by Menke Hudzinski-Biewenga Innocence is tending to dust bunnies raising them under the bed; watching them hop refusing to eat your veggies just so you can feed them It is painting a rainbow on the wall for Mommy; a big happy grin proud of your work—unaware you’ll sleep without dinner It is believing daddy is gone on…
by Rose Mary Boehm I know I have to do some shedding. Can’t go into a long, enfeebling winter with the weight of oceans, moors, beaches, dark woods, and stark horizons. I suppose I ought to shed my lightweight roots and put down the other kind, sturdy and reliable, holding a tree that tries to rise…
by Alex Stolis When I was sixteen, Dad almost sold the bar, I crushed on the buyer’s daughter: nineteen, blond, and way out of my league. I was gone-daddy-gone. She asked if I knew where we could score some kickin’ weed, and I made a joint appear from the inside pocket of my field…
by Walker Watson You are the sun all flowers seek, Their aching stems bent toward your light— While I, unseen, stay small and weak, A shadow fading out of sight. You cradle beauty none can claim, And never turned to meet my gaze. My love, a ghost that whispers name, Haunts hollow rooms and wasted days. You cradle…
by Jason Bauer The lightbulbs in my kitchen look like little Liberty Bells. It took me 17 years and three hundred something days to see it, but they are. It kinda burns to look at them, but it feels good. It makes my vision distort a bit. Everything turns a…
by Matthew Johnson Son, I wish I could let you Have time off on your birthday, But you know, we even work on Christmas, So if the Son of God walked Into my office to request time off, I’d even tell him to go back to his desk And to continue working on his sources…
by Rowan Tate Fog slips its milk through the hinge of morning— that narrow hour when nothing has quite begun. Streetlights still lit, unnecessary, left propped up like hands raised after the question’s been answered. The kitchen kettle hisses its small argument. This hinge of…
by Dan Berick On Friday she will wrench you,unceremoniously, from the pink bedwhere you have spent your life in unobtrusive duty this half century or so. Your world ends with a brisk tug that I’ll only vaguely noticethanks to the doctor’s skill(and benzodiazepine).And then you’re gone forever. Next, the months of slow replacement:scattered…
by Nolo Segundo My wife and I went to say hello to her mother and put flowers on her grave and as it was such a vivid day shining like life’s most poignant dream (youknow, that feeling you only get in late autumn as the last reluctant leaves finally fall and old man winter sends hints of his coming harsh arrival), I suggested we go for a…
by Rowan Tate I Suspect That Moths and Regret share a language no one translates. Grief has poor timing and excellent posture; I am learning to walk without finishing the sentence. I am not who I meant to become, but the bread still rises.