Sandra McPherson: On the Abundance of Shell Hinges after a Storm
How have these ligaments
held, for their umbones, each life’s intention
of never letting go?
Michael Simms: Antbed
You may remember my father
died when I was eight
my mother closed up
the house and we went to stay
with my grandmother for a few months
S. B. Merrow: Reading Half-Earth
E.O.Wilson says we already know
what happens to elephants—to us—
when families are broken, when
matriarchs and memories are lost.
James Crews: God Particles
Call them God if you must
these messengers that bring hard evidence
of what I once was and where I have been…
Majid Naficy: Visiting the Moon
I was fifteen years old
When I found the moon in the Biabanak sand dunes.
Kathleen O’Toole: Mindful
Samsara’s in every in-breath, each shutter click of attention: first warning
signs of famine, children lining up
for the soldiers’ candy
Dawn Potter: Canto
The season was autumn. Threads of smoke
unwound from the chimneys. Every compass pointed
toward winter.
Kristofer Collins: A Poem for Michael Wurster
The only connection I felt to the mills
was to the children of a generation of flayed men
on unemployment, the storefronts boarded…