Poetry

POETRY By Neil Flatman  For Matthew Wearing-in mourning’s lack­lus­ter suit, I took a walk: heather, like toffee-brittle Christ­mas trees, the copper edge of curling gorse illu­mi­nat­ing the way. You should’ve been here   a week ago. You said the Japan­ese had a phrase for it; Beauty in the…

POETRY By Heikki Huotari some animal con­cate­na­tions were more prob­a­ble than others      as intel­li­gent as any echo mech­a­nism my accelerom­e­ter at odds with my thought process­es the problem of hard solip­sism was not solved      I did not think to ask I…

POETRY By Kyle D. Craig If any­thing must fall on us, let it be morning. Tonight’s stories strike like knives through thick bone. I still cannot name half the places where bombs knelt last night. I know not every­one has access to ocean views, for many no forest waits to wander through, not…

POETRY By Sheila Black The rattler your husband impaled by bring­ing down his shovel, the body split in two, those twitch­ing parts. Frost killed the but­ter­fly weed and the orange tree. The prickly pear sprawled into slime, the wood splin­tered into apart­ment houses for ants and…

POETRY By Jessica Cohn A woman could forget herself, staring at pome­gran­ate in the produce section. Juicy red arils, peddled in see-through cups. It’s invol­un­tary. The mouth makes room for a sweet bite of seeds. A woman could remem­ber when pome­gran­ate was hard to come by, a strange…

POETRY By Lucia Cherciu Temp­ta­tion: I find sandals for me when looking for gifts. Con­fu­sion: I buy two dresses for me when shop­ping for canning jars. Some claim gold has healing prop­er­ties; right, money helps. I research claims about the ben­e­fits of silver. Kissing of icons, silver chalice, silver…

POETRY By Sheila Black The year I spent a month in Denver vis­it­ing my daugh­ter in the eating dis­or­der hos­pi­tal the closest com­pan­ions were the geese who flocked the con­crete islands between the too-wide roads.   Some nights it was only fairy tales I understood:…

POETRY By Eric Abal­a­jon “I used to hang out just outside           the fence of Pearson Inter­na­tion­al, on week­ends with friends,         and bring binoc­u­lars. It became         a bad hobby imme­di­ate­ly after 9–11.”      …

POETRY By Jillian Hanson When you can do nothing what can you do? —Zen Koan   i. Sit in the nothing. Talk to nothing. Do nothing. See what nothing offers, prob­a­bly nothing. Offer nothing some­thing, since you are not nothing. Offer nothing your whole pres­ence, the…

POETRY By Thomas Osatchoff I had a dream that I asked Duterte what fruit and veg­etable pickers will do after their jobs become auto­mat­ed. He said they will be rock pickers. I said, but can’t rock picking also be auto­mat­ed? He said yes, but every­one needs…