Hiba Abu Nada: I Grant You Refuge
I grant you refuge in knowing
that the dust will clear,
and they who fell in love and died together
will one day laugh.
Margo Berdeshevsky: After the Auguries…
Where are medicines for vengeances, where
are cures in what palm of whose open hand.
Marc Bekoff: Tasty Bacon or Fellow Being? The Paradox of How We Relate to the Intelligence and Emotions of Pigs
Every piece of bacon comes from a unique personality.
Susan Kelly-DeWitt: Estate Sale
The day grew hot; the yard
held the heat until the late shade
gathered it. Deep in shadow
the ghosts convened
Barbara Crooker: Who Do You Carry?
On city streets, the homeless unfurl
their sleeping bags like hungry tongues.
Michael Simms: Waterfall
In Chatham Woods near our house
a spring bursts
from a hillside and falls
into a rocky pool
Lynne Thompson: In this version, a teardrop
Tell them, tear, you are finished and
they should chuckle like old men who
stand between stanzas and a widow’s
Social Security check.
Chard deNiord: Songbirds Fly North at Night
I’m flying like a sparrow in my sleep
with only a pen to guide me
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: Some Nights Missing You
like the letter that doesn’t come,
the one I would carefully slit open
and slowly unfold
Lennard J. Davis: Hillbilly Elegy is an example of ‘poornography,’ in which the rich try to speak on behalf of the poor
JD Vance has climbed to his current position as former President Donald Trump’s running mate, in part, by selling himself as a hillbilly, calling on his Appalachian background to bolster … Continue reading
Betsy Sholl: The Word ‘Swan’ on a Slip of Paper Fell from my Pocket
The wind that morning was deliciously wild—
one second the water rippled like black pleats,
the next it was all gust-driven glitter
blowing the ticket right out of my hand
for the swans to trample like a shed feather
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: Fire Season Again
The fire now climbs the mountain’s back.
A red-gray haze swirls around the setting sun,
& the skies rain acrid ashes — tiny moth wings
flickering over everything.
Toi Derricotte: My great teacher, Galway Kinnell, taught me: “Speak the unspeakable.”
My father taught me:
You have to break the bones
To get to the heart
Barbara Hamby: Ode to Skimpy Clothes and August in the Deep South
A young woman is walking with her boyfriend, and it’s deep
summer in the South, like being in a sauna
but hotter and stickier
