by Mary Waugaman No. I used this word on purpose. No is definite. No is final. Words are power and I choose mine carefully. Which is why I said No. But you don’t respect my No. You don’t hear my No. Whether I have allowed it too long or you…
Posts Tagged poet
Point of Origin: Slater’s Funeral Home
by Jay Carson sits in a valley bottom of four hills as if to be kind to its clients and the horses that were their bearers. Today’s ride is easier, but car parking is awful. There’re still too many living. We walked down, each of the times one of our…
America First
by Gil Hoy Are we a family of nations or are we not? How did this nation thing happen in the first place anyway where just about every man woman and child belongs to one like a fraternity or club Was it the different languages we spoke Or is that…
Insomnia
by Kalah McLaughlin We lay vertical in our bed I hear and feel his breathing we’re so close – and yet, so far He’s in another world and I, am dizzy watching him I move closer – Nose to nose I blink – two times, three He feels my eyes…
Pale Queen
by Elizabeth Shannon A solitary nail… in a wall where the wasp nest once hung, hardly a sigh from his side of the bed here only holds a remainder of lace woven from mud, a life delicately spun I observed this empty space daily my gray paper palace, our imaginary…
Handiwork
by Amy Covel It was Your work You gathered The stone The metal The tools You worked For days For months For years You created Those walls Those floors Those bars And now You live In Your own Prison.
Adder-Stones
by Holly Day Every once a while, the black ribbon snakes congregate in my front yard knit themselves into a writhing mating pile, disgorge thumb-sized stones disappear back into the knee-high weeds when they’re done. It’s important to gather these stones as soon as possible or they’ll lose their magic…
An Old Man and a Basketball
by Chris Boucher Following the hollow sound of a bounding ball Into an empty early morning gym, an old man starts to shoot solo. The long dormant floor creaks and moans And the rim rattles in the echoey cold— Echoes like his old skills. He lives with that Like he…
World
by Lisa Harris Perhaps you see a globe: You think, a world is round; a world spins. Continents are misshapen feet, and all around them lies blue water, the color of a Scandinavian’s eyes. Perhaps you see a million faces, a blur of non-photogenic humanity, a smear of intention, like…
The Decorating Preferences of Starlings and Housewives
by Holly Day The voices of frogs are coming in through the air conditioner vents so loud in the rain it sounds like they’re in here with us perhaps hidden under the couch, or nestled a comforter clustered in a group of bright skin and gold eyes watching us from…