Month: March 2024

Two Poems by Bracha K. Sharp

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I AM REMINDED

I don’t always remember
how many prayers
are being said
by this world,

but it is enough
to lift up the window-latch
and watch, enough
to be with these dark vines

vibrating with wind,
to watch the clever squirrel
and the darkening sky—

and I am an observer
with eyes never
wide enough to see what
cannot be seen—

but I am reminded,
that somehow,
this world is always
praying.

*

TREASURE

I cannot tell you
how beautiful it is
to look at the world
aqueous, upside down,

how glancing
at puddles reveals
another world—

trees swimming
on the wet deck,
reflections from a sky
dripping with mystery,

this view that deserves
only hushed silence
and the full, unmeditated
understanding of closed eyes
that see so much now—

and will never come again.

*

Bracha K. Sharp was published in the American Poetry Review, the Birmingham Arts Journal, Sky Island Journal, ONE ART: a journal of poetry, Wild Roof Journal, The Closed Eye Open, Rogue Agent, and the Thimble Literary Magazine, among others. She placed first in the national Hackney Literary Awards; the poem subsequently appeared in the Birmingham Arts Journal and she was a finalist in the New Millennium Writings Poetry Awards. She received a 2019 Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards Silver Medal for her debut picture book. As her writing notebooks seem to end up finding their way into different rooms, she is always finding both old pieces to revisit and new inspirations to work with. She is a current reader for the Baltimore Review. You can find out more about her writing by visiting: www.brachaksharp.com

At the MoMA, With My Sister and Without My Glasses by A. A. Gunther

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At the MoMA, With My Sister and Without My Glasses

I say
I love the way—
You grab my wrist:

Don’t put it into
words, don’t get it
twisted,

It just needs to exist.

So here I am, unmoored at the
museum,
Squinting at shapes arising in my vision
Like clifftops in the mist,
My eyes unlensed, imbibing the horizons
Of oddly-lighted rooms.
Of wire looms festooned with metal scraps,
Of dangled circuits lapsing into lassos,
Of crosshatched gray and black,
Of persons in long jackets
who murmur words like “angular” at the Picassos,

Trying to stop my words
From tangling round the things before I see them—
Their imprecision, their syllabic gallop,
The sleaze of them, like greasy bacon wrapped around a scallop,
Negating what they promise to enhance
With appetizer’s, advertiser’s, ease:
The cunning of them, running interference
Between the naked eye and the appearance,
Subtracting the refraction of a glance.

*

A. A. Gunther is a legal writer living in Long Island, New York. She has a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing and Literature from the Harvard University Extension School, and her short story “Baby Teeth” appeared in the Easter 2022 issue of Dappled Things. No art museum will be the same to her until her sister comes back from Germany.

Thanatosis by Timothy Green

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Thanatosis

My daughter won’t share a room with a spider but cups the giant stink
beetle in her own two hands, shows me how the shell is strong, how it’s
light as the air around it. Bigger than her thumb, she loves how they
move with a slow grace. It’s only playing dead, she tells me, setting it
down on the side of the footpath as if it were a game.

              morning dew
              every blade
              bows to you

*

Timothy Green is editor of Rattle magazine, host of the weekly Rattlecast, and co-host of weekly The Poetry Space_ with Katie Dozier. He’s the author of a book of poems, American Fractal, and lives in Wrightwood, California.

Shadows by Daye Phillippo

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Shadows

          for Jan

She called to say that the shadow they saw
     is esophageal cancer. A life-long smoker,

she’s not surprised, but is shaken. I ask
     what I can do. Pray, honey, just pray.

Late February mud and ice, rivulets of snow-melt.
     On the way up from the barn last night, coyotes,

high-pitched yip and sing from the back fencerow,
     leafless trees inked on the fiery horizon,

the howls growing louder, their shrieking lope
     coming closer. It’s breeding season, the males

aggressive, unhinged and one-thing.
     In the dark woods, border north of the house

that slopes to the creek, the leafless trees
     stand as close as soldiers shoulder-to-shoulder

or the posts of a frontier enclosure. There, a coyote,
     dark shape appearing, disappearing

among trees, its narrow hips tucked under,
     body low, elongated, a dark shadow, skulking.

*

Daye Phillippo taught English at Purdue University and her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Poetry, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Presence, The Midwest Quarterly, Cider Press Review, One Art, Shenandoah, The Windhover, and many others. She lives and writes in rural Indiana where she hosts a monthly Poetry Hour at her local library. Thunderhead (Slant, 2020) was her debut full-length collection. You may find more of her work on her website: dayephillippo.com

Two Poems by Donna Hilbert

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Chocolate Milk

That day I feared
I’d never stop crying,
my tears a torrent
taking me out to sea,
Dr. Helene asked what soothed me
as a sad, and scared, small kid.
Chocolate milk, I said.
Drink that, she said.
Drink until you stop the crying.

I drove to the drive-in dairy,
bought a can of chocolate syrup
and a gallon of milk,
and drank, and drank, and drank,
until my life was sweet
enough to greet my children
skipping through the door from school.

*

Good Start

A good start to a regular day,
is pulling into Gelson’s parking lot,
when the store opens at seven.
“It’s my favorite time, too,”
the young clerk says,
“because this early, nobody’s mad.”

Muffins are fresh and warm
from the oven, shelves neat, laden
with promise, produce glistens
like straight from the garden,
and for once—Hallelujah—
there’s a bin of organic potatoes,
and nary a spud sprouts an eye!

*

Donna Hilbert’s latest book is Threnody, from Moon Tide Press. Earlier books include Gravity: New & Selected Poems, Tebot Bach, 2018. She is a monthly contributing writer to the on-line journal Verse-Virtual. Work has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, Braided Way, Chiron Review, Sheila-Na-Gig, Rattle, Zocalo Public Square, ONE ART, and numerous anthologies. Poems have been featured on The Writer’s Almanac and on Lyric Life. She writes and leads private workshops in Southern California, where she makes her home, and during residencies at Write On Door County. Learn more at donnahilbert.com

Hunter’s Moon with Grandson by Kelly DuMar

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Hunter’s Moon with Grandson

I am breading skinless breasts,
All Things Considered is on, children
of war, numbering them. Tug of my
shirt, a hushed voice, turn
the volume down.

I want to show you something.

Everyone’s hungry. My fingers
are glopped with flour and egg.
Dining room’s unlit, table’s not set.
It’s a test. My answer counts.

He shows me a window.
October is late. Ascending from
evergreen tops, imprinted on dusk––
a heroic globe of uncaptured light.

*

Kelly DuMar is a poet, playwright and workshop facilitator from Boston. She’s author of four poetry collections, including jinx and heavenly calling, published by Lily Poetry Review Books, March 2023. Her poems, images and nonfiction are published in Bellevue Literary Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Thrush, Cleaver, Glassworks, and more. For decades Kelly has taught a variety of creative writing workshops, including monologue play labs with showcases for the International Women’s Writing Guild and the Transformative Language Arts Network. Kelly produces the Featured Open Mic for the Journal of Expressive Writing. Reach her at kellydumar.com

Inclemency by Linda Perlman Fields

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Inclemency

We all survived the day when the world didn’t end
with the Mayan calendar a week after Sandy Hook.

They said it was a sure thing but the thrum of
daily life filtered up like muffled heartbeats

from the cold cement, or maybe it was someone
softly strumming the gut strings of a harp.

Still the children were present, each name on a stocking,
their mothers with hearts seared from an iron of grief.

Then a neighbor tossed a dead Christmas tree
on the fire escape and sparked a blazing branch

of dry pine in the back of my mind and set it
on fire until my eyes burned.

The world didn’t end one week in winter but a
promissory note of protection was issued and is

aging, unlike the children. It hasn’t been discharged,
unlike the bullets from an assault rifle.

The coldest season in the northern hemisphere
can be snowflake beautiful or sleet storm bitter.

*

Linda Perlman Fields is a poet and Peabody-winning journalist from Milford, Pennsylvania. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Sunlight Press, Front Porch Review, Still Point Arts Quarterly, Poetica Magazine, Two Hawks Quarterly and in anthologies.

Two Poems by Andrea Potos

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EMERGENCY FAMILY MEETING
                  In memory

I was called to attend, my father
still breathing under the mask after
three weeks, his flesh seized
by a whole body infection.

What I remember now is the perfect
smoothness of my tires on the interstate,
their even sounds of rubber on asphalt
along the ninety-plus miles,

an in-between I could carry
before I’d trace again my steps
along the polished, sterile hallways–
nothing yet decided, no proclamation
issued yet by the doctor, my father still
lying in his present tense

while I sped into the future.

*

ON NO LONGER MOURNING MY 19-YEAR-OLD SELF

Girl-woman with the prairie-flat tummy
and creaseless skin, not one dream of one grey
strand on her flowing river of dark hair;
wearing tube-top and short shorts, or denim jacket
and swirling skirt, the girl whirled around the city streets
by her dashing boy-man in his British convertible.
She could so easily stay out until dawn.

Let her be where she dwells, in her glistening,
unreachable realm, without the astonishing
daughter she would later bear,

her hands that had not yet found their path
to the making of poems, her heart
still so unrescued and unformed.

*

Andrea Potos’ recent collections of poetry are Her Joy Becomes (Fernwood Press), and Marrow of Summer (Kelsay Books). A new book from Fernwood Press entitled Belonging Songs is forthcoming in 2025. Her poems are forthcoming in Poetry East, The Windhover, Amethyst Review, Paterson Literary Review, Midwest Quarterly, Rosebud and The Healing Muse. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin, surrounded by books.

September by Rose Mary Boehm

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September

Years wrapped into a handkerchief
of forgetting. Lover, husband, friend,
father of my children—an enigma forged
by your father and those who came before you.
I looked at you in the embers of our promises,
misread needs you didn’t understand,
mislabelled instances of extreme sadness.
How could I not recognize gentleness when
you reached out, time and again, shy as a mimosa.
“Try to remember the kind of September
When life was slow and oh, so mellow”
They were singing your song, my tender friend,
and only now I realise that behind the wall
you built from cynicism and laughter,
were tears I failed to dry.

*

Rose Mary Boehm is a German-born British national living and writing in Lima, Peru, and author of two novels as well as eight poetry collections. Her poetry has been published widely in mostly US poetry reviews (online and print). She was three times nominated for a ‘Pushcart’ and once for ‘Best of Net’. DO OCEANS HAVE UNDERWATER BORDERS? (Kelsay Books July 2022), WHISTLING IN THE DARK (Cyberwit July 2022), and SAUDADE (December 2022) are available on Amazon. Also available on Amazon is a new collection, LIFE STUFF, published by Kelsay Books November 2023. rose-mary-boehm-poet.com

Brunch with Missing Mother by Cynthia White

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Brunch with Missing Mother

To have at first missed the man’s you’re ugly,
my mind must have been on coffee
and cream. I must have been dreaming
of eggs with spinach and feta
as he shoved past me and out the café.
I ordered a fat cinnamon roll
to demolish, outer ring first,
working my way to the sticky heart.
My mother often told me,
Looks aren’t everything, though we both
loved a mirror. I needed her that day,
needed to see, in her
generous mouth and elegant
bones, my own beauty, resurrected.

*

Cynthia White’s poems have appeared in Adroit, Massachusetts Review, Southern Poetry Review, ZYZZYVA and Poet Lore among others. Her work can be found in numerous anthologies, including the recent leaning toward light, Poems for gardens & the hands that tend them. She was a finalist for Nimrod’s Pablo Neruda Prize and the winner of the Julia Darling memorial Prize from Kallisto Gaia Press. She lives in Santa Cruz, California.

Drag King by Terri Kirby Erickson

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Drag King

So, my granddaughter is a drag king
and that’s okay by me. I never liked dresses,
myself. Too breezy. They—which is their
preferred pronoun according to their partner
Clarisse, a nice girl from Poughkeepsie—
live two doors down from a fella who got
arrested last Wednesday for flashing his you-
know-what at the dry cleaners on Fifth. The
owner said she thought the old man’s junk
needed a good steam press, which I think
is pretty funny. Anyway, my granddaughter’s
stage name is Bradford Pair, and they have
a huge following. People seem to love them
almost as much as I do. She, I mean they,
look great as a guy. Their sideburns could
use a trim, but other than that, their look
is pure perfection. The act is a hoot, too, if
maybe a bit raunchy for my taste. What can
I say? My typical Saturday night includes
watching The Lawrence Welk Show or
I Dream of Jeannie on YouTube and hitting
the sheets by 9 p.m. Last time I saw my
granddaughter perform was on my eighty-
fifth birthday. They put me right up front
at the VIP table, so I’m the one who caught
the sequined jock strap they like to toss
into the crowd at the end of their show.
But, I have to admit—I reached for it.

*

Terri Kirby Erickson is the author of seven full-length collections of award-winning poetry, including A Sun Inside My Chest, winner of the International Book Award for Poetry, and her latest collection, Night Talks: New & Selected Poems, both published by Press 53. Her work has appeared in a wide variety of literary journals, anthologies, magazines, and newspapers, including “American Life in Poetry,” Asheville Poetry Review, Atlanta Review, JAMA, Poetry Foundation, Poet’s Market, Sport Literate, storySouth, The SUN, The Writer’s Almanac, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Verse Daily, and many more. Among her numerous awards are the Joy Harjo Poetry Prize and a Nautilus Silver Book Award. She lives in Pfafftown, NC, with her husband and his extensive array of Loudmouth golf pants.

Two Poems by Jody Hartkopp

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Loess Hills

I climb the hills next to the highway remembering
my brother in the dunes formed by glaciers
ground to dust in the floods and thaws of the prehistoric
river Mí-ní-sho-she, now Missouri. The bluffs overlook
the Corner Pocket where we got drunk.
It used to be Grandpa’s Passion Pit, with a stage
and girls my brother said wouldn’t wear pasties,
where bluestem grass still catches along the field fence.
Always—I picked fights, my brother said he would stop
coming with me, said I ruined his buzz. Once
I threw a drink in some girl’s face to get his attention,
him shouting at me, chasing me across the highway.
I remember grabbing at brome stalks and scrub trees. Calvary Cemetery
is up there. The dirt unstable; the coffins sliding away
that one time in heavy rain. I wanted to see the tops of things,
see the depression of the river, but my brother found me first.
He told me I was just like our mom. My brother with blue eyes,
the edges crinkled like our dad’s, the one he grew up with. The day
they took him, the babysitter drove me home.

*

Many Sparrows

         Do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
                  – The Book of Matthew

Which is why I’m afraid, there’s so many of us and we keep falling. It’s not so hard to count sparrows if that’s all you do. I can do it right now, they’re gathered at my feet. Sparrows take care of sparrows, pick crumbs off the pavement. It’s not so easy with me. I have a lot left to do. Down here, sparrows get a full buffet if they can stomach the salt and hydrogenated oil. Even the prodigal son got a party in the end and yes (to the waitress), I’m quite finished. Scatter the birds when I rise. Edge out the sun.

*

Jody Hartkopp is a midwestern poet who frequently writes about growing up in Iowa and her Lithuanian heritage. She is a recent MFA graduate from Boston University. Her work can be found in the Briar Cliff Review, The Adroit Journal and most recently in the Schuylkill Valley Journal. She is a recipient of the Leslie Epstein Global Fellowship.

But Still the Trout Lilies by Nancy Huggett

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But Still the Trout Lilies

(for K.D.)

I’ve only ever known you dying,
like the world you love so much —
the forest of your knowing
turning to ash. The bison,
the red wolf, the spotted turtle.
You. But still the trout lilies

push up through the mat of winter,
through the sodden mesh
of doctors’ appointments
where your small declines and
holdings on are measured —
incremental losses and delights.

I’ve only ever known you dying. No,
I know you living. Here, you greet me,
hat askew, crooked smile lighting up
the screen and I can hear the peepers
in your pond, a contrapuntal song

of life, your laughter a tremolo of lodgepole
pine seeds dispersing through flames.

*

Nancy Huggett is a settler descendant who writes, lives, and caregives on the unceded Territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation (Ottawa, Canada). Thanks to Firefly Creative, Merritt Writers, and not-the-rodeo poets, she has work published/forthcoming in Event, Gone Lawn, One Art, Pinhole, Rust & Moth, SWWIM, and The New Quarterly.

To the roommates of my youth by Kaitlyn Newbery

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To the roommates of my youth

I miss you most when I see a picture
of you in a dress I don’t recognize.
In a necklace your husband probably gave you
but I’ve never seen.

We used to assemble our outfits
from the collective closet—her
dress, my scarf, your bracelet—
we’d all give pieces to each other
before entering the world.
Somewhere in my closet, I still
have that sweater you wore to an interview.
The shoes from your second date.

I have a few grey hairs now, do you?
My hands have begun to look like my mother’s
did when I was a girl. Slightly softer. Slightly looser.
Children changed my body
              (and probably yours too).
Children changed my closet
              (and probably yours too).

But I see your picture and I’m sad
for a dress I’ve never felt and proud
of the outfit you’ve assembled
on your own.

*

Kaitlyn Newbery is an adjunct English professor at University of the Cumberlands. She enjoys exploring questions about her faith through metaphors and storytelling. Her works have recently been published by Amethyst Review, Calla Press, Heart of Flesh Literary Journal, Sunlight Press, and forthcoming in Thimble Magazine.

Mice in the Walls by Vicki Wilson

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Mice in the Walls

Mice run
along the edges
of rooms,
my husband tells me
while we put out traps
to catch the critters
we think are making
the noise in our walls.

I suddenly understand mice
so much better.
I, too, prefer a wall,
always choosing
the seat at a table
that puts my back to one.

I need to reduce
the angles
that trouble can
come at me from.

For instance, He’s dead
came from the left.
It’s cancer
came from the right.
She’ll continue to decline
came from the front.

I’m as timid as a mouse, I guess.
Except: No.
Careful as a mouse.
Smart as a mouse.
Securing at least one side
from which I can’t be hurt.

*

Vicki Wilson is a freelance journalist who also writes fiction, plays, and poetry. Her work has appeared in Rattle, Smokelong, The Southampton Review, and Literary Mama, and is forthcoming in Flash Fiction Online. She lives in upstate New York with her husband, son, and dog, Ellie, who’s also known as Elle-Belle, Puppernutter, or Floofter.

Two Poems by Patricia Russo

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It Was the Snowbank I Longed For

We lay in the snow, waiting to die
The dog and I

And all I wished for
Was that I’d gotten my glasses fixed when I’d had the chance

This blurriness at the end
Was not in the plan

The dog was fogging up my face with his breath
And barking into my chest

Go home, I said
But instead he picked me up in his slender arms

And put me back into bed
Saying, I remember you shared your canned spaghetti with me

And those dollar store butter cookies
And that I take to be love

So? Indeed, then, does no good deed go unpunished?
Because it is the snowbank I long for

No, he said, Rather, what you lose in the fire
You find in the ashes

Which made no sense to me at all.
Since when do dogs talk? I asked

Oh, it happened the same day
We figured out how to pack snow in a bucket, he said

And set down a freezing metal pail
Next to my pillow, next to my head

So I could smell the new snow
Even though my glasses were broken

And I could not see it.

*

Salad

The pain is in a different place today, she said.
Higher, and less in the middle.
I don’t know what that means.
It’s not better, or worse.
It’s just not the same as yesterday.

I want a salad, she said,
Not looking at me,
Or at the tv.
Crisp, and green,
With oil and vinegar dressing.

And though the days of crispness and greenness
Had long since passed away,
I went into the kitchen
To scrub and slice and toss
The vegetables that we had.

Because I could do that, more or less.
A salad, at least, I could do.

*

Patricia Russo has had stories in Fantasy, The Dark, Clockwork Phoenix, Chizine, Podcastle, among other places, and poems in Not One of Us and Persephone’s Fruit.

Baptism at Twenty-Three by Laura Donnelly

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Baptism at Twenty-Three

My skin was mirror and glass and wanted
to break. The waitresses lined the back porch
after work, smoking and letting our sweat evaporate
into the midnight air. We drank Red Stripe and PBR
and G&Ts in tall, sweaty glasses. I smoked
as if I were a person who actually smoked.
When my skin burnt and wanted to split
my friends said to slather aloe
on my shoulders but the heat
had already become a hand pressing
my throat. That summer, I kept falling
for firestorm and it was summer
every day that year. Once, a man brought me
to the lake to have sex, the moon
so bright every cottage could have seen. The sand
rubbed my shoulders raw but I didn’t notice
until the next morning. I went into the lake
to wash off that char and it felt like Assumption,
it felt like coming home. I set a timeframe for falling
the way you set a timer on the stove.
When the year was up, I set the timer again.

*

Laura Donnelly is the author of two collections of poetry, Midwest Gothic (Ashland Poetry Press) and Watershed (Cider Press Review) and her recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Iron Horse Literary Review, SWWIM, EcoTheo Review, Colorado Review, and elsewhere. Originally from Michigan, she lives in Upstate New York where she teaches and directs the creative writing program at SUNY Oswego.

Empanadas by Elizabeth Miller-Reyes

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Empanadas

because I have patience to cut butter
into salted flour, my vocation is one
my father can brag about.

A tablespoon or two of iced water
form a ball after the crumble and eggs
have joined together. Let the dough rest.

I fill these crescent envelopes
with lean ground beef, mozzarella,
questions of my sexuality
crimp with tines and release them into scorching oil.

You are only as good as the number of bubbles
that rupture the surface of the dough as it fries.

I want my father to know
he is insulation against burning.

Empanadas are only what he asks of me:
never that I marry a good man,
believe god or care for my mother;

but that I see him parade his Skechers oxford shoes,
indulge him in a walk and hear him practice his I love yous.

That I pop afloat high temperature
a pocket of air stuffed with accomplishments
savored by a previous generation.

*

Elizabeth Miller-Reyes resides in the Southwest. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous places, including Tin House Online, La Libreta and Downtown Magazine. Some of her poems will be featured in the upcoming LGBTQ Anthology Pajaros, lesbianas y queers a volar! from Dominican Writers.

My Promise by David P. Kozinski

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My Promise

I won’t drag an old myth out of the scrolls
and doll it up in today’s clothes and I won’t sit

by any campfire singing how bright
was the old bulb before we tossed it out,

either. This, our year, our time, dribbles away
like a rain-slicked ball skidding out of bounds

and cold hands and bent spines won’t reel
that runaway piggy back to the bank.

We’re all good at tossing things out – food and thought,
words and children. Yesterday’s word was amass

and today it’s de-clutter, but dust will collect
while we stab and shovel each new hole,

locked in the footsteps of others, penned in place
with no wax for what we took as our wings.

*

David P. Kozinski’s poems have appeared most recently in the Bay to Ocean Journal and New World Writing Quarterly. His full-length books are “I Hear It the Way I Want It to Be,” which was a finalist for the Inlandia (California) Institute’s Hillary Gravendyke Prize, and “Tripping Over Memorial Day” (both Kelsay Books). His chapbook, “Loopholes” (Broadkill Press) won the Dogfish Head Poetry Prize. Kozinski is Poet in Residence at Rockwood Park & Museum, near Wilmington, Delaware and has been a mentor with Expressive Path, a non-profit that fosters arts participation for underserved youth in Montgomery and Philadelphia Counties, since its inception. He received a Delaware Division of the Arts poetry fellowship.

A Woman’s Fable by Vikki C.

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A Woman’s Fable

Start alone, the vast lake a vanity mirror
frozen after a famous flood,
the animals, content, afloat in their pairings.

And I, a struggling singularity,
combing history for the source —

a lush garden in the depression of your chest.
The cosmos coughed up by some infectious god.

They say naming things makes it intimate —
but I refuse to grow attached.
Not to men or lilacs beneath the hard frost.

You knew after me, nothing is ever free.
The cost of a bare canvas, the gleaming skin of an apple.

To live beyond the mind, an art.
In this frame or that, straining to paint us —

faith, a fine stroke of gold on the iris,
before meltwater displaces effort.

Love, like this fickle cascade of hair
— already changing shape on its way out.

*

Vikki C. is a British-born ‘Best of The Net’ nominated author, poet and musician whose literary work explores the intersections of science, ecology, existentialism and the human condition. She is the author of THE ART OF GLASS HOUSES (Alien Buddha Press, 2022) – a chapbook reimagining the liminal spaces of memory, heritage and the metaphysical. Vikki’s first full-length collection WHERE SANDS RUN FINEST (DarkWinter Press), is forthcoming in February 2024. Vikki’s poetry and prose appear or are forthcoming in places such as EcoTheo Review, The Belfast Review, Ice Floe Press, Black Bough Poetry, Nightingale & Sparrow, Acropolis Journal, Boats Against The Current, DarkWinter Literary Magazine, Origami Poems, Jerry Jazz Musician, Mythic Picnic, Fevers Of The Mind Poetry & Art, Ellipsis Zine, Across The Margin, The Write-In (National Flash Fiction Day), Literary Revelations, Loft Books, Lazuli Literary Group, Salò Press, Igneus Press and other venues. She was a finalist in the Jerry Jazz Musician 63rd Short Fiction Contest (August 2023). Follow her on Twitter at @VWC_Writes

Said & Meant: Blighted Ovum by Meredith Stewart Kirkwood

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Said & Meant: Blighted Ovum

When the doctor said
“a blighted ovum isn’t really a loss”
she meant my daughter
weighed less than
a leaf’s last breath before fall

I meant that made her
more unique
than the doctor’s fingerprint pressed
into the morning fog
of an east-facing windowpane

She meant my uterus was tricked
by an accidental switch
and my body became
a farm feeding food
to the air

I meant a weave of cells
me and not me and now
I am both more and less
and how is that not always
what loss looks like?

She meant a line on a lab report
what can only be known
from a microscope

I meant loving is knowing
and has no size

*

Meredith Stewart Kirkwood lives and writes in the Lents neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. Her poetry has been published in The Atlanta Review, The Eastern Iowa Review, Right Hand Pointing, MAYDAY Magazine, and others. meredithkirkwood.net

LUCK by Katherine Smith

~ ONE ART ~ Leave a comment

LUCK

Maybe you must be a mother
who’s raised a child to adulthood
a woman living in the kingdom
of her back yard, sweat bees,
hosta, the cool mist rising
from the holly tree,
to feel as much
time and solitude as anyone could wish for
is never enough. All it took
was a lifetime, a thousand moments
of luck and here I am
in possession. I believe
it’s a grand thing to sell
nothing. How easily satisfied I am
with my nearly paid-off mortgage,
my dog, the mourning doves
cooing on the roof, this backyard I love
as much as the rooftops of Paris.

*

Katherine Smith’s recent poetry publications include appearances in Boulevard, North American Review, Ploughshares, Mezzo Cammin, Cincinnati Review, Missouri Review, Southern Review, and many other journals. Her short fiction has appeared in Fiction International and Gargoyle. Her books include, Argument by Design (Washington Writers’ Publishing House, 2003), Woman Alone on the Mountain (Iris Press, 2014), and Secret City (Madville Press, 2022). She works at Montgomery College in Maryland.

What I’m Thinking About this Morning by Valerie Bacharach

~ ONE ART ~ 2 Comments

What I’m Thinking About this Morning

That I have outlived my younger son.

That when I rise, the tendon
or ligament or muscle
behind my left knee hurts,
which makes me think about my mother
and her arthritic knees.

That the holidays hold too many memories, too many ghosts.

That my older son has outlived his brother,
and I worry about his grief,
but don’t ask because then he worries
about mine, and my husband
doesn’t ask because he too worries.
All this unshared grief
will crush us, flatten us,
so we move in quiet shadows
around each other.

That I am so tired, even after sleeping through the night.

That my husband moans
in his dreams, despairing,
searching for ways
to alter time,
bend it,
plant a different ending.

*

Valerie Bacharach’s book, Last Glimpse, will be published by Broadstone Books. Her chapbook After/Life will be published by Finishing Line Press. Her poem Birthday Portrait, Son, published by the Ilanot Review, was selected for inclusion in 2023 Best Small Fictions. Her poem Shavli has been nominated for Best of the Net 2023 and a Pushcart Prize by Minyan Magazine. Her poem Deadbolt has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize by RockPaperPoem.

Rising to Surface by Robbin Farr

~ ONE ART ~ 2 Comments

Rising to Surface

It is Sunday and I am chopping onions
as I’ve been taught, perpendicular through
the onion half. The root holds the layers

in place. My chef’s knife slices clean cuts
across the heart, then chop. Chopping
a fine mince. The small pieces fall away

ready for sauté where they will shimmer
in two tablespoons of olive oil.
My grandmother simmered her tomatoes

over a low flame. From my tall stool
pulled up close, I surveyed kitchen,
grandmother, sauce. Watched

bubbles break the surface with a barely
audible plop. Stood watch for boil-overs,
wooden spoon ready. Felt the solid spin

of earth as family gathered from church
driving crosstown in their Oldsmobiles
and Pontiacs. A chorus of car doors slammed

and my cousins ran across the mown
grass despite my grandfather’s glance
of consternation. The screen door slapped

in its frame, sent vibrations through
the kitchen where the boys tumbled in,
fresh scrubbed, still suited in Sunday best.

These days. Before the divorces, before
losing boys to war, to unaccounted lives.
These days when all that was needed

was gathered in my grandmother’s kitchen.
This Sunday will be chili, small cubes
of beef tossed in cumin, red pepper,

oregano, flavors adjusted with each taste.
I will watch a slow boil, heat rising in bubbles.
The sound of the past surfaces, breaks.

*

Robbin Farr writes short form: poetry and brief lyric nonfiction. In addition to writing, she is the editor of River Heron Review poetry journal. Robbin’s work has been published in Cleaver, Citron Review, 2River View, Atlanta Review, and elsewhere. She is the author of two books of poetry, Become Echo (2023) and Transience (2018). She is most happy when revising and submitting. Writing terrifies her. More about Robbin at robbinfarr.com. Follow her on X: @robbinfarr.

Plan Ahead by Virginia Watts

~ ONE ART ~ 1 Comment

Plan Ahead

Now that I am 60 friends are ominous
Downsize now. Sell your house
Decide where you want to ride it out
No stairs. It’s a one level life for you
Sort out those Medicare options pronto

My hair is thinner, teeth less tight
A flatline waits for me like horizon
Still, I don’t listen, haunt my favorite bars
Sip Prosecco on ice. Order yummy shit food
Fried chicken sliders. Potato skins. Nachos.
Bask in the glow of overweight off-key bands
who perform billboard hits of the 70s and 80s

What are some of my favorites?
Best of My Love
Corny, romantic, heart swelling
Lyrics like that undead me
Our House births my truest smile
Cozy room, cats (2) mew, frolic of fire
Summer Breeze’s screen door slaps a kiss
Window curtains breathe jasmine in, out

Why not ride it out humming inside
a sticky wooden world, wobbly stools
laminated menus, tilt of tap, chink of glass
neon lights to flash in teeth like the sun’s
teasy wink in a sideview and voices
yours and mine, all of humankind
the gentle drone of pollinating bees
sudden laughter to sting the eardrum
with the miracle of a grazing bullet

*

Virginia Watts is the author of poetry and stories found in Epiphany, CRAFT, The Florida Review, Reed Magazine, Pithead Chapel, Permafrost Magazine, Sky Island Journal among others. She has been nominated four times for a Pushcart Prize and four times for Best of the Net. Her work in five anthologies and a debut short story collection Echoes from The Hocker House can be found at https://www.amazon.com/author/virginiawattswrites. Please visit her at virginiawatts.com

Sanctification or The Ongoing Saga of my Inheritance of Prunes by Betsy Mars

~ ONE ART ~ 4 Comments

Sanctification or The Ongoing Saga of my Inheritance of Prunes

In the 3082 days since my father died
prunes have accompanied me
to the East Coast and Midwest
and Northwest and Southeast,
to Lisbon and Sydney, Hawaii,
and Paris. I carry an emergency
stash in my go to work bag in case
in my hurry to leave I forget to taste.
Sometimes I swallow them nearly whole like an oyster.
Sometimes I chew them more thoughtfully
as if at a tasting.
Sometimes they sit on my tongue
like a sanctified wafer, the host
decomposing, my body finishing
the work the Sun began. Occasionally
my teeth hit a sharp bit the pitter missed,
and I flinch as if hit, remember the bitter,
the pain that sometimes even the softest
sweetest things hold within.

*

Betsy Mars is a prize-winning poet, photographer, and assistant editor at Gyroscope Review. Her poetry has been published in numerous journals and anthologies. Recent poems can be found in Minyan, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Sheila-Na-Gig, and Autumn Sky Poetry Daily. Her photos have appeared online and in print, including one which served as the Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge prompt in 2019. She has two books, Alinea, and her most recent, co-written with Alan Walowitz, In the Muddle of the Night. In addition, she also frequently collaborates with San Diego artist Judith Christensen, most recently on an installation entitled “Mapping Our Future Selves.”

Mother’s Day by Mary Makofske

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Mother’s Day

         “I am not a mother, and I don’t have one.”
               Posted on Facebook on Mother’s Day

One can choose, or be fated, not to be
a mother. But every woman alive
must be a daughter. Surely she meant
that her mother is dead. One can lose
a mother, but not lose her.
From what she’s shared, I see she’s kept
her mother’s story, a family heirloom.
Her mother’s spirit, sweet and sour, a taste
she’s beginning to acquire, a ghost she tries
to summon or banish at will.

And here’s the corollary she might have said:
Though I’m a daughter, I don’t have one.
So the long line of daughters ends here,
with her. And her shadow daughter—
does she dream she would braid and brush
her hair, watch with trepidation her body
grow and change, deflect with love and grief
the arrows her daughter slings at the flesh that bore her?
Grown, would her daughter speak with her
every day, or never? Idle thoughts,
fantasies drifting and changing like clouds,
weather completely under her control.

Not like the hard-edged memories
of her mother. You cannot erase a mother.
You cannot divorce her, though you may
separate with amity or enmity. Still,
she’s under your skin, in your DNA,
she’s set up a junkyard or castle in your mind.
Her words or voice may spill from your mouth.
In your body her fragile bones may break.

*

Mary Makofske’s latest books are No Angels (Kelsay, 2023), The Gambler’s Daughter (The Orchard Street Press, 2022); World Enough, and Time (Kelsay, 2017); and Traction (Ashland, 2011), winner of the Richard Snyder Prize. Her poems have appeared in more than 70 journals including Poetry East, American Journal of Poetry, Southern Poetry Review, Comstock Review, Glassworks, Louisville Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review and in 22 anthologies. She has received first prizes in poetry from Atlanta Review, New Millennium Writings, Littoral Press Broadside Contest, Lullwater Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, Quiet Diamonds, The Ledge, and Cumberland Poetry Review. marymakofske.com

Dear Mother by Robert Nordstrom

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Dear Mother

I’ve written about you
but not of you. When
you lost your memory
60 years ago, you took mine
with you, left me with
the sepia moments: pressure
cooker meals on the table
4:30 sharp, Kool Aid
in the kitchen, telephone tucked
between ear and shoulder
as you ironed our lives
into tomorrow,
the car your escape
onto roads that always circled back—
a cage with no exit out. And later,
the dark years,
pious friends trumpeting
presumptuous prayers
to exorcise the demons
guarding treasures
I found buried at the bottom
of the old cedar chest:
fancy girls in fancy dresses
dancing to love songs
you played to the blank walls
of the cell where you fell asleep
and I finally awoke.
I am sorry. You did not know
how to say.
I am sorry. I did not know
how to listen.

*

Robert Nordstrom has published poetry in numerous regional and national publications, including upstreet, Main Street Rag, The Comstock Review, Naugatuck River Review, Chiron Review, Third Wednesday, and various others. Several poems have garnered awards from the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets and the Oregon Poetry Association. His poem “Old Lovers” won the 2014 Hal Prize, and his 2016 poetry collection, The Sacred Monotony of Breath (Prolific Press), received honorable mention from the Council for Wisconsin Writers. His latest collection, Dust on the Sill (Kelsay Books), was published in 2023.

The Great Blue Heron by Johanna Caton

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The Great Blue Heron

was as still as a hermit praying, so dusk-blue
that he seemed to be a shadow among shadows

of trees, where he stood at the edge of the brown
wood by the browning pond, behind the grey,

metal, mobile home where my nephew lived now
since his divorce, after his wife sold the house

he’d built and gave him nothing. The heron
looked an eccentric creature, with that kink

in his long noodle-neck and that dagger-shaped
head and beak. His flying thrilled us though, like

an acrobat: the sailing waves of his flight-path,
the rippling blades of wide wings. He was pure

drama – he could have declaimed Hamlet. My
nephew felt it, too. We named him Shakespeare.

He outclassed everything else, lifting the tone
of our existence, of our very seeing, our breathing.

The pond was the heron’s territory, but we stood
together: my nephew and I – and the heron at the edge

of sight. Then he flew again. His wings carried us,
their movement like the undulations of our losses.

*

Johanna Caton is a Benedictine nun of Minster Abbey in Kent, England. Her work has appeared in a number of journals and reviews, including Ekphrastic Review, Leaping Clear, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, Amethyst Review, St Katherine Review, The Catholic Poetry Room, The Christian Century.

Quest by Susan Michele Coronel

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Quest

No chain mail for breakfast,
no syrup, no toast, just white light
bleeding from ships that scud past
the shore, dragging me into a chasm of thought.
Yoga & meditation tamper the running stream.
An axe won’t alter my course like an ex,
but chopping will curse & bless the memory
of beautiful befores—crowns of all I ever did
& ever wanted. I aim to write for writing’s sake,
to savor snow & sea shadow & never change
my passwords, but I forget them as swiftly
as I forget first names & the last day it rained.
Life’s not a race but an unpeeling of layers
that reveals at its core a sweet kernel—
acceptance—& with it, something more.

*

Susan Michele Coronel lives in New York City. She has received two Pushcart nominations and won the 2023 Massachusetts Poetry Festival First Poem Contest. Her poems have appeared in publications including Spillway 29, Plainsongs, Redivider, and Fourteen Hills. In 2021 her full-length manuscript was a finalist for Harbor Editions’ Laureate Prize, and in 2023 another version of the manuscript was longlisted for the 42 Miles Press Poetry Award.

Ironing My Father’s Clothes by Sara Pirkle

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Ironing My Father’s Clothes

Sundays while my father slept,
my mother wrangled us girls
into tights and French braids,
slicked my brother’s cowlick
with a wet comb, slid a roast

in the oven for after church,
then ironed my father’s good shirt,
sprayed Niagara starch on the collar,
and hung it like a preacher’s robe

on the bathroom door. When
I turned twelve, I took over
this chore, and he thanked me
each time, thinking I did it for him,
when I was doing it for my mother.

*

Sara Pirkle is an identical twin, a breast cancer survivor, and a board game enthusiast. Her first book, The Disappearing Act (Mercer University Press, 2018), won the Adrienne Bond Award for Poetry. She also dabbles in songwriting and co-wrote a song on Remy Le Boeuf’s album, Architecture of Storms, which was nominated for a 2023 GRAMMY in the Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album category. She is an Associate Director of Creative Writing at The University of Alabama.

Pot Roast by Fran Schumer

~ ONE ART ~ 1 Comment

Pot Roast

Of course I threw out the pot
this heavy old rusty pot I bought
before I was married, a mother
a person, anything —
what was I thinking?
I was thinking I’ll never cook again
moving is dying
we were selling the house
where we raised our children
where I cooked the pot roast
in this heavy pot
that I tossed into the dumpster
bequeathed to Joe Junk
our recyclable lives.
And here we are years later
and I need the damned pot
to make the same roast
that made my husband smile,
gave pleasure to our children,
now grown and gone.
A friend says it’s the same great roast
and I smile because I know
I didn’t use the same pot.
We moved and I didn’t die.

*

Fran Schumer’s poetry, fiction, and articles have appeared in The North American Review, The Nation, various sections of The New York Times and other publications. In 2021, she won a Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing poetry fellowship. Her Chapbook, Weight, was the first runner up in the Jonathan Holden Poetry Chapbook Contest and was published in 2022. New poems are forthcoming in The Paterson Literary Review and an anthology published by Spell Jar Press. A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., she studied political science at college but wishes she had spent more time studying Keats.

Two Poems by Andrea Maxine Recto

~ ONE ART ~ 6 Comments

I was, I am a mother

I held you in my arms for ten hours.
It wasn’t long enough.
But the nurses told me they had to take you away.
I could barely get the words out.
I’m not ready. Just a little bit longer. Please.
My husband was sitting in the chair beside me.
Hunched over, his eyes were red and puffy
and his lips were trembling something fierce.
And he was rubbing his hands, over and over,
a habit I hadn’t seen since the day I got into a car accident
and they had to call him at work.
When the drugs wore off,
I woke up to him rubbing his hands raw.
Today, he was rubbing them so hard,
I was surprised I didn’t see any bone.
He got up to put his hand over mine.
It’s time, honey.
Our little girl.
Mere moments of air when we had already imagined a lifetime with her.
I had tried my best to keep her in,
to keep her safe and warm in her cocoon,
but my belly wasn’t having it.
When they delivered her, I was so sure I heard her cry.
The doctor who delivered her said softly but firmly
that our little girl made no sound at all.
I wanted to scream, A mother always knows!
What did he know about motherhood?
My grief was almost too much to carry that first year.
So much so that when people referred
to my pregnancy, my being a mother, or my baby girl
in the past tense, I corrected them.
I sometimes still do.

*

Lesson

I was 12. You had left your door slightly ajar,
so I stopped to watch you, careful not to disturb the floorboards
or make a sound. You sat at your dresser mirror,
brushing your long, dark hair. I hoped one day,
mine would be just as long and beautiful. But today,
something was wrong. You were brushing so hard that clumps of hair
were gathering around your feet.
You finally stopped, slammed your brush down,
and, to my horror, struck the right side of your face.
It went red immediately. I covered my mouth,
hoping you didn’t hear me gasp. Idiot, you said through gritted teeth.
And I could hear the pain in your voice.
Grabbing your favorite red lipstick, you angrily
swipe it across your lips, only to smear it off
with disdain moments later.
Last week, you brought a boy home
and said you had never been happier. Mama’s brows
were furrowed, and Papa’s face was wrinkled, but I smiled.
You were happy. I remember how you
had your hair curled that day, how the soft ringlets bounced
when you spoke, how they framed your face.
You kissed me on the cheek when I said you looked pretty.
I don’t know what’s going on. If I should run in
and put my arms around you. If your cheek needs some ice.
If I need to call someone.
You start to cry, grabbing the sweater draped across your chair
to bury your mouth in, a feeble attempt at drowning
out the wounded sounds you made. I don’t think I can
ever forget them. I run to my bedroom, my chest tightening,
and curl up underneath the blankets to cry. I don’t know why
it hurts so. But I hope one day you’ll tell me.

*

Andrea Maxine Recto is a Spanish-Filipino writer and poet living in Manila. Her poetry explores the themes of womanhood, grief, love, darkness, and introspection. She was recently published in TurnAround’s 14th Purple Poetry Book, with more forthcoming in the Santa Clara Review and elsewhere.

Choosing the Sorrow by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

~ ONE ART ~ 19 Comments

Choosing the Sorrow

In my heart today, a river of love for you—
sparkling, clear, easy to wade in.
Some may not understand
why I sometimes reach down
to pick up a smooth stone of sorrow,
not because I have stumbled on it,
but because I want to know its weight again.
I search beneath the glossy currents,
and always I find what I seek.
There are thousands of such stones,
enough to cover the whole river bed.
Every one of them precious.
Every one of them, a memory
of how it was to love you when you were alive.
Stone of you waking in your crib, pointing to light.
Stone of you doing tricks on your bike.
Stone of hiking up cliffs. Stone of undone dishes.
Stone of your eyes. Stone of long fingers.
Stone of you whistling across the room.
The river of love is no less powerful
for all this sorrow. When I am still,
often I choose to go wading here.
I notice how beautiful they are, all these stones,
worn as they are by the currents of love.
I notice how the current never stops.

*

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer is poet laureate for Evermore. She co-hosts the Emerging Form podcast. Her daily audio series, The Poetic Path, is on the Ritual app. Her poems have appeared on A Prairie Home Companion, PBS News Hour, O Magazine, American Life in Poetry, and Carnegie Hall stage. Her new collection is All the Honey. One-word mantra: Adjust.

Imaginal by Penelope Moffet

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Imaginal

Now I must give up
the idea of you, who
with your gentle jokes
your bursts of passion
the unexpected sweetness of your notes
upended me. Never really here
although my home felt
habited by you, your spirit
has moved on
and I must close my door
because the door in you
has closed.

*

Penelope Moffet lives in Southern California. She is the author of three chapbooks, Cauldron of Hisses (Arroyo Seco Press, 2022), It Isn’t That They Mean to Kill You (Arroyo Seco Press, 2018) and Keeping Still (Dorland Mountain Arts, 1995). Her poems have been published in many journals, among them One by Jacar Press, ONE ART, Natural Bridge, Verse-Virtual, The Rise Up Review, The Ekphrastic Review and Sheila-Na-Gig. She has worked as a freelance journalist, a publicist for non-profits, an editor and a legal secretary. She is currently enjoying the freedom to do whatever she damn well pleases most days.

Ode to My Miscarried One by Wendy Kagan

~ ONE ART ~ 5 Comments

Ode to My Miscarried One

You, remote as a star—
all you knew was a kind of

floating.

Undulant, slight
as a comma

mote, iota, seedling.

You, magnolia blossom
silken, blush-colored cup
already fringed with brown
before yawning fully open.

You roomed in me just six weeks.
Those days, I called to you
hushed, staticky transmissions
returned to sender.

You, thought bubble
zealots’ unborn
sanctity without a face.

The world is exhausting—
no wonder you retreated
into a sloop of the uterus
that had shored up its moorings
to protect you.

Time was a dream you never woke to.

You simply stopped
growing
then spilled out in a red rush, curdled and thick
as mother’s milk gone bad.

You, soaker
though in that crimson river I saw
nothing of you.

Life sped on without you
who had best expressed its lavish excess:
bright cellular confetti.

Oh, nature’s spare
understudy

I fell in love a little
when your hazy half-light being
brushed against mine.

Why else would I find myself
after the terrible, echoey ultrasound
crying in chrome stirrups
riding your reachless
void, my womb
hollow as a death bell?

*

Wendy Kagan lives in New York’s Catskill mountain foothills. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in such journals as The Poetry Distillery, Eunoia Review, Chronogram, and The Baffler. Wendy holds an MA in English from Columbia University. Her chapbook Blood Moon Aria was long-listed for the Yellow Arrow Publishing 2024 chapbook competition.

Three Poems by Kathy Nelson

~ ONE ART ~ 1 Comment

Adoption Agency, June 11, 1987

Nothing was as I’d thought, the baby not
a bundle but a brink, the day not a rainbow
but a tremor under the diaphragm. I should
have picked her up—the little red knots
of her balled fists, her limbs rigid with sorrow.
The squall. The chasm of her scarlet face. I could

do nothing (did she breathe?) but contain my own wail
and count the sheet’s dancing elephants (yellow)
and sum the ledger of my mistakes. Was I good
enough for this? I was afraid to fail.
But I stayed put.

*

In Carson City the Deer Walk on the Sidewalks

The way the young deer startles at sunrise
to see a human approaching—

the quiet constellation of eyes, nose, ears,
the crown of his antlers.

Boulders rise like molars out of the gums
of suburban yards. Yucca blooms
like white fountains.
And fences, everywhere fences.

O emissary of the oracular…

I set one foot off the curb, making way.
His hesitation to come closer,
then, his graceful, unhurried passing.

I wake up god-hungry and anorexic,
my fears clacking, a bag of bones.

As a prince strolls beggar-lined streets,
velveted and luminous,
blessing the scab-ridden and the cripple,

the deer proceeds like a promise
through his kingdom of pavement,
among the irrigated, blooming roses.

*

After Seeing The Help, My Mother Looks
through a Box of Photos for Cora Washington

         She will ask & you will answer.
               —Lucie Brock-Broido

An archeology. She sifts through the scree
of her childhood, unearthing bone after bone,
searching, searching for the one slender clue.

She leaves behind the fragments of a past—
her father’s smirk, her grandmother’s washboard
posture, the slant of evening across a barn.

Have you been waiting seventy years
for her to find you here, standing like a tree,
witnessing wordlessly, bearing secrets?

You face the camera straight on, powerful arms
at your sides, ready to wring the feathered neck
of any one of the black chickens at your feet,

or to soothe the white child beside you.
Hands that could as easily make fists as biscuits.
As she looks at you, she becomes yours again.

She will ask: Who was I? You will answer.

*

Kathy Nelson, recipient of the James Dickey Prize, MFA graduate of the Warren Wilson Program for Writers, and Nevada Arts Council Fellow, is author of The Ledger of Mistakes (Terrapin Books) and two previous chapbooks. Her work appears in About Place, New Ohio Review, Tar River Poetry, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and elsewhere.

“incapable of her own distress” by Susan Grimm

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“incapable of her own distress”
In that painting where Ophelia half-floats on her accidental stream
(like the stream of consciousness perhaps buffeting along–not a hurling
but a push with some muscle in it). Flowers bestowed on her
lightly. That dark water, the dark light, the spirit that surrounds
her body with its own wills. Her mouth a little open. A shine
on her eyes and teeth. Six Acre Meadow. 1851-52. John Everett
Millais on the bank of the river, sheltering in his windy hut. Poppies.
A chain of violets. The pooling of his dark oils. Auburn-haired
in an old court dress–the model reclining in a warm bath. Close
observation. The woman lay in bed coming in and out of her voice, not
confused but delayed. Not a person but a landscape. Still singing.
*
Susan Grimm has been published in Sugar House Review, The Cincinnati Review, South Dakota Review, and Field. She has had two chapbooks published. In 2004, BkMk Press published Lake Erie Blue, a full-length collection. In 2022, she received her third Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Gran

“Lick Me Again with Fire” by Grace Massey

~ ONE ART ~ 2 Comments

“Lick Me Again with Fire”

                   ~ for Louise Labé, 1524-1566

I ride through Lyon with only my plaited hair
for cover, lap cream from a broken bowl,
eat peacocks stuffed with their own flesh, swallow
a throbbing mouse. I wear a black opal
between my breasts, clutch a raptor’s feather
between my teeth. I lie with a man not
my husband, legs entwined like my father’s
golden rope. Unbind me that I may succumb
to the Sirens’ song, women, yes, and bursting
with lust. I am the comet’s tail, mistress
of burning coals. A meteor breathes within me.
I divine the future from the wind. I am
the lioness licking her blood-stained claws.

*

Grace Massey is a poet, classical ballet dancer, and socializer of feral cats who lives in Newton, Massachusetts. Her poems have appeared in Quartet, Thimble, Lily Poetry Review, and a number of other print and online journals.

Dictionary, 1950 by Gail Thomas

~ ONE ART ~ 1 Comment

Dictionary, 1950

The year I was born
Orwellian, McCarthyism and brain-
washed darkened the air
as the H-bomb hatched. Post-
nuclear declared, we’re done.
Beautiful people with spray
tans sought head shrinkers
and homosexuals were booted
to funny farms. Post war boom
birthed suburbs, the charge card
and money market. Even BLT
and DJ joined the rush to normalcy
while LSD and DWI said
not so fast. Don’t make a federal
case out of it, we’re just antsy,
kvetching, bugging out.
Don’t blame us, we’re busy
making a baby boom.
Don’t blame us, it’s them
with a switch knife, zip gun,
assault rifle. Wait, we need
to protect ourselves
from ourselves.

*

Gail Thomas’ books are Trail of Roots, Leaving Paradise, Odd Mercy, Waving Back, No Simple Wilderness, and Finding the Bear. Her poems have been widely published in journals and anthologies including CALYX, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, North American Review, Cumberland River Review, and South Florida Poetry Journal. Among her awards are the Seven Kitchens Press A.V. Christie Award for Trail of Roots, the Charlotte Mew Prize from Headmistress Press for Odd Mercy, the Narrative Poetry Prize from Naugatuck River Review, the Massachusetts Center for the Book’s “Must Read” for Waving Back, and the Quartet Review’s Editor’s Choice Prize. She has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony and Ucross, and several poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She teaches poetry with Pioneer Valley Writers’ Workshops, visits schools and libraries with her therapy dog Sunny, and works with immigrant and refugee communities in Western Massachusetts.

Two Poems by Susie Aybar

~ ONE ART ~ 1 Comment

Daylight Saving

The snowman in the backyard lingers
leaning with the weight of winter
facing the ground, stick arms out
bent in prayer and delight
daylight saving comes in three weeks

The brown-bodied goose balances
one-legged on the icy basin
with its head turned
black bill and white chinstrap
tucked inside its back

Would I love winter
if I didn’t have to warm my whole body
could just stand on one leg
shaking out the melancholy
sheltered in feather down?

Would I be less numb
wearing scales on my feet
so it wouldn’t sting
skating on frozen patches
buoyed by the sleet?

Long, gleaming days ahead
the snowman will be sacrificed
the grass will surface
geese will forage
we will unfreeze

*

Boundaries

The maple tree, red-orange leans
against the larger one beside it
they’ve thrived together
sharing dappled sunlight
protected by the parachute
of overgrown leaves
their roots tangling together
sometimes strangling
sometimes stronger
from the squalls
their chestnut branches
have intertwined
the changed leaves and
stems overlap now
there are pruning wounds
from trying to trim them
but they encroach on each other
like some twins in utero
competing for blood
when the stronger one steals
the nutrients, leaves
the other malnourished
crowding out the water, the soil
stealing the light
stifling the soul

*

Susie Aybar has an MFA from Manhattanville College. Her prose can be found in Literary Mama, Tiny Molecules, and Honeyguide Literary Magazine. Her poetry has appeared in The San Pedro River Review, The London Reader, Medical Literary Messenger, and others. She lives in North Salem, NY with her husband and sons. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram @saybar12 or connect with her at susieaybar.com.