Wilson R. M. Taylor: Two Poems
Today I said goodbye to my mother
for a few weeks. Five months ago,
the doctor estimated she had six to twelve
to live. I fly back and forth to replace futures
we’ve lost; I leave long scars in the atmosphere.
Alexis Rhone Fancher: The Girl in the Photo
She’s been damaged. Life’s out of control; there are no good options. The girl in the photo wants to let go, to quit this life and choose another…
Cynthia Atkins: When Harry Met Sally
A light quaked on earth, because when the waitress
gasped and blushed, we gasped and blushed,
sitting in the plush dark aisles to our interiors.
Rose Mary Boehm: Poinciana and then some
Green canopies aflame with
an unreal red, lit by the dying sun.
Yonhi in the plastic chair, blue baseball
cap pushed back. He’s seen it all.
Rosaly DeMaios Roffman: How My Father Does It
Tomorrow, I fly home to teach Prometheus—
that story of saving the universe with fire
and then enduring the eagle punishment
but my raised voice will be for my father
Chanelle Gallant & Shannon Perez-Darby: Sex Trafficking Prosecutions Won’t Stop the Next Epstein. Here’s What Will.
We can fight child sexual abuse using a block-and-build strategy rooted in economic, racial, and gender justice.
Barbara Hamby: Ode to Untoward Dreams
Have you ever dreamt you had sex with someone
you aren’t remotely interested in,
like a guy you work with or one of your husband’s friends
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.
Meg Pokrass: Three Poems
When I said, I miss America
I meant that what is nestled in my brain feels like a harbor.
Beth Copeland: Second Wife
Fifteen years ago I drove south to see you as trees broke
into bloom—redbuds, pears, dogwoods—and my heart
unfolded like a bud closed too long in the cold.
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.
Barbara Hamby: Ode to Hardware Stores
Where have all the hardware stores gone—dusty, sixty-watt
warrens with wood floors, cracked linoleum,
poured concrete painted blood red?
Sally Bliumis-Dunn: That Night
like a cage lit by moon in a darkness held at bay
beyond this room where the loud chandelier
lit us as though on a stage where we act our rawest selves
Beth Copeland: Pyre
Enough wood for a bonfire, I say, recalling the night
we torched a dead Christmas tree, drinking white wine and dancing
around the leaping blaze and the dark morning I burned your love
letters in a metal trash can outside, drunk and weeping, liar! liar!
