by Carol Berg Scoliosis Each day, my back reminds methat pain is an artist. Some mornings, my painis a contortionist performing in carnival, bright fire in its mouth, bendingin ways my body won’t. Some days, a boring lecturer,the dullest words…
by Gunilla Kester After the StormWe parachute into a new garden,borders erased, minutes changing size. Can a frozen Eden be well-watered?Pond’s ice-blind eye staring at a white sky. Strangers follow the red moon. Growand diminish. Nothing plain in the unknown.…
by Dayna Hodge Lynch The Summer People Started DyingAugust 2009.We were scared to go outside after J. didn’t come home.Remembered how his hunted body molded to the pavement of Colby Street while his spiritdepartedalong with the red running from his…
by Abdulrosheed Fasasi Oladipupo origin of hateslavery is a bad idea. (jericho brown) it brought night to the room of history,it pushes us into the questions of wrong or right,yesterday i had to uproot every lily in my gardenthey remind…
by Ilene Millman In Praise of Random Things,June 21st Praise for the light—its certainty, the way it fractures into geometric patterns I see tracing on the sidewalk, the way it clings to the wings of birds Praise for Zoom—the…
by Mary Buchinger Pantoum My mother asks, What is a poem?A sentence broken into shorter lines?Meter, syllables, it doesn’t need to rhyme?Psalms, Song of Solomon, not Leviticus. A sentence broken into shorter lines?A place to enter, space for feeling and…
by Richard Stimac CassandraAt recess, the boys pinched her budding breasts.She cried but didn’t flinch. The mean girls laughed.The teachers ignored her honest protests.As if by divine will, a turgid shaftof sunlight penetrated a cleft cloud.Just one teacher (the faculty…
by Linda Parsons Victory O how I want to loose thunderon the scrotal sac of females throbbing birthsongs in the eave of my porch.I long to press the Hot Shot button, spray brimstone until my arm goes numb,until the harrowing…
by Bryana Joy Poem For Whichever Of Us Is LeftI know how cold Comfort is I knowyou have no interest in getting over it,in sun or moon anymore, in beginnings.I did not write this poem to say whateveryone is saying,…
by Josh Mahler Acceptance after “When I used to focus on the worries, everybody” by Joanne Kyger If you ask why I don’t fear death, a reason good enough for meis waiting for the kinship of the sun, the light…