Michael Simms: The Crows
We barely recognized ourselves
But the crows knew
Who we were and where we’d been
Why we returned
Philip Terman: Two Poems
our daughter
rubbing softly and deeply,
her knowing hands breathing
into the pain their love
Sharon Fagan McDermott: The Hat
That first day I noticed the handsome stranger, I was wearing a skirt and heels, walking delicately down the cracked sidewalks of Shady Avenue. This dressing-up for work was new to me.
Patricia Spears Jones: The Devil’s Wife looks at America to understand the necessity of wordsmiths
Yes, the Devil is making quite a mess of America,
and here I am swabbing yet another wound and offering up unanswered prayers.
Our names are on fire.
Meg Pokrass: Three Poems
When I said, I miss America
I meant that what is nestled in my brain feels like a harbor.
Sean Sexton: Shirts
And now I come to wear your clothes, shirts
that no longer fit, you barely wore in the end
arranged in piles to divide and sort, of
three sizes—which was the measure of you?
Lao Yang: “Magnolia” by Michael Simms, translated into Chinese and recited 《玉兰》
Suppose you held what you love so tightly
you broke it
Suppose you let something slip away
Richard Krawiec: Facing it at the Halal Market
All the mothers and children, who were having such a hard time, the children, it wasn’t fair, who needed SNAP and how the store wanted to serve them too, but they hadn’t received approval yet.
Beth Copeland: Second Wife
Fifteen years ago I drove south to see you as trees broke
into bloom—redbuds, pears, dogwoods—and my heart
unfolded like a bud closed too long in the cold.
Barbara Hamby: Ode on My Wasted Youth
Other people were getting married and buying cars,
but not me, and I wasn’t even looking for Truth,
just some kind of minor grip on the whole enchilada
Mel Packer: We Must Lay Our Bodies Down
We must stand up against a tyrannical state power that is clearly moving toward fascism, or more and more of us will wake one day to find families and friends gone.
Michael Simms: Last Testaments
at dawn you’ll arrive
having thrown your luggage in the River Styx
and we’ll drink from the silver cup of day
Barbara Crooker: Coffee
Because each day
is a fresh new start, revised as the sky
after rain. Because my mug is full
of dark goodness, and the day is a clean
blank sheet.
Dawn Potter: Don’t Tell Me You Don’t Know What Love Is
I think back to those nights in Buck Lane, the melodramas of sex and desire, the intense affections but also the cruelties … the ruthlessness of self-absorption.
