Evacuation by Tammy Greenwood

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Evacuation

We could see the smoke billow
beyond the ridge. The car packed

with fire escapes of mementos,
each choice an act of judgement day.

Now with room for only half the artwork
on the walls, I was sure I heard the sigh

of houseplants as I closed the door.
And that heavy Gray’s Anatomy book

filled with pressed wildflowers I collected
and labeled the spring of lockdown —

purple nightshade, wild Canterbury bells,
California poppy, silver lupine, presuming

they needed me as much as I needed them.
Now rescuing them a second time,

I fill the birdbaths like chaliced offerings
hoping for another reprieve.

*

Poet and Printmaker, Tammy Greenwood is a Louisiana native residing in California. Her work is heavily influenced by the varying landscape and culture of both states she calls home. Since graduating from California State University, San Bernardino, she continues her studies while working on her upcoming book of poetry. Her work appears in or is forthcoming in Door is a Jar, Rust & Moth, Orange Blossom Review, San Pedro River Review, Under the Radar, California Quarterly, Poetry South, Emerge Literary Journal, FERAL, and elsewhere.

Night Music by Mary Beth Hines

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Night Music

Mayhem made me. Rum
& Terrapin Station playing all night
on the common room stereo, and I fell
for it. Crushed velvet, wavy glass
and a cardinal pecking at its own
reflection. Bedlam. Heaven
forbid my Saturday night trespasses
torque back to haunt me—the men,
the moon, sows jumping over, my plunge
from the cradle into rosa rugosa
where I lit on all fours, before hush
could ambush me, fled from the lure
of Kyrie eleison soaring at cockcrow
from St. Cecelia’s organ. Heaven
forgive my come-on and surrender
into the blur of allegro, vibrato.

*

Mary Beth Hines lives and writes from her home in Massachusetts. Her work appears in Cider Press Review, SWWIM, Tar River Poetry, Valparaiso and elsewhere. Kelsay Books published her debut collection, “Winter at a Summer House,” in 2021. (https://www.marybethhines.com)

haiku by A.R. Williams

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Hiking in Appalachia
a massive black bear
gobbles down a turkey club

*

A.R. Williams is a poet from Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley (USA), and has been published in Black Bough Poetry, Ink, Sweat & Tears, Neologism Poetry, among many others. He is also the editor of East Ridge Review and can be found on twitter @andrewraywill

BRAND LOYALTY by Alyson Gold Weinberg

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BRAND LOYALTY

I made a Pledge to Cheer with Joy whenever my little
Dove(s) are near. To caress their Downy heads. To keep
Tab(s) on them—and spend many a Summer’s Eve
When the Nerds are asleep—L’eggs open, welcoming the Soft

Scrub of your beard on my Crest. You’re Charmin. You’re Fantastik.
Head and Shoulders above the rest, but these days I don’t
Comet in a Jiff—a bit of my libido has gone down the Drano.
Fancy a foursome with Mr. Clean and Mrs. Butterworth—?

We can get Miracle Whip(ped) until Dawn when they gotta Bounce.

*

Alyson Gold Weinberg is the author of Bellow & Hiss, A New Women’s Voices finalist, forthcoming in September, 2023 (Finishing Line Press). Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in december, Halfway Down the Stairs, Poetica, among others. She was a 2021 Jeff Marks Memorial Prize finalist (judged by Carl Phillips) and a 2022 Harbor Review Jewish Women’s Poetry Prize Finalist. When not writing poetry, Alyson is a speechwriter and the ghostwriter of five non-fiction books.

Two Poems by Tresha Faye Haefner

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Self Love Poem
After you left I started writing love
letters to myself.
The kind of over-the-top things you would have said to me
if you had stuck around.
My god, I say to myself in the mirror, you’re glowing.
Your hair a yellow stream full of diamonds.
Your eyes Terabytes of Blue Data. A promise from space aliens. Instructions
on how to build the color blue, in case we forget.
I send myself nude photos of myself. Pictures where I’m looking myself
directly in the eye, daring a response.
Sometimes I worry I’ll get caught. Sometimes I close my laptop quickly
so I don’t see what I’m doing behind my back.
It’s tricky, loving yourself this hard, without anyone getting suspicious,
accusing me of being arrogant or self indulgent, selfishly lavishing all this time
on planning trips to Europe with myself. The hotel I’ll rent, the hats I will buy
for my glorious head.
I take time away from work to sneak myself messages. Promise crazy things.
I’ll take myself on
a cruise to Greece and Turkey.
Throw whole olives in my mouth, the pitted kind so they go down soft.
Grapes, peaches, all the stone fruit I can eat.
Eventually this kind of ebullience gets old though.
The pressure to be the recipient of so much adoration.
I suggest a quiet night at the movies. Take myself
to watch independent films.
Pretend I’m interested
even though I hate subtitles, and was never a fan of the French New Wave.
Make an excuse to go home early, get enough sleep
for work the next day. Anything to avoid my own company.
I know something is off. It’s a distortion. There’s someone else
I’ve been seeing. But I won’t admit it. Try to cover.
The lies become tiresome. The effort to get myself
to like myself this way.
I miss the simple days of taking a road trip down the 405.
Pulling over to the side of the road to stare at cows,
or watching a butterfly land on my windshield while I’m stuck
in traffic. At night I turn off the radio,
listen to the sound of the earth.
Crickets in bushes. Fruit falling and splitting against the ground.
The sound of the earth, so quietly supportive.
So casually giving me everything I’ll ever need.
I try to resettle myself like the center of a Tibetan Singing Bowl.
I spend whole afternoons in silence now.
Tonight I will turn off all sounds, make a meal of lion’s mane mushrooms,
morel spores mixed with rice, white wine, parsley and herbs,
and then go take a long shower with lavender soap
and spend all night staring at my reflection in silence
as I pat my ordinary skin dry,
and deliriously comb my hair.
*
Letter Home
In the Northeast
the ice is everywhere,
black and invisible.
schoolyards are lowered
by flags. The teachers don’t know
what to do. When I arrived
I was naïve as paper.
A dress walking
through snowstorms.
You tried to warn me,
there were not enough words
to describe the love
between a man
and his money.
Why someone would shoot
a naked photo of a child.
A classroom of kindergarteners,
an insulting email to HR.
I tried to pump the breaks.
The screech of an empty
bank account slammed me
to snowbank.
I thought I would be better. But
I am only a girl. Break me
in case of emergency.
Be careful. When they tell you
You are a match
for any danger,
You will be the one
they strike.
The newest thing
they have to burn.
*
Tresha Faye Haefner’s poetry appears, or is forthcoming in several journals and magazines, most notably Blood Lotus, Blue Mesa Review, The Cincinnati Review, Five South, Hunger Mountain, Mid-America Review, Pirene’s Fountain, Poet Lore, Prairie Schooner, Radar, Rattle, TinderBox and Up the Staircase Quarterly. Her work has garnered several accolades, including the 2011 Robert and Adele Schiff Poetry Prize, and a 2012, 2020, and 2021 nomination for a Pushcart. Her first manuscript, “Pleasures of the Bear” was a finalist for prizes from both Moon City Press and Glass Lyre Press. It was published by Pine Row Press under the title When the Moon Had Antlers in 2023. Find her at www.thepoetrysalon.com.

Four Poems by Dan Butler

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A Picnic in Golden Gate Park

Sunny, shirts off, he newly moved
to San Francisco, me at the end of
a solo cross-country bike trip, we’re
making out on a blanket in the midst
of kids playing, families and friends
having a good time. I’ve never kissed
a man like this, outside, among other
people, but he seems so comfortable
that I follow his lead, amazed how it
feels so easy, natural, sublime.

And now he tells me he felt the very
same thing, that he’d been raised never
to show affection of any kind in public.
And I laugh, ‘So I was leading you?’
We’re on the phone, connected for
the first time in 40 years, reliving that
day. “You were so fucking cute” he says,
the thickness of his Minnesota accent
surprising me, the memory of his beauty
still bowling me over. “An elderly couple
was on the bench beside us,” he says,
and the gratitude, realizing that this day
was as indelible for him as it has been for
me all these years, is beyond words.

And I still can feel the brush of his leg on
the back of mine, momentous and ordinary,
40 years ago and now at the same time,
basking in the newfound happiness of being
more completely me.

*

Father Son Talk

My mom and dad dated again
after their second spouses died,
some 30 years after their divorce,
and they’d call me up giving their
versions of how it went. I could
only utter single syllables like
‘oh,’ ‘wow,’ ‘good,’ the kinds of
words I was trained to use on the
suicide prevention line where you’re
urged to never challenge any of the
callers’ delusional voices they might
be dealing with. Dad had all these
plans for their future while mom
was reminded why they had split up
in the first place. He was excited, she
found herself getting depressed.
The dating only lasted a few months
when mom finally called it off and
afterwards every time I’d visit, dad
would pour over conspiracy theories
of who had poisoned her thoughts
against him. “It was all going so well,”
he’d repeat and I’d mostly nod, try
to steer the topic off in another direction,
avoid giving advice or hurting him further,
thinking of all the plans, romantic and
otherwise, that hadn’t turned out even
near the place I’d intended. ‘Sometimes
there isn’t a reason, dad. Things just
don’t work out.’ And we drive in silence
for a while, on our way to Smokey Bones
for a little barbeque, corn fields spreading
out forever on either side of the interstate,
silos standing sentinel in the distance.

*

Mom in the Nursing Home

          Where or When – from “Babes in Arms” by Rodgers and Hart

I sit by her wheelchair. We listen to a jazz duet
entertaining the memory unit. She’s all smiles.
The keyboardist is me and I’m a guy hitting on her.
When we’ve held hands, it’s been a death grip; now
it’s soft, intimate. Her Estee Lauder is all for “me.”

          And so it seems that we have met before
          and laughed before and loved before
          but who knows where or when?

She’ll know me again in the morning, but for now
it’s getting late, so I kiss her goodbye on the cheek
and tell her that I’ll see her tomorrow. Pleased, she
fixes me with a look I’ve never seen before and asks,
“And what’s going to happen then?”

*

Early December Farm Breakfast with my Grandpa, 1962

Why do I keep coming back to this kitchen?
What dark nourishment do I seek?
I sit at the oil-cloth covered table watching him
fix breakfast, the meal I’ve watched him make
a million times before.

The grease sizzles and pops in the cast iron skillet,
smelling of smokehouse and slaughter. He has
his back to me, focused on the task at hand.
The eggs are hard for him to break. He tries to
work the arthritis out, opening and closing his
thickly calloused hands that smell of lava soap
and work, a life of work. He takes turns rubbing
each hand, trying to bring life back. Useless,
useless, he whispers, as if I’m not even there.
He leans against the counter near where his
cane is hooked, near where his birthday cake
sits, barely eaten though it’s apricot, his favorite.
He wears faded bib overalls and flannel to keep
the December chill out. He’s kept the heat off
because it costs dear. He’s a man of few words,
but I wish he’d talk to me. It’s all on his terms.

Outside it’s dark, down in the coal mines dark.
Inside too. Eggs sunny side up, though the sun
won’t be up for a good while now and he won’t
be here to see it. The ground outside the breezeway
waits, as does the hunting rifle. Ground he plowed
and planted and harvested, all grey corn stubble now.

Breakfast made, he places a plate over it to keep it
warm. He’s not hungry. Down the hall, Uncle Bob,
who will find him, dreams of robbers. And as Grandpa
makes his way out of the room toward the inevitable –
a smile on his face, something I didn’t expect – he turns
to look at me. He sees me, years older than he was then.
And he leaves. Again.

*

Dan Butler is known primarily as an actor whose credits include major roles On and Off Broadway, on television, and film where he has also written, directed, and produced. In 2011, Dan adapted and directed a screen version of Poet Laureate Ted Kooser’s verse poem “Pearl” starring Francis Sternhagen and himself which had a great life on the film festival circuit. In addition to being published in ONE ART last April, Dan’s poems have been seen on the Poetry of Resilience site, on the “Commissary,” a creative artist’s collective, as well as in the anthology “The Paths to Kindness: Poems of Connection and Joy” edited by James Crews.

Two Poems by Laura Foley

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My State

At daycare, she says, Sue serves us spoiled eggs.
Oh, you mean boiled?
No. Spoiled. And I don’t like them.

Later I ask Sue, who elucidates, Scrambled.

In the parking lot, we talk license plates.
Mine has a loon, she explains,
And yours is green.

Yes, yours is a loon because you’re from Maine.
Yes, Grandma, but I’m from License Plate too.

I squint into space,
trying to imagine the state of License Plate,
but find a mind of scrambled eggs.

*

Someone

I once lived on a great wide river,
a time of deep aloneness, after loss.
How soothing it was to watch waters passing,
sunlight reflected in circular currents,
a white moon cresting
above the shadowed mountain.
I miss the river, though not
the hushed quietness of that time,
the endless plumbing of depths
I never guessed, which nonetheless
led me to choose—a wife
calling me from another room,
as she is now, to come downstairs for tea,
steeped to the color of the river.

*

Laura Foley’s most recent collection is: It’s This (Fernwood Press, 2023). Her poems have won many awards and appeared in many journals such as Alaska Quarterly, Valparaiso, Poetry Society London, Atlanta Review, and included in anthologies such as: Poetry of Presence: An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems, and How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope. Laura’s poems have been turned into choral music and performed in venues such as the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and Carnegie Hall in New York. She lives with her wife, Clara Giménez, and their two romping canines, among the hills of Vermont.

Three Poems by Lois Perch Villemaire

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Hot Tea and Hamantaschen

A cup of hot
vanilla caramel tea
with a cherry
hamantaschen
takes me back.
No, it’s not Purim.
My local bagel shop
bakes them all year round.

The tea—
a reminder of my mother,
faithful tea-drinker;
the hamantaschen—
a reminder of the time
one of my daughters
brought home a recipe
from pre-school.

Sipping on my tea
I see my little girls
as we baked together,
mixing and rolling dough,
spooning cherry pie-filling
then folding just so—
into the shape of Haman’s
triangular hat.

*

Happiness

is not handed out
like Halloween candy.
If there is none
where you wish to find it,
feel the loss then rejoice
in fortuitous discoveries.

The deep purple bloom
of an African violet
created from a single leaf,
the taste of a fresh banana,
the company of someone you love,
the encouragement of a friend,

a book you long to return to,
music—an arrow to your heart,
baby birds with open beaks
in a nest outside your window,
and a blossoming hydrangea
you planted seven years ago
in memory of your sister.

*

Calling All Poets
         After June Jordan

Slow down
look around
there’s something
impressive to see.

Feel the silent breeze
watch the wisdom
of the birds
building nests
with precision.

Listen to their calls
rhythmic chirping
rings through the air.
I wonder—
what is the message?

Notice how swiftly
trees convert
from naked
to full bloom,
barely time to
grasp
the transformation.

*

Lois Perch Villemaire writes poetry, flash memoir, and fiction. Her work has appeared in such places as Blue Mountain Review, Ekphrastic Review, One Art: A Journal of Poetry, Pen In Hand and Topical Poetry. Anthologies, including I Am My Father’s Daughter and Truth Serum Press – Lifespan Series have published her memoir and poetry. Her first book, “My Eight Greats,” a family history in poetry and prose, will be published in September. Originally from the Philadelphia area, Lois lives in Annapolis, MD, where she enjoys yoga, researching family connections, fun photography, and doting over her African violets.

Two Poems by Eileen Pettycrew

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I Couldn’t Do What the Pedicure Lady Does

All day bending toward disagreeable
outcroppings, operating
with a surgeon’s precision—
especially not the way she does it,
always trying to catch my eye,
while I, already squirming
from the intimacy of the procedure,
try to stay inside
the separate station of my book.

I think of feet, how they tether me
to this world, how one day
they’ll be reduced to nothing,
and she will no longer take them,
naked as mole rats,
into her hands, rubbing the heels
and between the toes
with her lotioned fingers.

Now as I wait for the polish to dry,
she sweeps nail clippings
and clumps of skin into a dustpan.
Someday everything in this salon
will be gone—fake poinsettia wreath
on the door, the oversized calendar
printed with Bui’s Natural Tofu.
Box fan in the corner ruffling
a strand of my hair.

I think seven years into the future,
when my skin will have renewed itself.
I like to think I’ll reinvent myself
with whatever warmth
she carries in her hands
as she kneads my calves,
her fists pounding look up, look up.

*

First Week in April

Already the azaleas
are in bloom, the rhodies
busting out too.
Everything’s moved
up a month, as if time
has rolled up the rug
and left town. What will
happen to the Mother’s Day
rhododendron show?
Maybe folks will learn to love
the delicate skeletons
left behind.
          Last night
at the square dance, I loved
others’ attire—window-pane
fishnets, a hot-pink shirt.
I slid into do-si-dos,
swing your partner.
I think of my father’s
artificial hips, how he quit
dancing for fear
of falling. He and my mother
out on the floor,
suede soles gliding
across the wood as if
they could go on forever.
          I think I know
of loss, but I don’t.
Or it’s been here so long
it seems normal,
like browned-out grass.
The days
mean something,
don’t they?
Rising as they do
when the sun returns
after a cloudburst.
Fleeting as steam.

* 

Eileen Pettycrew’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in New Ohio Review, CALYX Journal, Cave Wall, SWWIM Every Day, and elsewhere. In 2022 she was one of two runners-up for the Prime Number Magazine Award for Poetry and a finalist for the New Letters Award for Poetry. A Pushcart Prize nominee, Eileen lives in Portland, Oregon.

Losing a Homeland by Zeina Azzam

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Losing a Homeland

It’s as if we are reading a book
with too many unfamiliar words
and keep having to look them up.
If only it were that easy to understand the story
of how one loses a homeland,
how a young couple flees
with only a suitcase to fit their life’s belongings.
In their minds the sentences shortened,
certain words disappeared, some things
were unspoken until their hair grayed, fell.
Maybe they would never be uttered or heard.
How will our family story live?

*

Zeina Azzam is a Palestinian American poet, writer, editor, and community activist. She is the poet laureate of the City of Alexandria, Virginia, for 2022-2025. Her poems appear in literary journals, webzines, and anthologies, and her full-length poetry collection, Some Things Never Leave You, was published in July 2023 by Tiger Bark Press. Zeina’s chapbook, Bayna Bayna, In-Between, was released in 2021 by The Poetry Box. She has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize. www.zeinaazzam.com