Centre County

by George Yatchisin

Pennsylvania is just the sort of place to go
and name something Sheetz, and make a chain of it,
the place I first paid over a dollar a gallon for …

Things You Can’t: A Vet’s Immolation

by Julia Anjard Maher

Your hair was beachrocks
covered in lichen. Seawater
coursed your forehead circled
your crown left salt—
white and flakey wakes
of peaks and troughs.

Your eyes were cloudy. Too much
late …

Suburban Eclogue

by Gerald Maa

Volgar succede … (Leopardi)

Again, the streets empty this early hour,
Sunday evening, except those two
Walking their pugs before the work week starts,
There in the middle of the widened …

Language is Not Always a Question of Logic

by Amy Newlove Schroeder

Some people keep artificial plants, others artificial hearts.
Some keep nothing. It does not matter. The truth of the world
has nothing to do with the real. Every day the …

flower parade

by Kelle Groom

oh florida
I love your rain
& venetian blinds:

red parade of tiny flowers in the pool
open yesterday closed today
blown off your stems by the storm:

dead bees float along

At the Last Bookstore

by Lisa Alvarez

At the last bookstore, Anne Frank still smiles
on the shelf,
marked down to sell.

No one is buying tonight.

Down
the
road

beyond the miles
of cinder block walls
hiding
suburban backyards

From ‘A Winged Man’

by Stephen Vincent Benet

Icarus, Icarus, though the end is piteous,
Yet forever, yea, forever we shall see thee rising thus,
See the first supernal glory, not the ruin hideous.

You were Man, you who …

It’s About Time for Your Zócalo Rhyme

2014 Gets a Look Back—from Global Conflicts to the Sony Hack

by Sarah Rothbard

Christmas lights are being taken down,
The Rose Parade is coming to town.
New Year’s resolutions are looming fast:
All signs another year has passed.

But before we bid 2014 adieu,

Park in Reykjavik, Iceland

by Michael Miller

The wind has snatched the Frisbee
and the boy scrambles into the bushes
to catch it in flight as though the ground
would score a point for touching it first.

Swimming at Sportsplex: February Mental Sky

by Dana Roeser

​​“What’s water but the generated soul?”
                          William Butler Yeats

The soul was taken
by surprise, plunging
into that glassed-
in pool in February,
​dysthymic, hyperthymic,
sex-crazed, hypomanic,
​money-throwing,
neurasthenic
​soul
rattling …

A Small Meatloaf

by Grant Hier

              (for Mark Strand)

Half-baked on the flat sheet,
moist and raw within, bright red
at the core—like the chef, heat
radiating from his hands:
he dreads the work ahead.

Phone calls are …

Asthma in Summer: Family Vacation at Virginia Beach

by Dana Roeser

        The oppressive night
like a blanket. Layers
        of wetness on
my bronchial tubes, my
        limbs; my
husband’s body
        ​on top of me. I
want to walk out, to the bay,
        ​the ocean, to …