Arlene Weiner: December Vigil
I think of Jeff and Mike, who won’t need
next year’s calendars, Mike saying
These are my last poems. Tomorrow
is not promised, some people say.
Letter from South Gaza, 12/13/2023
Dear [Name Withheld]: The situation in the North is getting worse and worse day by day. They manipulate the news. They play with the scenes. The Israeli forces break into … Continue reading
Paul Christensen: Pomegranates in Winter
Snow reminds me of the chalky blackboards of my childhood, the ones I was required to wash with a fat sponge and a bucket of water. A nun would occasionally check up on me to see that my labors were done in earnest.
Michael Simms: Sometimes I Wake Early
Last night we took a friend for a walk along the edge
of our mountain. She looked out
over the city, the rivers, the sultry slopes
crowded with sumac and maple
and said So you know where you live
Sandy Solomon: Diary from a Tomato Cannery, 1912
I walked part way home with a girl of ten
who’d peeled tomatoes from 6 am
to 6:30 in the evening.
“Things to eat is so high,” she said.
“We can’t go to school. We gotter work.”
Sara R. Burnett: Primary Source
What do you live for? The quiet
before sunrise or the moments after.
Meg Pokrass: Like she is
he doesn’t like
this Earth so much that he might live
here and be ruined like she is he
says
Tony Gloeggler: Goodbye
no one seemed to accept
or understand I love Jesse,
that the way he will never fit
in the world reminds me of me
Matthew J. Parker: One of Those Years
They had found a body in Phoenix, she said, and the cops were convinced it was John. But the body had no tattoos, and my mom had convinced herself that John, like my younger brother Mark and I, had at least one tattoo. I, however, knew better, and told her so.
Connie Post: Auto Immune
One part of the body
turns against the other
Video: Dreamcatcher
As an elderly Yakama woman looks back on her life, the line between reality and fantasy are blurred.
Kim Stafford: Wren’s Nest in a Shed near Aurora
Three tiny eggs in thistledowncupped in a swirl of grass in the pocket of the tool beltI hung on the wall of the shedwhen it finally stood complete—will be three … Continue reading
Liza Katz Duncan: The Uncles
I’m forgetting others, I know.
One had a scar near his eye in the shape of a bird.
One, a firefighter, had tattooed the word
mercy, and fed the feral cats.
Mike Vargo: The Holiday Rant
Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve celebrate the three great indulgences of our culture: overeating, overspending, and getting overly intoxicated. The unifying theme is excess.
