nOriginally from Saskatchewan, Allan Lake<\/a><\/strong> has lived in Vancouver, Cape Breton I., Ibiza, Tasmania & Melbourne. Poetry Collection: Sand in the Sole (Xlibris, 2014). Lake won Lost Tower Publications (UK) Comp 2017 & Melbourne Spoken Word Poetry Fest 2018 & publication in New Philosopher 2020. Chapbook (Ginninderra Press 2020) My Photos of Sicily. <\/a>
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\nRichard LeDue<\/a><\/strong> was born in Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada, but currently lives in Norway House, Manitoba with his wife and son. His poems have appeared in various publications throughout 2020, and more work is forthcoming throughout 2021. His chapbook, \u201cThe Loneliest Age,\u201d was released in autumn 2020 from Kelsay Books. <\/a>
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\nGerald Leonard<\/a><\/strong> has published photos in several magazines including: Rat’s Ass Review, Blotterature, Terrene. He is a retired history professor enjoying photography, his family and travel. <\/a>
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\nMare Leonard<\/a><\/strong> lives and works in the Hudson Valley where she is an Associate of the Institute for Writing and Thinking and the MAT programs at Bard College. She has published five chapbooks of poetry, the latest at Finishing Line Press in 2018. Recently she has published poems at Ariel Chart, Terror House and Rat\u2019s Ass Review and in a worldwide anthology of poems re Covid-19. Finally she was nominated for a pushcart by The Pickled Body. <\/a>
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\nMichael H. Levin<\/a><\/strong> is a lawyer, solar energy developer and writer based in Washington DC. His work has appeared on stage and in chapbooks, anthologies and numerous periodicals, and has received poetry and feature journalism awards. His third chapbook, Falcons, was published July 2020 & remains available through Amazon or his poetry site. See michaellevinpoetry.com and twopianosplayingforlife.org. <\/a>
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\nJudith Luongo<\/a><\/strong>‘s art is deeply informed by her many years of experience as a Creative Arts Therapist and by her teaching the art of this endeavor to others. Having moved through the creation of dreamy landscapes and increasingly abstracted character studies through portraiture and the figure, Judith’s current concern is with deepening her inquiry into the palpable presence of that which is unspoken and unspeakable through gestural abstraction. She has shown work at the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition; Pratt Institute; Michael David & Co. Website: judithluongo.com <\/a>
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\nBob MacKenzie<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s poetry has appeared in more than 400 journals including Literary Review of Canada, Dalhousie Review, Windsor Review, and Vallum Magazine. He’s published seven volumes of poetry and has been in numerous anthologies. Bob’s received local and international awards for his writing as well as an Ontario Arts Council grant (literature), Canada Council Grant (performance), and Fellowship for the Summer Literary Seminars in Georgia. With the group Poem de Terre, Bob’s released six albums. <\/a>
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\nEmily Marchment<\/a><\/strong> is a teacher and poet from London, UK, where she lives with her young daughter. Her poems have been published in Beyond Words and Pinky Thinker Press, with others currently awaiting publication. <\/a>
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\nWith each passing day, Hayley McCullough<\/a><\/strong> becomes more convinced that she is actually a brain in a jar.<\/a>
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\nMaria McDonnell<\/a><\/strong> held the title Poet Laureate in Berks County, Pennsylvania from 2012-2014. Her poems have been published in literary magazines including Paradigm, Steel Point Quarterly, and Parlor. She has received awards from Writer\u2019s Digest and Mulberry Poets and Writers Association. Her poem “Joyride” was nominated for Pushcart Prize XXXIII (2009 edition). Her book of poetry, First I Learn My Name, was published by FootHills Publishing. <\/a>
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\nWhen not hiding in the fifteenth century, Jennifer A. McGowan<\/a><\/strong> hits words with spanners until they approximate poems. Her latest book, Still Lives with Apocalypse, which recently won the Prole pamphlet competition is available from Prolebooks: https:\/\/prolebooks.co.uk\/shop.html. She has featured in many magazines and journals, such as Rialto, Pank, and Prole, in various and occasionally surprising countries. She is a disabled poet. <\/a>
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\nMaeve McKenna<\/a><\/strong> lives in Sligo, Ireland. Her writing has been placed in several international poetry competitions and published in Mslexia, The Haibun Journal, Fly On The Wall, The Cormorant, San Antonio Review, Galway Review, Boyne Berries, Sonder Magazine, Skylight47, 100 Words Of Solitude, Bloody Amazing Anthology, Culture Matters A Working Class Anthology of Prose and widely online. <\/a>
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\nPatrick Jack Meachan<\/a><\/strong> is 68 years old. He works as a potter and ceramic sculptor in the north Georgia mountains with his wife and dog. Recently two of his poems have been accepted for publication. <\/a>
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Jason Melvin<\/a><\/strong> received a gimmicky T-shirt from his teenage daughter on Christmas with a picture of one large fist fist-bumping a much smaller fist. The caption read, \u201cBehind every smart-ass daughter is a truly asshole Dad\u201d. It fit. His work has recently appeared in The Beatnik Cowboy, The Raw Art Review, Rat\u2019s Ass Review, The Closed Eye Open, Kitchen Sink Magazine, The Electric Rail, Front Porch Review<\/i> andShambles,<\/i> among others. <\/a>
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\nMike Mesterton-Gibbons<\/a><\/strong> is a Professor Emeritus at Florida State University who builds game-theoretic models of animal behavior. His acrostic sonnets have appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, the Creativity Webzine, Current Conservation, the Ekphrastic Review, Grand Little Things, Light, Lighten Up Online, Oddball Magazine, Rat\u2019s Ass Review and the Satirist. His limericks have appeared in Britain\u2019s Daily Mail. <\/a>
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\nMichael Minassian<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s poems and short stories have appeared recently in such journals as, Live Encounters, Lotus Eater, and Chiron Review. He is also a Contributing Editor for Verse-Virtual, an online magazine. His chapbooks include poetry: The Arboriculturist and photography: Around the Bend. His poetry collections, Time is Not a River and Morning Calm are both available on Amazon. For more information: https:\/\/michaelminassian.com<\/a>
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\nFrank C. Modica<\/a><\/strong> is a retired teacher who taught children with special needs. His work is forthcoming or has appeared in Beyond Words Literary Magazine, Blue Mountain Review, Rat’s Ass Review, and Raconteur Review. Frank’s first chapbook is forthcoming from Alabaster Leaves publishing. <\/a>
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\nTom Montag<\/a><\/strong>‘s books of poetry include: Making Hay & Other Poems; Middle Ground; The Big Book of Ben Zen; In This Place: Selected Poems 1982-2013; The Miles No One Wants; Love Poems; and Seventy at Seventy His poem “Lecturing My Daughter in Her First Fall Rain” has been permanently incorporated into the design of the Milwaukee Convention Center. He blogs at The Middlewesterner. With David Graham he recently co-edited Local News: Poetry About Small Towns. <\/a>
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\nS.M. Moore<\/a><\/strong> is a writer based out of southern Maine. Moore has co-authored a novel, a section of which has been published by a small newspaper based out of Bates College. He is also a regular writer for the Portland, Maine newspaper, Up Portland. <\/a>
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\nJohn David Muth<\/a><\/strong> was born and raised in central New Jersey. He has been an academic advisor at Rutgers University for twenty years. His latest book, Dreams of a Viking Wedding (Aldrich Press), was published last year and can be found on Amazon.com. <\/a>
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\nRobert Nisbet<\/a><\/strong> is a Welsh poet who once read for an American President, when ex-President and poet Jimmy Carter was guest of honour at the opening of the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea in 2006. Nisbet is a Pushcart Prize nominee for 2020 and 2021. <\/a>
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\nA. J. Ortega<\/a><\/strong> is a writer from Texas. He lives in Utah where he teaches English. His writing has appeared in Front Porch Journal, American Book Review, Rio Grande Review, Southwestern American Literature, The Texas Review, and various newspapers and websites. He\u2019s working on his first collection of short stories. He\u2019s an active member of the Popular Culture Association, where his presentations focus on professional wrestling, combat sports, and Mexican American identity. <\/a>
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\nSergio A. Ortiz<\/a><\/strong> is a retired English literature professor and bilingual poet. His recent credits include Spanish audio poems in GATO MALO Editing, an important Spanish Caribbean publication, Maleta Ilegal, a South American journal, Indolent Books, HIV HERE AND NOW, Communicators League. His poems are also forthcoming in Spillwords. <\/a>
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\nMarsha Owens<\/a><\/strong> is a retired teacher who lives and writes in Richmond, VA. Her essays and poetry have appeared in both print and online publications, including Rat\u2019s Ass Review, The Sun magazine, The Huffington Post, Wild Word Anthology, NewVerseNews, and Rise Up Review. She is a co-editor of the poetry anthology, Lingering in the Margins. <\/a>
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\nIlari Pass<\/a><\/strong> holds a BA in English from Guilford College of Greensboro, NC, and an MA in English, with a concentration in literature, from Gardner-Webb University of Boiling Springs, NC. Her work appears or forthcoming in Triggerfish Critical Review, Rejection Letters, Free State Review, Common Ground Review, and others. <\/a>
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\nAndrew Periale<\/a><\/strong> is an Emmy-nominated artist, and has toured throughout the US as actor and puppeteer. He\u2019s been the editor of Puppetry International magazine for 36 years, and his plays have been performed around the country. His poetry has appeared in Light Quarterly, Yellow Medicine Review, Entelechy International, Burnt Bridge and others, as well as in numerous anthologies. A member of City Hall Poets (Portsmouth, NH), he served four years as Poet Laureate of Rochester. <\/a>
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\nLinnet Phoenix<\/a><\/strong> is a poet who currently resides in North Somerset, England. She has been writing poetry for years. Her work has previously been published in Heroin Love Songs, New Verse News, Rye Whiskey Review, Punk Noir Magazine, ImpSpired Magazine, Horror Sleaze Trash and by Shrouded Eye Press in Open Skies Quarterly and Dreamscape. She has poems pending in the upcoming Spring 2021 edition of Poetica Review and others. She also enjoys horse-riding in rainstorms. <\/a>
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\nKenneth Pobo<\/a><\/strong> is the author of twenty-one chapbooks and nine full-length collections. Recent books include Bend of Quiet (Blue Light Press), Loplop in a Red City (Circling Rivers), and Uneven Steven (Assure Press). Opening is forthcoming from Rectos Y Versos Editions. Lavender Fire, Lavender Rose is forthcoming from Brick\/House Books. <\/a>
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\nKen Poyner<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s collections of brief fictions, “Constant Animals”, “Avenging Cartography”, “Revenge of the House Hurlers”, and “Engaging Cattle”; and poetry, “The Book of Robot” and “Victims of a Failed Civics”, can be located at Amazon, most online booksellers, and through links at www.barkingmoosepress.com. He spent 33 years in information system management, is married to a world record holding female powerlifter, and has a family of several rescue cats and betta fish. <\/a>
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\nRamachandran<\/a> M. A.<\/strong> is a poet currently based in Kozhikode. He writes and publishes poems in English. He writes under his heteronym Tekisui RC as well. His poetry has found home in different places. Apart from poetry he is interested in farming and travelling. Ramachandran lives in a tiny room. A few books and a laptop are his only possessions. He earns a little money for living by occasional teaching. <\/a>
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\nTimothy Resau<\/a><\/strong> resides in coastal North Carolina. His work has been published in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. Currently, he has poems in Sideways Poetry Magazine, Sylvia Magazine, and an essay in Loch Raven Review. He\u2019s just completed a novel Three Gates East. <\/a>
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\nBrian Rihlmann<\/a><\/strong> lives and writes in Reno, Nevada. His poetry has appeared in many magazines, including The Rye Whiskey Review, Fearless, Heroin Love Songs, Chiron Review and The Main Street Rag. His latest collection, “Night At My Throat,” (2020) was published by Pony One Dog Press. <\/a>
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\nCharlie Robert<\/a><\/strong> is a writer and headhunter living in Silicon Valley. He has been published and is forthcoming in various Literary Journals and Anthologies including Milk and Cake Press, Iconoclast, and NOMADartx. He currently is seeking publication of his new chapbook, Knuckle Work. <\/a>
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\nMark McGarey Robinson<\/a><\/strong> is a gay poet born and raised in New Orleans. For the past 12 years he has made a home in NYC, where he works as a grant writer. <\/a>
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\nMary Rohrer-Dann<\/a><\/strong> is a writer, painter, and educator in central PA, and the author of Taking the Long Way Home (Keslay Books) and La Scaffetta: Poems from the Foundling Drawer (Tempest Productions, Inc.) Her stories and poems appear in Flash Fiction Magazine, Boston Literary Magazine, Third Wednesday, MacQueen\u2019s Quinterly, and other venues, and have been staged by Tempest Productions, Inc. She is a long-standing volunteer with Big Brothers\/Big Sisters. <\/a>
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\nWhen not writing poetry, Emalisa Rose<\/a><\/strong> enjoys crafting with macrame art and doll making. She volunteers in animal rescue. She lives by a beach town, which provides much of the inspiration for her work. Her poems have appeared in Rat’s Ass Review, Cholla Needles, Ariel Chart and other journals. <\/a>
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\nSarah Russell<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s poetry and fiction have been published in Kentucky Review, Misfit Magazine, Rusty Truck, Third Wednesday, and many other journals and anthologies. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee. She has two poetry collections published by Kelsay Books, I lost summer somewhere and Today and Other Seasons. She blogs at SarahRussellPoetry.net. <\/a>
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\nGregory Scaff<\/a><\/strong> is a poet & 2D artist who holds a BA in Anthropology from USF; he resides in Annapolis and frequents Mid-Atlantic poetry readings. Besides self-published poetry chapbooks, Gregory\u2019s work has been published in Aequinox IV, Circle Works, The Valley Literary Magazine, New Reality Magazine, Obelisk Magazine, and in the anthology Promises to Keep. Gregory\u2019s works are in the collections of the Austrian National Library. <\/a>
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\nLynne Schmidt<\/a><\/strong> is the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor and mental health professional with a focus in trauma and healing. She is the author of the chapbooks, Gravity (Nightingale and Sparrow Press) which was listed as one of the 17 Best Breakup Books to Read in 2020, and On Becoming a Role Model (Thirty West), which was featured on The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed for PTSD Awareness Week. When given the choice, Lynne prefers the company of her three dogs and one cat to humans. <\/a>
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\nClaire Scott<\/a><\/strong> is an award winning poet who has received multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her work has appeared in the Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, New Ohio Review, Enizagam and Healing Muse among others. Claire is the author of Waiting to be Called and Until I Couldn\u2019t. She is the co-author of Unfolding in Light: A Sisters\u2019 Journey in Photography and Poetry. <\/a>
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\nRemi Seamon<\/a><\/strong> is a student who spends her time split between Cambridge, England and Seattle, Washington. She was commended in the Foyle Young Poet of the Year Award and has been published in a scattering of small publications, most recently the Dillydoun Review and Unlost. She considers her primary inspiration to be her dog. <\/a>
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\nYash Seyedbagheri<\/a><\/strong> is a graduate of Colorado State University’s MFA fiction program. His stories, “Soon,” “How To Be A Good Episcopalian,” and “Tales From A Communion Line,” have been nominated for Pushcarts. Yash\u2019s work has been published in The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Write City Magazine, and Ariel Chart, among others. <\/a>
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\nJohn Short<\/a><\/strong> was born in Liverpool and got a degree in comparative religion from Leeds University. He then spent years wandering in Europe and finally settled for eight years in Greece. A previous contributor to RAR he’s appeared recently in magazines like Hobo Camp Review, Yellow Mama, Zingara Poetry and Poetry Salzburg Review. His full collection Those Ghosts is available now from Beaten Track Publishing (Burscough, Lancashire, UK). <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nAlec Solomita<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s fiction has appeared in the Southwest Review, The Mississippi Review, Southword Journal, and Peacock, among other publications. He was shortlisted by the Bridport Prize and Southword Journal, and named a finalist by the Noctua Review. His poetry has appeared in Poetica, Litbreak, Driftwood Press, MockingHeart Review, The Galway Review, Panoplyzine, and elsewhere, including several anthologies. His poetry chapbook, “Do Not Forsake Me,” was published in 2017. He lives in Massachusetts. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nCharles Springer<\/a><\/strong> has degrees in anthropology and is an award-winning painter. A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, he is published in over eighty journals including The Cincinnati Review, Faultline, Windsor Review, Packingtown Review and Tar River Poetry, among others. His first collection of poems entitled JUICE has been published by Regal House Publishing. Read about him on his website at https:\/\/www.charlesspringer.com. He writes from Pennsylvania. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSusan Sue<\/a><\/strong> is an international student from China. She loves to write poems and would like to share her poems with others. She writes when she does not have classes. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPaul Tanner<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s been earning minimum wage, and writing about it, for too long. He was shortlisted for the Erbacce 2020 Poetry Prize. “Shop Talk: Poems for Shop Workers” was published last year by Penniless Press. “No Refunds: Poems and cartoons from your local supermarket” is out now, from Alien Buddha Press. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSusan Thornton<\/a><\/strong> lives in Binghamton, New York, where for her sins, she is gainfully employed as a teacher of high school French. Her memoir, On Broken Glass: Loving and Losing John Gardner, was published in 2000 by Carroll & Graf, New York. Her work has appeared in The Best American Mystery Stories 2016, Blackbird (2017), and Rat\u2019s Ass Review (2015, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021) <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nLou Ventura<\/a><\/strong> has been a secondary school English teacher for 35 years. Lou\u2019s first poetry collection, Bones So Close to Telling, has recently been accepted for publication by Foothills Publishing. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPeter Vertacnik<\/a><\/strong>‘s poems and translations have appeared in The Hopkins Review, Literary Matters, Poet Lore, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and Water~Stone Review, among others. A finalist for the 2021 Donald Justice Poetry Prize, he currently attends the MFA program at The University of Florida. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nMelody Wang<\/a><\/strong> currently resides in sunny Southern California with her dear husband and hopes to someday live in the Pacific Northwest (or somewhere with equally gloomy weather). She dabbles in piano composition and enjoys hiking, baking, and playing with her dogs. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRichard Weaver<\/a><\/strong> lives in Baltimore where he volunteers with the Maryland Book Bank, the Baltimore Book Festival, and is the poet-in-residence at the James Joyce Pub. More than 100 of his Prose Poems have appeared since 2016. He is also the author of The Stars Undone (Duende Press, 1992), and provided the libretto for a symphony, Of Sea and Stars, 2005, performed 3 times to date by the Birmingham Symphony, and once by the Juilliard Ensemble. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGail White<\/a><\/strong> is a contributing editor of Light Poetry Magazine and is widely published in formalist poetry journals. Her most recent book, Asperity Street, can be found on Amazon, along with her chapbook Catechism. Home is in Breaux Bridge, LA, where the cats are. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nAllison Whittenberg<\/a><\/strong> is a Philadelphia native who has a global perspective. If she wasn\u2019t an author she\u2019d be a private detective or a jazz singer. She loves reading about history and true crime. Her other novels include Sweet Thang, Hollywood and Maine, Life is Fine, Tutored and The Sane Asylum. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nPatricia Williams<\/a><\/strong> first began writing poetry in 2013 after retiring from a teaching career in Art and Design. Her work appears in Midwest Review, Poetry Quarterly, Third Wednesday and other journals, anthologies and a chapbook about her travels, Portside of Shadows (Finishing Line Press, 2017). Her collection, Midwest Medley (Kelsay Books) was named an Outstanding Poetry Book for 2018 by the Wisconsin Library Association. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nAlys Willman<\/a><\/strong> is a poet and singer\/songwriter in Athens, Georgia. Poetry and music do not pay the bills, so she is also an international development economist and manages an urban homestead. Alys\u2019 poetry has appeared in District Lit, Tempered Runes, and Salt Hill Journal, and she has published a chapbook, Even the Dress is Smoke. Her songs have featured in compilations including the Voces en Pandemia project (2020) and on an album with her band After the Flood (2016). <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRussel Winick<\/a><\/strong> recently began writing poetry at nearly age 65, after concluding a long legal career. Langston Hughes\u2019 work has been a primary inspiration to him. Several dozen of Mr. Winick\u2019s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in over a dozen online or print journals. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nRobin Wright<\/a><\/strong> lives in Southern Indiana. Her work has appeared in Rat\u2019s Ass Review, Ekphrastic Review, Panoply, Black Bough Poetry, Spank the Carp, Ariel Chart, The Drabble, and others. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and her first chapbook, Ready or Not, was recently published by Finishing Line Press. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nSusan J. Wurtzburg<\/a><\/strong> was born in Toronto, Canada, and is a retired academic, currently living in Hawai\u2018i. She writes and runs her editing business (Sandy Dog Books LLC), in between water sports, hiking, and socializing online, while she waits for the pandemic to diminish. Susan\u2019s poetry has appeared in the Hawai\u2018i Pacific Review, NLAPW Featured Poem, Poetry and Covid, Quince Magazine, Rat\u2019s Ass Review, and The Literary Nest. She acknowledges the Rat\u2019s Ass Review Workshop. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nGerald Yelle<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s work has appeared in numerous print and online journals. He is a member of the Florence, Massachusetts Poets Society and lives in Amherst, Massachusetts. His books include The Holyoke Diaries Future Cycle Press (2014) and Mark My Word and the New World Order Pedestrian Press (2016). He has a new e-chapbook at Yavaneka Press. <\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nDonald Zirilli<\/a><\/strong> was a finalist for the James Tate Prize, was nominated for the Forward Prize, and edited Now Culture. His poetry swims in River Styx and other wetlands. He lives with wife and pets in pastoral New Jersey. His chapbook is Heaven\u2019s Not For You, Kelsay Books, 2018.
\n 
\n 
\n <\/p>\n

\nBack to Top<\/a> 
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nEdited by Roderick Bates
\n 
\nRAT\u2019S ASS REVIEW SUMMER ISSUE 2021 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED<\/div>\n

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