One night, I dreamt a mouthful of broken teeth, Jagged, inescapable ruins, salt white like the desert, Wet like the jungle’s crawling underbrush. The next, the faces of every clock smashed, Hands palm up on the floor beneath, Callused, nails outlined with dirt, thumb crooked To hitchhike. Every bird is a rapturous falcon, Scanning for …
POETRY: “Of Things Seen New” by John Timothy Robinson
I wanted to write of things seen new, not screaming hate on deafened ears, not watch-words or double-speak imbued with harsher tones, forgotten views, no mind melancholy-kissed of fears. I wanted to write of things seen new, to capture coal-flared flames of truth; like minds that sung beyond their years, not watch-words or double-speak imbued …
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POETRY: “LIGHT YEARS” by Laurie Sewall
A being formed/not formed yet into anything more than an orb in a photo on our refrigerator—and this pulsation will one day break through embryonic sac, her skull hopefully not tear what one doctor today called the vestibule that beautiful awareness between the opening and exit, that expanse where future presents itself as a …
POETRY: “December” by Cameron Morse
A lawn of fallen leaves glints like the Bronze Age. Shadows carve the dark out of their own likeness, the likeness of a piano leg, wedges of wood carried in from the dwindling pile of sunlight. Hay bale gold spindles the grassy patio edge and the green bud, like a case of mistaken identity, refutes …
POETRY: “PRAISE POEM TO SELF: A Sound Poem from Turkana” by Jacqueline Henry
Jackie! Here’s to you, girl! To your Voice Once so stifled, so Afraid of its own sound Never saying, “No, no. No! This is not me!” Swallowed into submission, Cowering deep in a bubbling gut Here’s to that Gut—to Guts!— To trusting Self and Sacred Song Percolating Gut (thanks to Turkana coffee!) Forcing Voice up. …
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POETRY: “Farmers’ Fourth, Bucks County, Pa., 1960” by Steve Myers
In kitchens the women read Revelations, lean toward black electric fans. A screen door slams. Out back, damp slips hang limp from baling twine, pinned between sheets. Their sons light ashcans, and cherry bombs, flick them at their sisters’ feet. Over their shoulders they look to their fathers, down by the …
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POETRY: “Your Knuckles” by Liz Kingsley
I hope you don’t mind that I’m holding your hand, dear sister-in-law, I don’t want to hurt you. But these knuckles, I’d know them anywhere. For such a delicate woman, your knuckles were always so wide, large, bony bumps. The only large thing about you. I think this is the first time I’ve touched them. …
POETRY: “STARTING WITH A MIRROR” by Kimberley K. Kelly
I spoke to the mirror twisted my spine it curved red ribbon around a carousel it cracked beneath the shirt’s silk: a snap like black plastic freshness, each vertebra tilted like a smile then, we were busy buttoning coats and burying the bother of a father taken too early by a man drinking rum from …
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Poetry: “Velikiye Luki” by Michael Sandler
When arthritis made her wince, she muttered the town name as metonym for a cold, crowded prison floor— a journey, world war, and privations away from the woman I knew: wizened in a faded dress at her dining table in L.A., her magnifying glass big as a saucer quivering to parse the newspaper for a …
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Poetry: “Raccoon” by Michael Lyle
I watch a raccoon wobble like a drunk from a bar in daylight, so maybe he’s rabid or she is old and confused too many seasons, litters, scavenges cloudy eyes, achey paws a turkey vulture circles and leaves returns with a flock the raccoon flattens against the grass animal control joins me in the yard …
