Donna Hilbert: Credo
I believe in the Tuesdays
and Wednesdays of life,
the tuna sandwich lunches
and TV after dinner.
Michael Simms: Ishmael
I’m not prepared to measure grief
like grains of darkness
Mosab Abu Toha, et al: Ceasefire Cento
Each morning
I wake
in the shape
of an ancient
song
Chard deNiord: The Silence
an elegy for a child or parent or sibling
or friend who’s died at the hand
of the enemy whose God is the same
monotheistic deity with a different name
D.W. Fenza: Why the Department of English Needs a Drastic Renovation
The English department had fashioned itself after the kind of revelation the English Department could no longer provide. —from the poem “Berkley Hills Living” by Jessica Laser ~ The English … Continue reading
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: Tonight, When I Turn Right on Ogden
By the time I turn onto the highway toward home
it is fifteen years ago
and my father is sitting in his favorite chair
Zeina Azzam, Andy Young, David Adès: Three poems about Gaza
Only the children, terrified, wide-eyed,
have no complicity as we lead them, again,
sacrificial lambs to the slaughter.
Naomi Shihab Nye, Debra Winger: Zero
I can’t stop thinking about classrooms
bedrooms pets toys strawberry patches
altars bent skillets spatulas. The skirts
of little girls. The pink. I can’t stop thinking.
Corrine Clegg Hales: Her Husband Wants Her Back
Marge has run again, hiding out
at one neon motel after another
with her three small children.
Barbara Hamby: Mambo Cadillac
I’m talking to you, Mr. Magoo. Sit up, check
out that blonde with the leopard print tattoo. O she’ll lick
the sugar right off your doughnut and bill you, too, speak
French while she do the do.
Ellen McGrath Smith: Woman Standing for an Hour in Target Reading Greeting Cards to Herself
Rejecting some
for sounding nothing
like her, others for
sounding too much
like the way she feels
Robert Wrigley: A Similar While
The window-walloped chickadee that burst
from the hollow of her hands at her chest
startled her
Kai Coggin: Essence
and did you know these tiny sprouts
these little leaves and baby greens
already hold the heavy flavors of their final selves?
Naomi Shihab Nye: Little Farmer
how right he was about slowness,
the path of sunlight through leaves,
how dirt has always befriended me,
