by Dee Allen MARCH 26, 2022—8:30pm to 9:30pm PT On this Saturday evening,I take a breakFrom electricity. Decisive move,Hand to wall switch.Lights off. Candles on. Lit match to a few candle wicks.Shadows on walls and ceiling shimmy,Dance to flame’s spontaneous rhythm. Dimly litComfort zone, filled withComfort food on a plate,…
by Dee Allen MARCH 26, 2022—8:30pm to 9:30pm PT On this Saturday evening,I take a breakFrom electricity. Decisive move,Hand to wall switch.Lights off. Candles on. Lit match to a few candle wicks.Shadows on walls and ceiling shimmy,Dance to flame’s spontaneous rhythm. Dimly litComfort zone, filled withComfort food on a plate,…
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 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 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…
by Nolo Segundo My friend Marco and I went out to for lunch, toa ramshackle little place, but my friend told methe food was great—and it was! Three differentchicken curries, a lovely lamb korma, with a half-dozen veggies, and mango drinks to wash it down. I suppose we visited the…
by E.J. Fawn A girl stands before me, donning a cobalt-colored dress. She turns to me silently, eclipsed in the typhoon of sundry blues, “Does this look good?” She asks me, hair fashioned in buns uneven. This girl is my friend, so frankly, I tell her no. The dress—we admire—has…