José A. Alcántara: To a Friend Who Does Not Believe in God
from the first chord
on the guitar, her body stilled, her face went slack.
For two minutes, she went somewhere else,
somewhere quiet, beautiful, free of pain.
Vegan Kitchen: Southwest Kale Salad with Cumin-Tomato Dressing
Here’s a great tasting salad rich in antioxidants, protein and fiber. I serve this dish with a hearty bread and plant-based butter or nut spread.
Naomi Shihab Nye: Trying to Name What Doesn’t Change
Every Tuesday on Morales Street
butchers crack the necks of a hundred hens.
The widow in the tilted house
spices her soup with cinnamon.
Ask her what doesn’t change.
Byron Hoot: To Life
The restlessness
of age has entered me. That longing for more
knowing there’s only less to take in.
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley: Cleaning Lady
The war had already overrun the entire country of Liberia even as we awaited our evacuation in March of 1991. Charles Taylor was making his on and off comeback to kidnap residents in the city suburbs, And missiles were still landing in our backyard soon after the ceasefire agreement.
Barbara Crooker: Stillbirth
Dear Supreme Court Injustices,
you who are so proud of overturning
Roe vs. Wade. Do you have any idea
what it’s like to lose a child, a wanted child,
one who never got to use her pink lungs,
take in this sweet air?
Sean Sexton: Fool’s Day
Was it they’d mostly finished their work,
how the bulls came along this morning, let
themselves be driven back to their pasture
still in ruin with holes dug from last year’s
nine-month layoff?
Patricia A. Nugent: Scenes from a Tesla Takedown
When I first heard about it, I knew I’d go. I’ve been showing up for more than fifty years, starting with the Vietnam war.
Baron Wormser: Dissident
Of necessity, the path of the dissident, since it depends on the exactions of conscience, is a solitary one. I think of Henry David Thoreau’s night in a jail … Continue reading
Rachel Hadas: Three Poems
Wait. Something I had never thought to see
again clanks forward from obscurity-
that creaky train I’d once been riding on,
a journey slow and grim.
Desne A. Crossley: Something I Came Across
Yesterday, I was culling through papers to throw out and came across a letter from my mother to her father. She’s trying to cushion the news that no one will tell him. He’s dying of cancer.
James Crews: Beech Trees in Spring
Perhaps they need the reassurance,
or maybe they’re here to lend music
to the silence of winter
Nidia Hernández: Miami Book Fair 2016 (Spanish and English versions)
a poet and a tree
are always interchangeable
Michelle Bitting: Sudden
I wanted to come home transformed
and be surprised by the flickering
in our radically impermanent
robes
