Rachel Hadas: Summer Nights and Days
So far the nights feel lonelier than the days.
In light, the living keep me company,
and memories of voices through the years.
Dane Cervine: The Jeweled Net of Indra
the coal that fumes the electricity that plunges
the needle drifts in air that circles a globe that warms
the icecaps that melt into sea that shifts the current
that loves the wind
Margo Berdeshevsky: Beyond My Used-up Words
If I say
what I know of plenty and of empty,
how will I sleep, or dream of herons?
James Crews: Two Poems
Why do we try
to rush delight, strong-arm joy
into busy lives, when so much
beauty already seeds itself beneath
our restless feet?
Alice Friman: Confidentially Pink
When I stepped down from the train
and he wasn’t there
I didn’t panic. I knew he’d come
for I had dressed in pink–
Sean Sexton: Unrecognizable
A friend of my sister attended the reading—
sat in the back of the hall—coming forth only after
everyone had gone.
Pamela Uschuk: Return of the Warbling Vireo
Hear me please, hear
me, the melodic vireo cries, hear me
tumbles time
from his lonely beak on fire
Angele Ellis: “no margin on these pages of skin history”
In Every Hard Sweetness, Sheila Carter-Jones weaves a personal and cultural history of racism into poetry.
Jose Padua: Remember
Remember all ye tedious millionaires the bent
honeysuckle whose white flowers bloom in the
late spring. Remember the burden of the books
you burn…
Mandy Fessenden-Brauer: Funeral in Gaza
I’d been in Gaza only a few days when I attended a funeral with my husband who was working with UNRWA. Outside the wake house, soldiers were revving up their … Continue reading
Daniel Lawless: Family Photographs: My Brother, Solar Eclipse, 1965
At three o’clock to feel yourself disappear inside yourself —
To cast no shadow.
Alexis Rhone Fancher: Snake/Holding Things Down
I’m going back to Lowe’s to get a bigger, longer snake, my lover says. Get a king snake, I whisper in his ear. I reach between his legs, cop a feel. Yeah, sure, he says, rolling his eyes. A king snake. He gives my roving hand a squeeze. Or would you prefer a boa constrictor?
Jianqing Zheng: Mama Nell
spring sunrise
pear blossoms take on
a shade of red
Barbara Crooker: Pentimento
In the lost rooms of my childhood,
cinnamon and nutmeg float in the air
