Excerpts

by Matthew Friday Look Out At a look-out just west of the Mosier Tunnelsa herd of tourists admire the view, commentthat the island down there with the white jettyand a brick house would be a good place to stay.A $500…

by Carla Sarett The Heads of the Kings of Judah, 1793 All the priests were jailed or drowned.Twisted ropes bound and loweredthe twenty-eight Kings of Judahfrom Notre Dame’s portals.A giant blade. Bloodless. Clean.Louder than human bone.The limestone necks were cut.…

by Ashley Wagner Making Waves Confession: on days when I feelvery small, I’ve found a new lovein eavesdropping. On walks,I often listen inon the river’s conversationwith the rocks, the sandpipersshouting directions into the cloudlessair as they begin their trip to…

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…