by Leila Farjami I Would you liketo own a broken heart? Do you have any usefor one? I’ll give you mine for free. II I have a fatal—black-haired,immigrant-status,countryless,head-in-the-clouds,awful-daughter, bad-sister,nagging-wife, bitter-hermit,wild-witch, human-imposter—condition. III I am all pain. This pain isthe eternal ash treeoutside my windowthat rehearses dyingeach winter,clings to whatever remains,…
by Jess Earl Mama told me that thunder is just the sound of angels bowling. The angel outside my window doesn’t have hands but maybe it just can’t bowl, like how Katie can’t eat peanut butter. The angel doesn’t look like the ones in Mama’s paintings; it looks like a…
by Joshua Snyder One thinks, usually, that with effort comes reward. Duke and Lian expected a reward to befall them after their first summer, but success was not instantaneous. The reward for Duke and Lian, as it was with most people of the nation, was financial. They hoped and wished…
by Laine Derr Like a red-faced warbler,he stumbles across our yard. A father I rarely see, imagesof dappled light mark a face familiar, like a morning mirror,eyes singing a summer song – I come from a jagged lineof men who leavetheir wives on sunny days,kids playing in yardsnewly mowed, tortoiseor…
by James D. Mills There is a term used in support groups to describe a sudden onset of extreme emotion. When the dam of composure that you so carefully built comes crumbling down and there is nothing that can withstand the raging rapids of your own despair. The Grief Share…
by Roxanne Finniss I understand whyyou never wanted to be buried.It begins with a hole6-feet below to preventthe odor of decay.They preserve your skin and organsthrough the process of embalming.Then your family must decidewhether your body mightbe presented in an open casket. (A dead body,that no longer holds the soulin…
by Amber Allehoff thoughts like polka-dotscircular and scattered.shattered dreamsa million beams of lightthat never mattered.
by Amanda Valerie Judd The oceans are a poem –The continuous ebb and flow of the tides,Stanza after stanza in the greatest poem ever written;Each wave a line, punctuated by dolphins,holding a different meaning for each coast it caresses;every word a grain of sand, spoken by the surf,before being tossed…
by Ivy Rozen This poem was originally published in Hot Pot Magazine. We ate avocadoson toast, in salads, with chips.We craved their pits.We saved them inventi plastic cups, logo fadingbut my mom’s misspelled nameremained in Sharpie. Tap water, lukewarm:only fill it half-way.Stab the heart with wooden stakesto hold it up,…
by Russell Rowland No hole is too smallfor a mouse to get into your head. First alarm might bea gnawing sound under floorboards.Treating the symptom, you poundon the floor. Sound stops,briefly. Then resumes. Poundingwill not stop it now. Or you find tiny black seedsin your sock drawer, inside a pianoyou…