Less Than
(Near Laramie)

By Elizabeth Wyatt

The urge is neither
pure nor right.
It is
simply
motion
or desire for
motion, rising
like a dream of Pacific wave trains
shoaling over
tiered pale mesas: a metaphor

Li Po of Topanga Canyon

By Gail Wronsky

     for Daniel Arthur Kleiss (1949-2010)

I never bought it—the one about the Chinese poet drunk one night, leaning out of a boat in
order to embrace a watery reflection …

Postlude

By Rachel Hinton

When I last saw you, you were wearing a pink shirt
and I was scared you might fall down or talk back,
you might crush to a dust of giggles.

Hate’s Body

By Connie Voisine

Hate gives all its reasons
as if they were terms for something more
I would do to you with a foot or a shovel.
There is a certain peace in …

Call & Response

By V. Penelope Pelizzon

A nervous dog will snap at wind
that snarls outdoors as snows descend
till only walking pacifies
the wolf awoken in the hound.

We trudge the path we’ve memorized,
our coats …

The Wave

By Chris Davidson

The wave a moving gray ridge
curve from the gray horizon and
pelicans, gray too, glide just
over its forward slope sight I
never tire of from the water
I …

Wheat Fields with Reaper & Unfinished Letter

By Nina Puro

Our data still glimmers from their cave
in the mountain, but dark comes earlier up here

between your shoulders. The men want our secrets to crack
as gulls eat clams: by …

Alki the Town of Dreams

By EJ Koh

Facing east towards water, a dozen porch benches
overlook an isle of skyscrapers; but nearer, a strip

of gray beach sand, a pier house selling hairy muscles
each second, then …

How Love Departs

By Ron Carlson

What you want is for love to lean against the table like a craps dealer at the end of his shift and clap his hands and nod and walk away, …

HOTEL WARSAW

By Cynthia Cruz

In a room of gold, I am
smoking.

The parade of beautiful
boys and women

have long since gone.
Along with the letters

and packets
of photographs.

Yesterday
G. read my …

A Story of the West

By Young Suh and Katie Peterson

I am in a eucalyptus grove next to a playground. I am seven, or eight, my school is Catholic, and recess begins and ends with a bell that stings. You …

The Pair

By Laurie Clements Lambeth

       for Claire Kageyama-Ramakrishnan (1969-2016)

Don’t eat the spaghetti, she whispered. It’s funny
spaghetti—her hand raised to one corner
of her mouth, speaking out the other side,
conspiratorial grin …