By Terry Trowbridge A lover and I signaled each other with cynical looksin a busy place called Montebello Parkwhere we saw friends of friends with anonymous friendswho talked around us about their incomplete plansfor choosing a city where they would live next year.The park was steadily growing a scene from a citybecoming busier with every […]
St. Catharines, Ontario, Semester’s End Read More »
—an elegy By T. R. Poulson I remember Cinnamon, a Malamute cross,her coat a map of browns and blacks blendedon white, her eyes dark as topsoil tossedamong blooms. She watched weeds surrender to curves of blades. Her human, a botanistand she, the help, her nose aquiver in bound-uproots of bleeding hearts. Never a monotonist,she heeled
Named for Curls of Spicy Bark Read More »
By Susan Shea On a gray day hike in the woods I started seeing rocks painted with messages every quarter of a mile or so, they were all different art styles, and young in form, making me think they were the offerings of a scout troop trying to revitalize the travelers saying you are beautiful,
By Ron Shapiro How the day speeds by in this chilly room.Life slows outside in November; no one,It seems, walks in the late afternoon whenNow the sun sets earlier, twilight’s long shadowsEscaping above rooftops into the treetops.Now a single leaf or two, no more, dangles,Twisting and turning with every windy whisper.How it then comes tumbling
By Seraphina Dawn The child is filled with the anticipation of rising from the dead. Dawn. Her middle nameis a sun cut in half. A second chance blooms the moment she opens her eyes. Predictability sharpens her skills. She passes a portrait of Frida Kahlo each day. Bright pink with tropical greens, the colors have
By Samantha Moya You’re making a left turn, and I, in all of my hazy contentedness, smile at the way you tap your finger on the steering wheel to the beat of the music. You might sigh heavily at the oncoming traffic, your impatience endearing. Sun peaks between cumulus clouds, you just keep driving and
Thursday Afternoon Read More »
By Rebecca M. Ross Thrown, my body sailedmy breath caught,stalled,then restarted as a key of recognition turned in my ignition(I never expected to land so cleanly under this massive conveyor of human baggage)Peering up:maybe that’s a wheel axleand a rack and pinion bellowsI’m barely holding tight to roadfilth-coated underpartsand I’m not sure how much longer
By Reese Bentzinger Content Warning: “Lahaina is in Ashes” focuses on the tragedies of the 2023 Maui wildfires. and you’re watching the smoke sputter in your firepit, poking logs until they crumble to bits. Your blanket is cozy enough, but you want to be somewhere warm again. You yearn to make love on a bed
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By Philip Wexler After lunch, the weather newly calm,he slides the glass doors partly open like lips still hesitant to speak.She takes her customary seat opposite with the half-finished shawl and knittingneedles sitting idly on her lap, radio news and weather in the background. Not readyfor conversation, he retreats to putter in the garden out
By Phil Flott You’re not the first to gohanging on to barbecued chicken dinnersand all the fresh French bread and pure rich buttera cold summer beer could wash down.You won’t be the lastto gather your children around you,moons orbiting Jupiter,and tell them the news their hearts know:this cancer is robbing you of ten years.You are
By Peter J. Dellolio A creamy moment, a certainly odd and fortunate mixture of good diction and sea salt, the kind of softly spoken (but not too altruistic) epigraph that a rusty old navy boat provides, never seeming, to be the wrong side of summer or the left drawer in the tumbling walls of loftiness.—A
By Michael Lee Johnson Tired of hungertired of emptinesslate February winter snow—crow claws locked inon my balconysteel railings.Their desperate eyesfocus in on my green eyesockets—their search begins,I go to bed, no ruffled feathers showing—their imaginary dreams of green—black wings fly flapping—the hunt, scavengers, over barren fields—shadows in the waynow late Augustsummer sunbright yellowturning orange—hard corn.
By MF Charles Years slipped along carefree we went our own wayssecrets were passed jokes jibes lunchroom laughsa bridge was crossed rough humor unbalanced unsharedhidden damage truly meanness in innocent hijinksat another’s expense from a sham friend clearly now wronglost opportunities for unsaid apologies a chance forfeitedregret at last for any delayed healing final redress
By Melissa Jean I’ve been trying to open the book of the futureand see what its pages hold, but it is sealed shut.It will not talk. I’ve been trying to finda crystal ball. Or runes or an oracle, or a cup of teawith its dregs of leaves arranged just-so. But all I find is, over
By Madison Vulkanblomst the tie dye of shibori the rebirthing of the ocean floorrays of light gently leapingthrough the salinity of the swelling waves reflecting rhythmically off of the sandin distorted suns of indigothe tie dye of shiborithe emerging of kaleidoscope silhouettes when I close my sun-soaked eyesdarkness pearlescently piercedwith the pacific sigh of my
By LindaAnn LoSchiavo She’s old, my neighbor, planting daffodilsAnd other bulbs, these plump brown hopes asleepFor now, when she addresses me, that voiceDeep, curved like a construction hook, as ifShe’s building with that voice things both of usWill need. A kaffir lily, bare root still,Is offered for inspection, years awayFrom blooming orange trumpets, syllablesBlown bright.
By Karl Kliparchuk The world is a meat grinder.We are born, made of stufffrom the past. Recycled people,pigs, chickens, beans, rice.The past becomes us. Our ancestorsonce walked, breathed the airwe enjoy, but we cannot heartheir voices, know their joys.Their voices have decayed like their bodies into dust.Dust that doesn’t know that it had a past