Ars poetica

by Leslie Harrison

& the trees gleam wetly under the luminous clouds

& through a water-ribboned window a child draws pictures

& the child draws the man as a winter tree with the moon above

& …

Rabbit Skin Pelt

by Chris Davidson

I recalled for the therapist a rabbit skin I bought
At summer camp, at the camp trading post,
When I was nine or ten using cash my parents
Sent with …

[On the one side]

by Stephanie Adams-Santos

On the one side
there are hummingbirds
plucking secret fruits
from the tongues of foxgloves
& a shimmering woman
who yawns like a cat
in the day bed of a

Swallows in the Grasslands

by Patrick Coleman

I’ve only seen them build nests on underpasses, on buildings, in the shadows of London Bridge—relocated from Britain to sandbar sex party shit show Lake Havasu, both names reminders of …

I Wake in Heraklion with Lady Beetles

by Catherine Strisik

I am soft with healing after
I am luxuriant with good fortune after
I am cloaked by lady beetles a scent of salted olive, my nature after
all means spacious …

the condor is a scavenger

by Amy Katherine Cannon

makes simple nests in caves or clefts eats large amounts of carrion

especially susceptible to poisoning was poached almost to extinction

 

the year you were born all …

Electrical Fire At 3AM (as Mercury Stations Direct)

by July Westhale

for Panella

It was too generous for gunshots,
too casual for fireworks. Our house
sparked once, then oncetwice, oncetwice.

Fire. In this day and age. Livid
until we understood, we rose …

Meditation on Skin

by Lynne Thompson

He came to me in a dream,
wet as a newborn in his new skin.
I readied him for a bowl of bitter world
(the cathedral two blocks away from …

No Books Would Tell Us Our Stories

by Stacey Balkun

Possumtown Neighborhood, Piscataway, NJ, one mile
from the Middlesex Sampling Plant site, where radiation
cleanup from ore sampling in the 1940’s was projected to be completed in 2000

My best friend …

Gets Dark So Early Late

by Max Schleicher

The dead have the whole city to think with
the fla-vor-ice tube the whole tongue cherry red.
Trapped below the lake, the slow sharp breath,
the mottle, the dogskin, the …

Lauren Gives Me Directions

by Garrett Durbin

“Make a left at the second park,
Because you will come across two parks;
The first one is smaller, and there’s a little courtyard in the middle
With an old …

[In the ocean with my brother, I wonder]

by Joanna Penn Cooper

In the ocean with my brother, I wonder
if I should make my same old walking
into the ocean joke. “Whelp. I guess
I’ll just keep going. Goodbye.” …