by Carol Casey The path is trodden, dusty, level.You know it will take youwhere many have gone. Step off—tangles of brambles,sometimes with blackberries,more often with little clawsthat catch on clothes and skin;and tortuous tree roots—inconvenient, sacred data unearthed—subterranean snakelets somehowsifted into snarls for feet to catch.There are stems that twine…
by Lauren Leigh Powell I don’t know why my father hated dandelions so much. My Aunt Edna told me once that it was a “man thing.” That somehow all men, when they are the steward of their own yard, become convinced that the bright sprinkling of yellow is a punishment…
by Dawn Fryauff No life bears forth from this desert. No seed takes root in this place. Be fruitful and multiply is Not A promise, but instead A command. Unfulfilled; My failure punctuated Monthly by Deep contractions of longing Birthing sand and scorched seed From this withered waste of a…
by William Bortz I sit and count, in a midday sun, my troubles and woes the casted shadows of full limbs and branches poking through my kitchen window and stretching down the wall the blackened tips of my weary fingers- filing and sorting sight encumbered within my head; a cracked…