Andy Young: Ash Wednesday 2020
Sitges, Catalunya We slept to the clatter of the sea and rose to search for the weeping drag queens displaying their mourningbehind the king’s erect effigy paraded to the sea … Continue reading
Fred Shaw: The Pass
In the pass, a testy chef chews his lip
while zesting an orchard of green apple
over a peppery dish of risotto,
squinting his way to soigne by slicing
a plump of roast duck into a shingle
Sandy Solomon: Making Soup
Who would have guessed before this year
how cheerful this simple chore would feel
now that the sick room’s silence starts
beyond the swinging kitchen door.
Baron Wormser: Bernie
Only one politician has come forward with a coherent response that he has taken to the people concerning what is occurring in the second administration of Donald Trump.
Paul Laurence Dunbar: Invitation to Love
Come when my heart is full of grief
Or when my heart is merry;
Come with the falling of the leaf
Or with the redd’ning cherry.
Sean Sexton: Meditation Upon Dutch Boy General Purpose Paste Flux
See the plastic screw-capped container of
Dutch Boy General Purpose Paste Flux, left
by the man summoned to tear out a wall
of our bathroom closet
Julia Conley: Thousands in Midwestern GOP Districts Attend Sanders’ First Stops on Tour to Fight Oligarchy
“The energy around what Bernie is doing is insane….”
Amal Ahmed: Rebuilding Food Security After a Wildfire
A coalition in Oregon is fighting to expand access to food assistance—regardless of immigration status.
Meg Kearney (Two Poems)
When he was dying my little brother
said cancer was “the sins of our mother”
visited upon him. What’s also true:
her heart was the stone rolled away from the tomb.
Abby Zimet: For Cruel, Stupid, Dastardly Deeds Done and Proposed
Gandhi famously said, “Civil disobedience therefore becomes a sacred duty when the State has become lawless.”
Molly Fisk: Two Poems
Part, partial, apart, apartheid,
apartments invaded, a woman
shot though she too was a piece
of the continent, she was a part
of the main.
Alexis Rhone Fancher: Out of Order
Promise me, my sister says. That you’ll be there if something happens to me. I know she worries about the fate of her children if she becomes injured, succumbs to a virus or is killed in a crash. Anything’s possible, she says. For better or worse, her sperm donor’s out of the picture.
Video: Grace
Sixteen-year-old Grace prepares for her baptism in the 1950’s South. When she learns she must repent before the ritual, Grace contemplates her budding romantic feelings toward her best friend, Louise.
Robinson Jeffers: Love the Wild Swan
I hate my verses, every line, every word.
Oh pale and brittle pencils ever to try
One grass-blade’s curve, or the throat of one bird
That clings to twig, ruffled against white sky.
