by Amy Covel I think we all look back fondly At how naïve we were Starting that very first job. We think: “I look nothing like that ID badge I wear on my shoulder.” And it isn’t even just because You now wear your hair differently Or because you got…
by Gonzalinho da Costa On the photo of Jennelyn Olaires grieving over her husband, Michael Siaron, published in The New York Times (August 3, 2016) He is the poor man unjustly executed by the state. She is the desolate woman of inconsolable loss. He dies sputtering in the darkness of…
by Thomas Griffin If only I could throw myself into this black sleet rushing down street, hugging the lip of the curb, dashing down the hungry mouth of the culvert hurtling through sudden darkness into the roar of a thousand other streams fleeing this steely-eyed November in New England— run…
by Stacia Levy “I’m sorry about my late paper, Professor Friedlander,” the sweet young student said. She stood in front of my office desk, woolen scarf wound around her neck although it was a warm spring day. “My printer broke down.” “Uh-huh.” I was singularly unimpressed. I’d heard the my-printer-ate-my-paper…
by John Timothy Robinson In Hard Scratch Hollow beside a cave, there was a rock formation that resembled some malformed altar. Each side sloped up where light, green moss covered the top and bottom edges. This large form was positioned in a gully’s end under trees in cow pasture. Fountainlike…
by The Poet Darkling I. Loss nighttime I sleep in shadows of sweat and urine. the center square of my quilt shines yellow and wet. I never hear uncle come. I can’t. his shape blocks the moon sliver. I keep my eyes shut tight. he lifts me up and away….
by Taylor Banuchie It’s time. I’m prostrate before a glowing figure, so spectacularly bright that my eyes combust, merely ashes now in my fire-pit sockets. I reach out in supplication, and Ascendance reaches back. Our fingertips touch, and we disappear into each other. I don’t miss my eyes because I…
by Thomas Griffin These wet delicate fingers across my face a song barely remembered as I mumble along everything else ever wanted everything thought worthwhile food, friends, acclaim, wealth, work gone and nothing but this melody matters, nothing but wet cheeks Oh! How could I have thought I could live…
by John Timothy Robinson They called my sonnet a disregard of form, prefer instead work that preserves, revives a beauty now which makes a reader worn of meter, rhyme, what day it was, the time. We don’t though often talk that way, emphatic to modulate a voice, almost of air….
by The Poet Darkling It’s always been about the tea. Black. Sweet. Dollop of curdled milk. Everyone has a shop. and they know how you like it by reading your face. You take yours creamy strong sweet. In a back room, salty little fishes bubble in a cauldron over hot…