The Odd and Tender Clarity of 4 AM Kathleen McKitty Harris
Irish-American New Yorkers—especially those of the Catholic persuasion—have a knack for fatalist worst-case scenarios. Maybe it’s the indigenous oppression and starvation imprinted long ago on our DNA. Maybe it’s the second-class steerage tickets to America that marked us not just for life, but for generations. Maybe it’s from perpetually feeling two lengths behind, no matter how fast we sprint. It’s most assuredly from ill-fitting plaid Catholic school uniforms and the dysfunctional religious practice of making pride—and the inherent, innocent swell of joy—sinful. For some reason, I couldn’t sleep tonight. I woke at 2 am, … Continue reading The Odd and Tender Clarity of 4 AM Kathleen McKitty Harris
Booking It by E. H. Jacobs
I was strolling with my wife in Brookline, Massachusetts, on a charming street with clothing and gift stores, Japanese restaurants, delis, and a Japanese tea house. I ducked into a bookstore, assuring my wife that I would be out in a minute, not pivoting quickly enough to miss her exasperated eye roll. After browsing the fiction and poetry sections, examining the New Releases and Bargain tables and the Staff Picks rack, and then doing an analysis of which book covers made a book stand out (getting ideas for the cover design for my then upcoming … Continue reading Booking It by E. H. Jacobs
This year is forecast four winters and I can’t save the burning world by Andreea Ceplinschi
I, who have never known love like this for my kinfolk in a burning world I’m tired of loneliness rewiring this brain, tired of wasting time waiting for the skies to clear, waiting for a turn, waiting for the urge to pass. Here, let me share this bread I baked, this salt, this god only a body can understand, I love you, here is a cup of tea, your coffee with maple syrup, the way you like it I love you, I made you soup, hungry for a kind of closeness like wilderness of hair … Continue reading This year is forecast four winters and I can’t save the burning world by Andreea Ceplinschi
Yoga Today by Fred Wilbur
Among the activities of our local Parks and Recreation Department are youth sports (including cheerleading), a genealogy class, bingo, adult softball, “track chair” outings, gymnastics, Taekwondo, a class on identifying and removing invasive plants, and yoga. The yoga offered may not strictly conform to any of the seven modern varieties or schools (other than the fact that classes are held in a repurposed school building!), but is exactly what most participants need and want. Frankly, there are as many species of yoga as there are individuals: every one’s grimace is DNA different. The class … Continue reading Yoga Today by Fred Wilbur
The Bird Lives Here to Wait by Yucheng Tao
…………. ………To commemorate the victims of the Khmer Rouge we faced a large number of classrooms the bird outside faced the trees, unvoiced. the winter’s soldier burns the classroom changing our dream into a brimstone lake. the bird still like stone, still watching blood on her face. she wears the blade of clothes. the bird lives here, dozing, but full of blood sense in its eyes. we, trapped here. once the classroom, the way turns to Pol … Continue reading The Bird Lives Here to Wait by Yucheng Tao
The Alley by Alex Joyner
Somewhere locked in geostationary orbit over Virginia, a satellite maintains its dumb stare. Prompt it with a series of numbers and you can provoke it to produce pictures of Jefferson’s Monticello or that place you and your friends used to sneak off to by the Rapidan. 38.24521°N, 78.11247°W gets you to a concrete alley back of a post office loading dock. The satellite looks down, but once your thirteen-year-old eyes were looking up from that alley. Feet freezing in your too-tight shoes, slipping through the gray slush of a melting snow pile. Freedom on a … Continue reading The Alley by Alex Joyner
Foie Gras by Nathan Cover
“What’s wrong with pear trees?” I ask, wondering if my dad is getting senile. “Well, they’re an invasive species. They’re not allowed to sell them in nurseries here anymore. They’re very spreadable because of their seeds. The ones in this subdivision are cultivated so they don’t have the thorns, but once the birds start getting to them, and they, you know, do what birds do, the ones that turn up in the wild have the thorns and then they take over everything around them. It’s the monoculture. If you plant only one kind of tree, … Continue reading Foie Gras by Nathan Cover
Not Unlike Damon and Pythias by Zachary Lundgren
A friend once drove out of town so fast he didn’t know if he was headed north or south. He just wanted to make the coast and finally learn how to swim. But that wasn’t true. I knew it was his boyfriend, the metal whip of his tongue that drove him to walk that bridge each night—inevitable as Persephone come September. One night after the bridge whiskey, he asked me to hit him and I should have said no. He said he needed a pain that would come and go like wildflowers in the high … Continue reading Not Unlike Damon and Pythias by Zachary Lundgren
2026 Poetry Contest Announcement by Fred Wilbur
As I read this year’s contest entries, I accumulated a deep appreciation for the humans who invested the thought and energy to create them and who took the time to submit them to our contest. Thank you, fellow poets. We received 137 entries and co-editor Sharon and I have read then all. Our task was tough as there were many seriously contending poems. I found that I was in conversation with each poem. My wife thought I was mumbling to myself as perhaps a first sign of losing me. In a sense, my interaction with … Continue reading 2026 Poetry Contest Announcement by Fred Wilbur
Bloodless by Martin Vest
I don’t want to be eaten by a grizzly, my dad would say every time we were camping. But I wouldn’t want to be here if it weren’t possible. I’m sitting outside, daydreaming, when up the sidewalk strolls my neighbor, his torpid eyes fastened like buttons, his mouth a bloodless sphincter of puckered sanctimony. No matter what we talk about, he somehow finds a way to bring up my father, to remind me that he knew him sixty years ago when they were just boys. I don’t bother reminding him that I’ve always known my … Continue reading Bloodless by Martin Vest