Remembering the Joy of a Sandwich Before the Summer of Cyclospora
If sex were a sandwich it would have to be a BLT. Not just any BLT, but the one he made for you simply because you hadn’t tasted one in years. Sharing a meal with him is a religious experience, every nibble a communion. Imagine him frying up the bacon, flipping it as you watch pork fat s i z z l e s l o w. And that intoxicating scent— no confusing his umami tease. He goldilocks the sourdough, toasting it just right. Then he slathers one slice with aioli and fig jam on the other. You watch his hands crack open a head of iceberg lettuce so cool & crisp you can taste it calving as he slides a bite into the ocean of your mouth. And then, he gives you his big tomato heart, tangy & sweet with a touch of salt—that taste you can’t get enough of. His taste you never grow tired of, that makes you sweat like it’s August every month of the year. Another perfect day to stay inside— with or without a bed of lettuce.
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Shawn Aveningo Sanders shares the creative life with her husband in Oregon, running The Poetry Box press. Her poems have recently appeared in Rattle, ONE ART, contemporary haibun online, Sheila-Na-Gig, Jackdaw Review, Gyroscope Review, and the award-winning anthology, Love Is for All of Us. Shawn is a multiple Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Touchstone Award nominee and has won prizes from the Oregon Poetry Association. Her newest book Pockets(MoonPath Press) was a finalist in Concrete Wolf’s Chapbook Contest. When not writing, find her shopping for a new pair of red shoes or toy dinosaurs for her granddaughter, RedShoePoet.com.
“The sun gave forth its light without brightness.” —Procopius, 6th Century
On that election night, I didn’t want to imagine how life in America could be 536 [days] After Donald took his seat, round & resolute at the ceremonial desk, his blunt-tipped Sharpie in hand, ready to sign life, as we know it, away. They say it was the worst
year in history to be alive, when in 536 A.D., a volcano erupted and a fog of ash engulfed Europe to Asia. An 18-month-long eclipse, where men grieved their shadows and prayed to the sky for their gods not to abandon them.
The people endured 536 [days] Absent Daylight— Wars that wouldn’t cease. Seeds of disease flourishing among fallow fields. The death toll climbing higher by the hour. Do you remember the refrigerated trucks, those makeshift morgues, parked along New York streets?
It took 536 [days] After Disease paralyzed the world, until I could visit my widowed mother. The bags under her eyes—a steamer trunk jam-packed with memories. Her voice cracked, hot tea spilling details of the fall, the ventilator, the iPad goodbye.
We’ve all seen the videos of banned books burn to ash. Will we ever learn from our history? After bedtime stories and snuggles, I tucked my granddaughter into her big-girl bed, as the ‘Red Wave’ rolled in like a fog.
536 [minutes] After Doomscrolling all night, I woke my husband, made eggs for breakfast, sunny side up. I opened the refrigerator door, where my world was still a crayon-drawn sun, held by two toy letters: a blue A and a red D.
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* 536 days since After Donald’s inauguration is July 9, 2026
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Shawn Aveningo Sanders shares the creative life with her husband in Oregon, running The Poetry Box press. Her poems have recently appeared in Rattle, ONE ART, contemporary haibun online, Sheila-Na-Gig, Jackdaw Review, Gyroscope Review, and the award-winning anthology, Love Is for All of Us. Shawn is a multiple Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Touchstone Award nominee and has won prizes from the Oregon Poetry Association. Her newest book Pockets (MoonPath Press) was a finalist in Concrete Wolf’s Chapbook Contest. When not writing, find her shopping for a new pair of red shoes or toy dinosaurs for her granddaughter, RedShoePoet.com.
Sunday, March 1, 2026 ONE ART x The Poetry Box Featured Readers: John Arthur, Katie Dozier, John Wojtowicz, Laura Foley Information & Registration via The Poetry Box Tickets are FREE! >> Register Here <<
You can learn more about The Poetry Box Chapbook Prize, which is open from February 1st thru March 15th, at ThePoetryBox.com/chapbook-prize.
About the Poets:
John Arthur is the author of Lucy the Elephant Wins in a Landslide.John is a writer and musician from New Jersey. His work has appeared in Rattle, DIAGRAM, Frogpond, Failbetter, trampset, ONE ART, and many other places. He has worked as a valet at a casino, a waiter, a Ferris Wheel operator, a cook, a pizza delivery driver, a fast food delivery driver, a landscaper, a journalist, an editor, a librarian, a library director, a manager, and for one long, hot day as a guy going door to door asking if you’d like to donate to the Sierra Club.
You can purchase John Arthur’s winning chapbook at:
Katie Dozier’s love of poetry first bloomed as a child. She memorized Robert Frost sitting on a tree stump and bathed in Edgar Allan Poe as an adolescent. While studying words at Florida State University, Katie also played with chips and became a professional poker player. She’s passionate about encouraging others to discover and share contemporary poetry—through her social media, Substack, and NFTs. Katie is the author of All That Glitter; Watering Can: a Month of Poems; and the co-author of Hot Pink Moon: a Crown of Haibun and Did You See the Moon Honey. She is the creator of the top-rated podcast The Poetry Space_, the haiku editor for One Art, and an editor at Rattle. Katie lives in The Woodlands, Texas, with her husband Timothy Green, their four children, and way too many books.
John Wojtowicz, author of No Lightsabers in the Kitchen, grew up working on his family’s azalea and rhododendron nursery and still lives in the backwoods of what Ginsberg dubbed “nowhere Zen New Jersey” with his wife and two children. Currently, he teaches social work at Rowan College South Jersey. He has been featured on Rowan University’s Writer’s Roundtable and the Painted Bride Quarterly’s Slush Pile Podcast. Several of his poems were selected for Princeton University’s 2021 Unique Minds: Creative Voices exhibition at the Lewis Center for the Arts. When not writing, teaching, or rolling around in the yard, he enjoys monitoring bluebird boxes, volunteering at the Cohanzick Zoo, and flipping horseshoe crabs.
You can purchase John Wojtowicz’s winning chapbook at:
Laura Foley, author of Ice Cream for Lunch: a grandparents handbook, is also the author of ten previous poetry books, most recently, Sledding the Valley of the Shadow. Her book Why I Never Finished My Dissertation received a starred Kirkus Review and an Eric Hoffer Award. She has won a Narrative Magazine Poetry Prize, The Common Good Books Poetry Prize, Atlanta Review’s Grand Prize and others. Her work has been included in many journals including: Alaska Quarterly, Valparaiso, Poetry Society London, Atlanta Review, Poetry of Presence, and How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope. She lives on the steep banks of the Connecticut River in New Hampshire, and romps with her grandchildren as often as possible.
Minty spittle slithers down the handle of my toothbrush. It’s a cold sunny morning with new batteries; my teeth are excited for a fresh start. I didn’t have high expectations for last year, a pessimistic way to say I surpassed my goals. (well, some of them, anyway) This year, I feel more confident— until a splash of cold hits my face.
breaking news holding hope for the midterms
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Shawn Aveningo Sanders shares the creative life with her husband in Beaverton, where they run a small press, The Poetry Box. Over 200 of Shawn’s poems have appeared worldwide, most recently in ONE ART, contemporary haibun online, McQueen’s Quinterly, Sheila-Na-Gig, Cloudbank, and Love Is for All of Us. Shawn is a multiple Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Touchstone Award nominee and has won prizes from the Oregon Poetry Association. Her newest book Pockets(MoonPath Press) was a finalist in Concrete Wolf’s Chapbook Contest. When she’s not writing, you might find her shopping for a new pair of red shoes or toy dinosaurs for her granddaughter. (RedShoePoet.com)
from headlines, and I’m not the only one. I walk through a nearby neighborhood, the kind with a community pool and a new elementary school between row after row of houses. Cul-de-sacs of cocoa & cookies, lights adorn rooftops down each street, everyone saving each other a seat for the big Holiday Parade. Scouts setting up for a bake sale, tables of treats their moms helped make sweet. I stop at a house with one blue spotlight and a red bucket hung on a hook, where a plaque invites me to Take One. Hoping to find a little poem inside, there’s a handwritten prayer instead. And though I didn’t feel the need, I was grateful for the offering, this token of kinship from a stranger— and how I found myself believing maybe—just maybe—We the People can still turn things around.
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Shawn Aveningo Sanders’ poems have appeared in journals worldwide, including Calyx, ONE ART, contemporary haibun online, Drifting Sands, Quartet, Timberline Review, Cloudbank, Sheila-Na-Gig, MacQueen’s Quinterly, and many others. Her new book, Pockets(MoonPath Press, 2025) was a finalist in the Concrete Wolf Chapbook Contest. Shawn is a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Touchstone Award nominee. A proud mom and Nana, she shares the creative life with her husband in Oregon, where they run a small press, The Poetry Box. When she’s not writing, you might find her in a shoe store hunting for a new pair of red shoes. (redshoepoet.com)
There are days I long for long-ago days and crave the cackled song of her laughter. Why did she have to leave us so soon? I see her in every bloom of iris, purpling my side yard each June. Grief is a forever fading bruise, a reminder of our Kodachrome days, all those little snapshots we carry, trinkets we unbury from the drawer of memory— a bracelet full of charms reminding us how lucky we are to find one another, each of us, a shimmering bead on life’s great, miraculous string.
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Shawn Aveningo Sanders’ poems have appeared in journals worldwide, including Calyx, ONE ART, contemporary haibun online, Drifting Sands, Quartet, Timberline Review, Cloudbank, Sheila-Na-Gig, MacQueen’s Quinterly, and many others. Her new book, Pockets(MoonPath Press, 2025) was a finalist in the Concrete Wolf Chapbook Contest. Shawn is a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Touchstone Award nominee. A proud mom and Nana, she shares the creative life with her husband in Oregon, where they run a small press, The Poetry Box. When she’s not writing, you might find her in a shoe store hunting for a new pair of red shoes. (redshoepoet.com)
The official event is expected to run approximately 1-hour.
After the reading, please consider sticking around for approximately 30-minutes of Community Time discussion with our Featured Poets.
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~ About Our Featured Poets ~
Susan Rich is the author of six collections of poetry and co-editor of two prose anthologies. Her most recent books include Blue Atlas (Red Hen Press) and Gallery of Postcards and Maps: New and Selected Poems (Salmon Poetry). She co-edited Demystifying the Manuscript: Creating a Book of Poems (Two Sylvias Press) and Strangest of Theatres: Poets Crossing Borders (Poetry Foundation). Susan’s previous poetry books include Cloud Pharmacy, The Alchemist’s Kitchen,Cures Include Travel, and The Cartographer’s Tongue–Poems of the World–winner of the PEN USA Award. Birdbrains: A Lyrical Guide to Washington State Birds is forthcoming from Raven Chronicles Press.
Shawn Aveningo-Sanders’ poetry has appeared in journals worldwide, including Calyx, ONE ART, Quartet, Timberline Review, About Place Journal, Sheila-Na-Gig, MacQueen’s Quinterly, and many others. She is the author of What She Was Wearing and her manuscript, Pockets, was a finalist in the Concrete Wolf Chapbook Contest, which is forthcoming from MoonPath Press. Shawn is two-time Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. A proud mom and Nana, she shares the creative life with her husband in Oregon.
Faith Shearin’s seven books of poetry include: The Owl Question (May Swenson Award), Telling the Bees (SFA University Press), Orpheus, Turning (Dogfish Poetry Prize), Darwin’s Daughter (SFA University Press), and Lost Language (Press 53). Her poems have been read aloud on The Writer’s Almanac and included in American Life in Poetry. She has received awards from Yaddo, The National Endowment for the Arts, and The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Her essays and short stories have won awards from New Ohio Review, The Missouri Review, The Florida Review, and Literal Latte, among others. Two YA novels — Lost River, 1918 and My Sister Lives in the Sea — won The Global Fiction Prize, judged by Anthony McGowan, and have been published by Leapfrog Press.
There’s a place in the back of my closet, where I hang my memory. I have this fear that someday I’ll plummet again, that I will forget how to be happy. Back there is where I store the purple dress I wore for my second wedding, just in case I want to wear it for our anniversary. But it’s three sizes too big. And that’s a good thing—finally learning the art of self-care. There’s that black velvet number, trimmed with mink, I wore to a country club soiree. Oh, to wear that dress again—such a classic— alas, it’s two sizes too small. And let’s face it: even if it did fit, it wouldn’t really “fit” this body “of a certain age.” I try on the denim jumper, the one appliqued with black kittens popping out of pumpkins. The one I wore decades ago trick-or-treating with my kids. Somehow, it fits “just right.” I slip my hand inside the pocket, find a wadded-up Skittles wrapper, and inhale the rainbow of my children’s youth. A happiness I will never forget.
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A Second Life
Every time I toss an empty Country Crock into the recycle bin, I feel a tinge of guilt. But also, I smile.
MeMaw was known for her pantry full of Trailer Park Tupperware, saving containers that once offered up
cool whipped-cream dollops atop strawberry shortcake. Or those packed with that almost just-like-butter taste
to spread on biscuits. She granted each plastic vessel a second life. Some cradled batches
of snickerdoodles on their journey to my dorm— small packets of love
to soothe away my homesick blues. My roommate asked me why anyone would ship a tub
of margarine. I laughed. Then I saw her brown saucer eyes speak of loneliness.
I un-burped the lid, to open the tub, offered her a cinnamon-sugared treat,
so she, too, could know the taste of home— she, so far away from her own.
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Labels
Have you ever noticed the women who linger in the canned food aisle? How they will stand there in their comfortable shoes, wearing a modest shade of pink lipstick to perk up an exhausted smile, scrutinizing and scanning each label: cans of creamed corn, stewed tomatoes, garbanzo beans, and soup. Is it the calories? Allergies? Price?
After weeks in the ICU, he is finally coming home. I pore over every prescription protocol; key-in each doctors’ number into my phone; make copies of his Patient Implant Card to tuck into my wallet. I buy one of those easy-to-read neon pill caddies, so he never misses a dose from the armada of pills fighting for his failing heart.
I scan a list from my pocket. How long have I been standing here holding this can, reading this label? I get it now—what it means to join the sorority of salt seekers. Our faithful mission: rooting out sodium dangers at every possible turn. I understand these tedious, loving acts and the monumental task to save the hearts that beat in unison with our own.
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Shawn Aveningo-Sanders’ poetry has appeared in journals worldwide, including Calyx, ONE ART, Quartet, Timberline Review, About Place Journal, Sheila-Na-Gig, MacQueen’s Quinterly, and many others. She is the author of What She Was Wearing and her manuscript, Pockets, was a finalist in the Concrete Wolf Chapbook Contest, which is forthcoming from MoonPath Press. Shawn is two-time Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. A proud mom and Nana, she shares the creative life with her husband in Oregon.
