Patricia Clark: My Father on a Bicycle
If you ever saw my father in shorts,
you wouldn’t forget his stick-thin legs,
the knees knobby as windfall dwarf apples.
Kimberly Parish Davis: Forever and Ever
…they watched television or surfed around the Internet for news about what was going on in Palestine. There had been a lot of fighting—a lot of bombed out buildings. One website told about the attack at the School where Hanna’s little brother was killed, and she was probably dealing with that while Emma was news surfing.
Patricia A. Nugent: Father with a Gun
Years working in human resources convinced me that no school employee should have a gun. Period.
Bunkong Tuon: Two Poems
I wake up overwhelmed
with love. Time slows.
I hear each beating of
the wings on a hummingbird.
Joan E. Bauer: All But Lost
in the small print of NASA history
the story of my father: Harold E. Bauer,
known as Hal, technical director
of that workhorse, the Saturn IV-B.
Michael Simms: Satan and the Snowman
I don’t have relationships,
the old drunk explained
with surprising wisdom,
I take hostages.
Video: Miracle Jones | The Radical, Revolutionary Resilience of Black Joy
In the face of trauma, happiness is resilience: a revolutionary act of thriving despite all odds, rather than wilting or surrendering. Community organizer and activist Miracle Jones offers a heart-to-heart … Continue reading
Michael Simms: Meconium
it is sacred, the way
soil clinging to the seed
of a new shoot
pushing out of the earth
is sacred
Kari Gunter-Seymour: Heartland Hospice
When I was a kid, sick, he’d sing Hank William’s
Hey Good Lookin,’ call me his best girl.
Martha Silano: Nothing I Did
My father said no infinity times, said all As,
no A-minuses. In 6th grade I devised a plan:
if I was perfect, if I made no sound.
Christine Skarbek: Jocelyn
It soon became obvious she could not speak. Finally, after many attempts, I got her name out of her, Jocelyn and finally, she looked at me straight on and said in a whisper, “You know, I used to be pretty. I used to be smart.”
Marco North: Of Fountains and Wells
water holds spirits…water can be holy, and sacred.
Pauletta Hansel: Joy
When we finally sprung my father from the hospital
after days spent staring at the cardio unit’s
cinderblock walls the color of nothing
good, his joy could not be contained.
Martha Silano: Poem that Begins at the Core
A mother who lived to peel apples,
bake the most exquisite pies. Suffuse the air
with delicious love. A father gah-gah for fossils,
mummies, cow manure.
