Ellen June Wright
Ellen June Wright And miles to go before I sleep (after Robert Frost) Mother is nocturnal. Moments of freedom come late into the evening. After everyone has gone to bed, she finds the strength, at 99, to rise and roam—knowing…
G. H. Mosson
G. H. Mosson Sharing the Wound I like it here, beyond signposts and summaries, says the painter Clyfford Still to a friend who’s moving to the hill country “forever.” Yes, says Still, we all should disappear into what we must…
Emma Thomas Jones
Emma Thomas Jones Photo of Father on a Motorcycle Looking like a Beatle: bowled hair thick and sideswept. Corner of sun catching cattails, swinging to a silent tune, bike draped in sugar crystals—glazed leather seats, white stripes bleached and my…
Connie Jordan Green
Connie Jordan Green These Bones at Eighty-Four These bones grow brittle as we age, the limber shock- absorbing joints of our youth now gnarled knuckles that scarcely grip a pencil. And what of fish bones, skeletons thin as a wish…
Chris Bullard
Chris Bullard Instant A white-tailed deer strides intothe Wissahickon, stops mid-stream,bordered by water, framed by trees.My eye clicks like a latch as I create a holding of this time and place,my own box containing a deer shapejoined with a lack…
Sonya Schneider
Ode to My BreastsI have no memory of the buds, the hard fistsof hormones hauling you up not unlikethe earth moved by velvety voles.Warm friends, I underestimated you.You grew out of sinewy muscle and fat,that dirty word, that dense tissuewhy…
Margaret Mackinnon
Margaret Mackinnon AT LAST, WHAT EVE UNDERSTOOD After a 15th century manuscript illumination Adam is oblivious, crouching down to name yet another unnamed blade of grass, while the Serpent Girl, walking still, approaches Eve and will seem to her…
Merie Kirby
Merie Kirby What small birds do Once I held in my hand a yellow finch –it hopped through the front yard, escaped orturned out pet. It trembled to vibrationagainst my palm, strong heartbeat I took for frailty. My grandma loved…
Caleb Peterson
Caleb Petersen Ten Reasons to Write Poetry One) last night Hunter diced onions and poblano peppers,finely, then scraped them into a pot of beef. Two)it smelled of smoked paprika and cumin and my eyeswelled up with the need for metaphor.…
Ashley Mae Hoiland
Ashley Mae Hoiland Birthday At the park, I met a dog, Hank, as tall as my chest. His tender skin–cloud skin–stretched across his ribs carried a deep cut trying to heal. His fur, short and bristled, raised around it in…