Poetry
Bones by Maureen Reynosa-Braak
In my closet,
a canvas bag holds
about fifty bones
collected over decades
as subjects for drawing,
but they’re so much more –
artifacts freed
from burdens of flesh and mind,
lying still.
Treasuring these ancient
forms,
sketching their varied shapes,
they make me contemplate
my own skeleton,
and how it sustains
this temporary body.
Patinated surfaces harmonize
with jagged edges.
Raised contours flow
into tiny hollows.
Sturdy planes and delicate wings
that once shaped
a tender, breathing thing.
Strengthened by pursuit,
and escape,
fractured in moments
of reckless haste –
cages breached,
armatures of inevitable decay.
Death’s tangible remnant –
Contrary shapes and textures
in silent conversation.
Whites of every shade
fade to brown, black and grey,
where vulnerable breaks
left them exposed.
Singular objects,
once part of a whole,
casting shadows within shadows
building character
with each smudge of charcoal –
actors on my page
who once sustained
muscle, blood and soul.
Guardian to these relics,
I wonder what drives
the collector’s quest,
the archaeologist’s spade.
They fulfilled their purpose,
each exquisite bone,
perhaps these mysterious
history-keepers
deserve their
well-earned rest.
Small Fiber Neuropathy by Courtney Edwards
​
For six months I dream of its end–
but phantoms visit every limb. Shrieking
bark stripped from bones, smoldering
marrow. Each branch of nerve splayed out
on the fence–for tapping racoon claws, scratching
coyote paws, sharp-toothed wind. Beneath night’s clouded
eye, lightning strikes, but never grounds. Restless beetles gnaw
below. Moon-slicked crows peck above. Icy storms swirling,
burning. Roots, toe-curling. Somewhere between hope
and resign, my sharp hell ignites, ignites, and reignites.
When sunrise strips cerulean sky to fresh fascia and vein–
all shades of pulsing-pink pain, I watch the persimmon tree
from my bedroom window, a deer family bathed in orange light
approach its leafless arms, bowed spine, half-eaten fruit like open
palms. Mother deer limps behind. Her backward-bent leg drags
on dewy hillside. I see stretching necks huddle and feed.
I wonder if she still dreams.
The Clover Field by Terri McCord
the neighbor grows
as he watches bees
from his vintage green
and white lawn chair
that sits him low
to the ground immersed
in a language he
has almost learned
various conjugations of
buzz vibrate
the generous ground cover high
and filled with pollinators
This variation is called “Legacy,”
presents an antique-white
multi-petal blossom
that can be braided and worn
like a nature wreath,
and, if you’re lucky
or have sharp vision, you’ll find
the four-leaf anomaly
like the perfect one given
to me
by a young neighbor before
my wedding.
The Deep Three by Lawrence Bridges
As I sit here by myself
I hear a hollow drum above
and a wrench hitting the wall.
This is curious me, trying to find.
Emptied cells to tidy up the calendar.
No-shows don't have the right of entry.
Vacated vessels can be used
as examples or to block up cars
making it easier to examine
their undercarriages.
This may not be relevant
but once I visited a doctor
and he said, “Symptoms come in
deep threes”—an ache is a strain
caused by diet or disease.
Heal or stop abusing yourself
and the ache goes away
unmassaged as I sit alone and swap
a clock ticking in a hollow,
50-gallon drum. I’m healing
to my natural state, albeit empty.
Sprung by Gary Lark
​
March was the month of hammers.
Everybody that had one swung it
and amid the noise a starlet stepped
from the two-toned Bentley
wearing a silver sunshade
as though the moon had asked
for her ever-dying friendship.
So when April dawned we hurrahed
and harrooed and jiggled our prices
during a nearly total eclipse of the sign
on Maggie’s Cafe as our hostess
dragged poor Slotkin to the heap
in the near wood and set him ablaze
with at least a dozen sonnets.
It was May when flowers flew,
winging their way across the far sky
where furious flags flapped
their anthems of mine and yours,
and yellow-orange-red-pink-blue
covered the clowns.
When the solstice finally arrived
the songs were glazed with vanilla sugar
and the stones clapped their grubby hands
against the shore where oysters
were trying to dream the next cycle
of cosmic thrills up the beach
before the tide sailed to Venus.
Choosing to Live by Andrea "Drizz" Smith
​
There is always a choice.
Pain or suffering,
another week or none.
To put down the loaded gun
and exchange it for bodies
of water, warm colors,
cooler sensations.
You can choose how you want to be
remembered. Sometimes
you can be the architect
of endings, bearer of beginnings.
The power found in pain
while suffering most always
sinks or surrenders.
Surfing the wave summons
new perspectives, jumping off
lands you right back in the jam
at which you began, from which
you ran. Forge forward
but do not be bemused
by false nostalgia
of former frontiers.
Prophecies on Eyeless Faces by S.J. Sampaloc
​
The sagebrush has turned lupine purple
on the wolves’ mountain
with poisoned creeks. Who wished
this to be? A hungry nymph-god;
a sickly, yellowed cur; a scorned
wolfling runt? Salt in the wound
like pebbles in the river. The world
left to burn in a flame,
desiccated white and ruined
blackberry. Bison calves
no longer golden. Sculpted, wooden
sentries guard storefronts
and cabin doorways:
empty as a gutted hog. A composition
of graves—the conductor's baton
in a listless wave. Leagues off—
to the east, to the west—the seas
write elegies for color and song.
Their bodies washing
the ink away, leaving only melted
pages. The earth no longer accepts
bones. The survivors know
how the lights were extinguished.
To navigate the world without eyes,
ears, or nose is like ivory coral.
The badger dens are now spectral caverns,
and I wake up with a mouthful of dirt
on my tongue.
Jam Session by Lindsay Lamp
​​
There is no butcher. The kitchen is kind
to the neophyte fruit, repose and sweet
before the jam is made. And I do not
deglove the waxy skin of the oeuvre.
What beast pulls the petals off a flower?
The jam is a phantasmagoria;
there is no knife in the kitchen, I am
mortified by peelers, by the tonged fork –
that demon-tongue masticating jewels
until awful, like animal offal.
Sweetness is best a mutual consumption;
no fruit has suffered. There is no butcher.
The Thing That Knows by Georgia Agnew
​​
There is an animal
that lives inside me—
quiet,
but never still.
It listens
for the bones of the earth
before they crack.
At dusk it wakes,
when the sky becomes
velvet and blood,
and slips past every name
I try to give it.
It walks barefoot
through my dreams,
leaving little trail—
only the ache of
soft footsteps.
I wait
for it to return
with the jawbones
I lost
when they first
made me
quiet.
Aurora by Michael Alcée
​​
“The sailor cannot see the North but knows the Needle can." —Emily Dickinson
Remember not too long ago,
in the days before the world changed,
how we would look
North. Perhaps in a Circle,
or at some point
in the Nordic hinterlands.
I had a friend who always saw
those lights in me, whatever
the season, whichever latitude.
The aurora surfacing only
in darkness, but born too
of the sun. She sensed that,
alive and charged, dancing only
for those who could stand
the cold—brought my color
back, kept me
from the howling winds.
O What a Vixen! by Sarah Price
​​​
In fall, the beech and maple sough
where dappled shade is sweet as anything,
where paths, of later morning, still are singing.
She found him
wading, hair all wrapped in cloth of gold,
soft waisted, dark, with thighs like boughs wet gleaming
in fall as beech and maple soughed
in dappled shade as sweet as anything.
They broke paw paws off buzzy trees, then stole
whiskey and tried to dance. They dared, next morning,
bleary-eyed, the catbirds’ briary
in fall as beech and maple soughed,
the dappled shade was sweet as anything,
and paths, or later morning, still were singing.
II
In fall, the fading laurel keeps its lovers
and the wind shakes blue-stemmed goldenrod,
and dusk is caught in dogwood leaves.
It was a whim, to pause mid-touch, mid-murmur
to drag the cloth off, smile ready, fond
as thorny laurel of her chance-met lover
he, of starlit dusk and dogwood leaves.
But found a stuck-up mass all twitching: felt
ears of rabbits, cougars, bears and
lynxes feathered over ears of
donkeys, deer and otters: locks of
velvet rough and silken—live and
motley pelt!
He fled. She gasped, and turning, tore off after
through the gilded birch and over rocks
up where the warblers flocked and half-light struck
and flared. The fading laurel kept its lovers,
and the wind shook blue-stemmed goldenrod,
and dusk was caught in dogwood leaves.
III
​
In fall, the beech and maple sough,
the dappled shade is sweet as anything,
and paths, of later morning, still are singing.
She found him
one cloudless day and yielded, soft to show
her love was true, her voice a swoon with longing
where the beech and maple soughed,
in dappled shade as sweet as anything.
She heard the flesh’s subtle whisper grow.
She reached and pulled, but he was pulling too;
she woke with foxes’ ears: tuft-tipped, quick flicking!
in fall as beech and maple soughed,
in dappled shade as sweet as anything,
where paths, of later morning, still are singing.
Trinity by Stephen Jackson
​​​
I attended school across the street
from the fire, I stood with three swords
in my mouth—nobody noticed.
I was a bagger, a beggar, the checkout boy,
a Chekhovian lad with a checkered future,
a promising past never kept. I stood
on the church steps, saw my reflection
in the surface of the water, no one holy ghost
son or father came to save me.
I reacted bravely, challenged God
upon my mattress, behaved beardy in a sundress,
only Matthew took notice. Now I
chase after boys in my cockscomb,
I’m the beardy boy who brings the fox home,
knife on his belt, paperback book
in his back pocket. I was a bugger,
a straggler, a locust, a card with a card and
a locket, I stuck my finger in a socket
—everyone noticed.
Basilica of the Park by Benjamin J. Kirby
​​​
On a Sunday afternoon in the park
where our cathedral of trees would cover us
in dim light.
Those old trees – oaks and pines – have fallen in the storm.
This place felt sacred once.
In dry grass, the black ants march,
finding their way to a pile, a hole in the raw earth.
Dragonflies flitter and skip across the breeze.
The bark of a distant dog wakes me from the daydream.
I am there, on the rough wooden bench, with you.
With you, but away – you at the playground with ten new friends.
Me, a distance alone as the buzzards circle overhead,
Watching close the angle of the low sun in the settled azure sky.
The static of the plastic slide halos your hair.
The neighbor girls climb on top of the metal bars.
A boy flies on the swing, his father pushing him absentmindedly.
The metal platforms hum and thrum with activity.
This, the last of the American sanctuaries,
This, a world where we can be free.
Kneel on the great green grass,
Raise your eyes to the towering pines and pray.
Cento Between Dreaming and Waking by Emily Griffin
​​​
A bed of stars here
the moon in the bureau mirror
wobbling and wavering
The glass must stretch
like an old tear
At sea the big ship sinks and dies—
lost, labyrinthine
Shadows fall down, lights climb
burning through the cool firs
each pore crying the change of light
And over waves, birds singing
A wing hovering
An immense city, carefully revealed
I would wrap myself in it
Cento poem from lines by: Elizabeth Bishop, Louise Gluck, Nick Flynn
Prose
The Fermentation of Love by Dr. James S. Bridgeforth
​
He had loved her once in a way that trembled — unripe and reckless, the kind of love that doesn’t know its own depth until it’s too late. He mistook her tenderness for permanence, her patience for an open door. But love, he learned, has seasons. It ripens only in the soil of loss.
In the quiet months after she left, his heart became a vineyard. The ache of her absence turned into a kind of alchemy. Every night of solitude pressed him like grapes against stone, and something inside began to ferment — slow, sacred, irreversible. The sweetness of what they were turned into the boldness of what he became. And though the air around him still carried her scent, it no longer carried regret.
He would remember her hands — how they spoke in soft languages, tracing meaning on his skin. He would remember her laughter, the wild honesty of it, the way it once built a home in his chest. But he no longer reached for ghosts. He had learned to sip the silence, to taste the richness that time and heartbreak had distilled.
Now, his love was no longer a hunger but a harvest. It filled the room around him like the slow pour of red — deep, deliberate, alive. He knew if she ever stood before him again, he would not beg for her to return. He would simply offer the cup. And if she drank, she would know: the boy she once loved had become the man she always dreamed he might be.
Because love — real love — does not vanish. It matures. It waits in the dark, becoming something rarer, stronger, and more intoxicating than the heart first imagined. And when it is ready, it no longer pleads to be understood; it invites you to taste and see what time has made holy.
The Nestling by Sarah Banks
​
I stoop down to look at the baby bird lying on the front porch. He only has a few feathers, mostly fuzz, and the veins under his skin fan out like blue and purple threads. His eyes are closed, and he might be dead.
The bird must have toppled out of the nest that sits on the ledge of the brick pillar supporting the roof. The nestling almost hit the grass when he fell, but he landed on his back on the edge of the concrete.
I stand up and scan the lawn. The yardman is mowing the grass, and the whir of blades cuts through the stillness in the atmosphere. The air smells fresh and earthy, almost sweet.
Looking down again, I see the bird’s chest rise and fall. I can put him back in the nest before the yardman comes over to edge the grass by the front porch.
I lift my eyes and notice the sky is bright blue, but one cloud halfway covers the sun. Still, the concrete the bird is lying on must be hot. I can’t pick him up with my bare hands because the mother may not accept him back into the nest if my scent is on him. Even so, I won’t
allow a living creature to die if I can help it.
Inside, I find a box of gloves. When I walk back out through the front door, I notice my newly potted hibiscus. One coral blossom splays open, but the rest of the buds are clenched tight like fists. If I had placed the pot under the ledge, the bird might have fallen onto the soil instead of the concrete. I check him again, and I’m relieved to find he’s still breathing. I wonder if he broke any bones.
He might be a cardinal, but I can’t tell because his downy fuzz is gray. If I could see the
mother, I would know, but if she sees me touch her baby, she might think I’m trying to hurt him
and swoop down at me. I wonder if she’s nearby, perched on a tree limb, watching.
I leave the bird to find a ladder in my garage just a few yards away. It’s warm today, but we might have one final cold snap before May. If the temperature dips below fifty, I’ll bring the hibiscus under the garage. Even though warm weather pushed in early this year, I knew April was too soon to pot a hibiscus.
When I return, the sun has moved out from behind the cloud and now shines directly onto the bird.
I stretch a glove over my right hand and slide my fingers under the bird’s body. His eyes flutter, then open to slits, and he wriggles when I brush my thumb over his chest. Even though he looks only a few days old, his triangle-shaped beak slopes to a point.
I plant my right foot on the bottom step of the ladder to make sure it’s steady, and when I get to the top and look into the nest, eight eyes stare back at me. Like their nest-mate, the four nestlings are nearly naked, with only a few feathers and wisps of fuzz protecting their little bodies.
Cheep, cheep, cheep.
They huddle together, chirping in a chorus. When I settle the baby behind them, I’m careful not to touch the other nestlings.
Last spring, a different bird built a nest on this same ledge, directly above concrete, and I thought, what a dangerous spot. For weeks, I worried a baby would drop to the ground before it had grown big enough to survive the fall, so I decided that before the next spring, I’d place a large rock on the ledge to block any bird from building a new nest. But by the summer, other tasks occupied my time, and I forgot about the birds.
As I climb down the ladder, a soft, whistling trill sounds from the redbud tree that grows against the house. A cardinal with light brown feathers perches on a limb. She might be the mother.
Chirrup, chirrup, chirrup.
I slide the hibiscus pot under the ledge.
Before the Static by Angela Edward
​
I packed my suitcase like I was dismantling a body. Fold. Tuck. Bury. I never learned how to leave cleanly. I only knew how to tear myself out of a place the same way you tear out a stubborn tooth. Slow at first. Then all at once. A small violence pretending to be a choice.
The apartment stayed dark while I worked. The radiator clicked in the corner like it wanted to warn me. My clothes were still warm from the last life I lived in them. The room held its breath. I held mine longer. I kept waiting for something to stop me. Nothing did.
Outside, New York behaved like it always did. A siren clawed its way up the block. Someone yelled into the night, demanding an answer. A bottle broke on concrete. The city never whispered. It announced the wound.
The cats sat on the windowsill. Their eyes glowed like they belonged to something that had watched this before. Animals understand departure in a way humans refuse to. They looked at me the way witnesses look at a body rising from its own aftermath.
​
​
I packed the smallest things last. The MetroCard with the cracked corner. The photo booth strip with two faces pretending the flash was not a warning. The book with a stranger’s name inside the cover. I handled each item like evidence from something I wasn’t ready to name.
The hum in my chest grew louder. Not fear. Not grief. Something colder. A sound just below hearing that felt like it came from the walls. I had lived in this apartment long enough to know which noises belonged to the building and which belonged to me. This one was mine.
​
The truth arrived slowly. The city wasn’t letting me go. It was finished with me. There is a difference.
When I finally closed the suitcase, the zipper felt like a line drawn through a name. I couldn’t tell if it was mine. I stood in the corner and waited for something to collapse. Nothing did. Sometimes survival is just the absence of a fall.
Some goodbyes stay in the body and rot there. This one chose to stay quiet.
I told everyone I left New York. The truth is simpler. I left the version of myself who kept pretending she could survive everything.
Can Birds Drown in Snow? by Erin Conway
​
Can Birds Drown in Snow?
Google dodged the question. It answered only with descriptions of snow-covered gardens and burrowing for seeds. At the end of the list, the least relevant entry added a cautionary tale about birdbaths.
Who could I ask? Can birds drown in snow?
My heart whirred remembering the spinning wings that lifted the bird’s tiny body only to sink. Hollow bones were not light enough to keep from breaking through, deceived again by the deep layer of white. My question was valid. The right answer mattered. The bird couldn’t stand on the too thick, not thick enough substance, too high in which to stand. Such disappointment.
Should I try again? Can birds drown in snow? Should I be still?
I dug half-blind with one gloved hand underneath the clumps of snow. I couldn’t anticipate the body, only cradle a perception. Feathered wings would lift and then fall. As they tired, I pushed them forward without destination. The dog darted. The bird barely moved. Both were a distraction. When only rapid breaths remained, I slid several steps towards the garage door, then lost sight of the body, again.
Can birds drown in snow? Is it safe? Was help coming, from me?
I surrendered to the knots–circumstances and hope twisted by the dog’s leash. I took the dog back inside. I returned, each step across the yard a search for a new place the bird could settle to regain strength. I dipped my head, strained my eyes. No body. I crouched in the gray light, staring into black cracks between the broken wood and snowplowed grass. The bird might have pressed thin enough. Huddle inside. I watched from the window in the morning when my dad backed his car out of the garage. No answer was significant, and inadequate. A squint. A cringe. But, no body.
Can birds drown in snow? Do I want to keep asking the same question? Or stop?
The uninterrupted expanse soon stained itself in footprints clustered, muddied, then lifted as fog in next week’s rain. Snow and questions don’t melt away, but hang. Almost spring means snow can be, but shouldn’t be, here. It’s still winter means the bird could be, but shouldn’t be, here.
Can birds drown in snow?
The bird’s body never reappeared, only its presence, a fast, rapid puff of panic lingering with my real question. Either the bird ran out of energy ... or hope. . .
What’s the difference?
Music
So the story goes by Jonee's Mum
Mister Jimmie by Brian Billings