Pablo Otavalo: Étude
On the outstretched arm of a pinwheel galaxy
and doomed to be free. Into the bonfire
the vanities, as into a cave
the light.
Susan Kelly-DeWitt: Estate Sale
The day grew hot; the yard
held the heat until the late shade
gathered it. Deep in shadow
the ghosts convened
Paul Christensen: At Sea on the Queen Mary Two
In the decks above, life was throbbing and squirming in anticipation of some event that would never come. Or if it came, would be so gradual as to be uneventful. The sea told me that.
Dane Cervine: This Burning
I drove silently in the night
into the heaving hills of Los Angeles afire, so close now,
not knowing if there would be a way through
Marlowe Starling: Unsilencing the Desert
“Nomads are in contact with nature every day, surrounded by rivers, mountains, and deserts. The silence of the desert allows them to hear nature.”
Baruch November: Self-Portrait with the Baal Shem Tov
Let me fall if I must fall.
The one I will become
will catch me,
said the Baal Shem Tov.
Michael Simms: Waterfall
In Chatham Woods near our house
a spring bursts
from a hillside and falls
into a rocky pool
Lynne Thompson: In this version, a teardrop
Tell them, tear, you are finished and
they should chuckle like old men who
stand between stanzas and a widow’s
Social Security check.
Abby Zimet: Ceasefire Delegates Insist Palestinian Children Can’t Eat Words
‘Never again’ means ‘never again, for anyone, anywhere, ever.’
Chard deNiord: Songbirds Fly North at Night
I’m flying like a sparrow in my sleep
with only a pen to guide me
Sally Bliumis-Dunn: Ouija
my palm beneath your palm
along the arc of your pregnant belly
as though my hand were the planchette
on a Ouija board
Larry Levis: François Villon on the Condition of Pity in Our Time
We’re broken buttons, we’re blown dust.
There’s not one tear left in all of us.
I know, for I am François Villon, murderer
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: Some Nights Missing You
like the letter that doesn’t come,
the one I would carefully slit open
and slowly unfold
Fred Johnston: Ark
She leaned in, my mother, and felt the sleeve
First, then the shoulders, but she left it on its hanger in its own dark
Closed the door as if it were a sacred ark of rules the light might wither
Something I knew she would look at and leave
