Tag: water

What the Water Keeps by Alexander Poon

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What the Water Keeps

My grandmother washed rice in the same chipped bowl
for forty years, three times always, her palm
circling the grains until the water ran from milk
to almost clear. She never let it run all the way.
That last cloud, she said, is where the taste lives.

I have her bowl now. I do not know the word
she used for it, only the shape of her mouth
making the sound, the way her tongue
touched the back of her teeth and held there.
When I rinse rice I count to three in English
and the kitchen stays quiet in a language
I was supposed to fill.

There is a voicemail I keep but cannot play
past the first three seconds, her voice
saying my name the wrong way,
the way that was actually the right way,
the way no one says it anymore.

The bowl floats when I leave it in the sink too long,
tilts, takes on water through the crack
along its rim, and still it does not sink.
It rides the gray water like something
that has decided not to be finished,
the cloud of starch lifting from its center,
rising, refusing to be poured away.

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Alexander Poon (he/him) is a poet from Edison, New Jersey. His work explores family history, cultural inheritance, memory, and the quiet distances that language and time can create between generations. His work has appeared in American High School Poets: Winter 2026 and has received recognition from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards.

*HOOK HAIKU* by Paul Siegell

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*HOOK HAIKU*

Throw the baby in
the pool—Take the photograph.
Nevermind what’s next.

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Paul Siegell is the author of Take Out Delivery (Spuyten Duyvil, 2018), wild life rifle fire (Otoliths, 2010), jambandbootleg (A-Head, 2009) and Poemergency Room (Otoliths, 2008). Pennsylvania’s 2021 Montgomery County Poet Laureate, he has contributed to American Poetry Review, Black Warrior Review, Rattle, Sixth Finch, and many other fine journals. Kindly find more of his work at ReVeLeR @ eYeLeVeL (http://paulsiegell.blogspot.com).

Not Alone, but Swimming — by Daniel Edward Moore

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Not Alone, but Swimming


Does giving up mean being over,
                                                    the way a dumbbell leaves
the hand, saying this arm is done?

I listened to the sound the ocean makes
                                      where like a bridge I found myself
arched above your rippling yes,

feeling you curl under me as if
                                                   the arm that once was tired
found a way to bend again and

stroke the perfect blue. Wet
                                                     with wonder, we returned,
not alone, but swimming.
                                             
                                                    You made the sea believable.


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Daniel Edward Moore lives in Washington on Whidbey Island. His poems are forthcoming in Lullwater Review, Emrys Journal, The Meadow, West Trade Review, Toho Journal, Muddy River Poetry Review, The Lindenwood Review, Sheila-Na-Gig Pandemic Anthology and the Chaffin Journal. He is the author of ‘Boys’ (Duck Lake Books) and “Waxing the Dents” (Brick Road Poetry Press).