Sydney Lea: Remorse
Do you ever recall some minor misdemeanor or even one you committed only in mind, and –however absurdly– half believe it contributed to a disaster?
James Crews: After Receiving Bad News from a Friend
To offer what we can,
even when a friend lives far away,
to say: I will hold you inside myself
as you pass through this new gate.
Sydney Lea: Final Visit
He kept awkwardly laying a hand across his forehead, trying to cover his eyes. He’d done that a lot by then. Ever the iron-butt Yankee, he meant to hide his tears, though … Continue reading
Ma Yongbo: Three poems for Helen Pletts in English & Chinese
No one can walk here,
save shy deer, save wind and rain,
save those invisible wings
that can gently lift the whole garden
up to the constellations.
Ron Smith: Cassandra
I called my friend, the journalist, right after
The vote was known. “You don’t understand.”
He told me, “This is reporter’s gold”—with laughter
To show contempt of the clown and his band
Of misfits and morons
Announcing Zoom Launch for Baron Wormser’s new poetry collection!
Sign up for the Zoom book launch on Tuesday, January 13, 2026, (8 pm EST). We’ll be reading from James Baldwin Smoking a Cigarette.
Sharon Fagan McDermott: The Hat
That first day I noticed the handsome stranger, I was wearing a skirt and heels, walking delicately down the cracked sidewalks of Shady Avenue. This dressing-up for work was new to me.
Dawn Potter: Don’t Tell Me You Don’t Know What Love Is
I think back to those nights in Buck Lane, the melodramas of sex and desire, the intense affections but also the cruelties … the ruthlessness of self-absorption.
Frank Lehner: Mrs. Nussbaum’s Monkey
Pops never said much, but there he was in his T-shirt and loose boxers telling Jessers about the Easter Tuesday night he lost his mother and taking the streetcar to go to work because there was nothing to do until the next day, and the plant owner only gave two days off for deaths.
Michael Simms: Baron Wormser (February 15, 1948 – October 7, 2025)
Although history will have the final word on who among us is read by future generations, I’ll put my money on Baron. His writing represents the best of the American spirit.
Alexis Rhone Fancher: Hermanas
You’re the same, you two, J, my lover, said. Of course you feel an affinity. I stared at the Frida Kahlo self-portrait in his hands. Frida’s soulful sweetness stared back. You … Continue reading
Fleur Adcock: Happy Ending
After they had not made love
she pulled the sheet up over her eyes
until he was buttoning his shirt:
not shyness for their bodies – those
they had willingly displayed – but a frail
endeavor to apologise.
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: Nostalgia
Nostalgias we share with friends
around a good table, nodding yes, yes, to our
glad sadnesses as we bring back a taste, a kiss,
that one song we will never forget.
