By Kenneth Pobo A yellow orchid just blooming, noise from cars and mowers at the window which I shut tight, a quiet that calls me to come closer and sing softly. Kenneth PoboKenneth Pobo (he/him) is the author of twenty-one chapbooks and nine full-length collections. Recent books include Bend of Quiet (Blue Light Press, 2015),
By Gerry LaFemina The field speckled with yellow patches because there’s been one rain in weeks & the temps all record-breakers so that even the canal is parched, even the dandelions growing with abandon on its banks, & the mountain breeze is just hot breath, an upset parent looming but with nothing to say. Sunlight
To the eight-year-old who lost her home in the bombing By Pam Laskin Flesh a bandage for brokenness, gangrened grief you can’t treat since my baby brother died in the arms of Mama and Papa all clinging to splinters of stone once our home. Pamela L. LaskinPam Laskin is the former director of the New York City
By Hilary Sideris I dream I’m a man in love with Vincenzo. We’re in our 2020 Tucson. He can’t see my pistol as he parks, confesses decades of betrayal. È vero— he twists the figurative knife—I love somebody all this time! I pull the literal trigger, toss the gun in the river. I’m old by
By R. Cardenas Colmenares I cannot afford to build a castle in the sky. No. The ruins of my castle have been buried for a while now, so deep in the mud pit. I can’t get them out. Not while the world operates this way,where color pallets are held, cold and sharp,against our throatsto determine
By Puma Perl A red eye. An escape. Or both. I once moved four doors down the block to escape a bad relationship. He never found me. I didn’t even need a plane ticket. Just better judgment. Puma PerlPuma Perl is a poet, writer, and performer and the author of two chapbooks, and three full-length poetry
in this spare forest windy accents are longing to enter the mouths of the silent actors to make mon: of this than a wooded matinee. With these trees standing at moral attention you can ask questions: Are these really The Wonder Years? Or to vary a theme: Is the world a tenable place to live,