Laura McCullough: Another Winter Sunday (with passive aggression)
alone inside
the diminishing body, wanting
any attention he can get
Gary Fincke: Anniversary
“Gary, just you wait,”
My mother promised me ten thousand times,
And I did until this moment, saying
That I’ve woken, love, to some happiness
Doug Anderson: We Get Old, We Get Sick
How we stumble, are glib
in the face of our fear
when we might show
our own raw heart
Robert Walicki: The Ride
I thought my grandmother was a badass
after arm wrestling me for a pack of Swedish fish.
Sydney Lea: Heterodox
A knows of B
That after grim chemo his hair came back
The doctors reckoned they’d licked his disease
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.