Doug Anderson: When the Soldiers Came
They found the old monk Cheng Liu
sitting in meditation at the Temple gate
and shot him full of arrows.
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley: A Dirge for Our Murdered Sons
Oh, America, how many tears do you want
before you stop killing our sons?
Rachel Hadas: Smoke
Smoke from a massive fire was blowing across the river
into the city: lobbies of apartment buildings,
inner rooms of doctors’ offices.
Fred Everett Maus: White Light 2020
I throw some seeds onto the snow and the dark-eyed juncos are here, very busy.
Jose Padua: With the Morning Moon Shining Down Upon Me through These Thick Walls
This morning I pounded
a nail into the wall
using a book
by Franz Kafka.
Valerie Duff: Follow You Into
In the Wellesley
Botanic Gardens
the seedlings
spread in rows
Lex Runciman: Coast Morning Not a Painting
The upper third color field
is all tin flash, ocean blue shoulders and tics.
That wide mid-brown crossed by shine is sand
and fresh water going home.
Patricia Spears Jones: The Devil’s Wife Explains Broken “45s”
The devil hates Black genius. Made him work harder than hard to render
it witless and dope stung.
Terry Blackhawk: Cambridge, Massachusetts — 1951
the boy with curlier hair and light brown skin
over by the windows and Roland, who was darker,
with short cut hair, whose name I’ve carried all these years
Ellen McGrath Smith: Hand me your last resurrection 
like a small child hidden in a hollow tree
while the soldiers kill his family
Sydney Lea: Heterodox
A knows of B
That after grim chemo his hair came back
The doctors reckoned they’d licked his disease
Nina Clements: Singing Bowl Massage
You are on the table
but also floating
in the center
of a lake.
Wendy Mnookin: A Love Poem
I don’t want to complain about my mother, because she did a lot of nice things. Some very considerate things. She came to Boston when my younger son was born … Continue reading
Jefferson Carter: Life Partner
For convenience, I & my life partner
(the woman formerly known as my wife)
have numbered our arguments.
