Sharon Perkins Ackerman holds an M.Ed from the University of Virginia. Her poems have appeared in the Southern Humanities Review, Atlanta Review, Appalachian Places, Kestrel, Meridian, Broad River Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Salvation South, and others. Her second poetry collection “A Legacy of Birds” is available on Amazon and her third collection “Sweeping the Porch”(Pine Row Press) will be published early 2026.
What’s that? I ask pointing at the x-ray. Oh, that’s your heart. Or a tumor. I should check with the radiologist. Don’t bother. It’s both. My heart is black. Blacker than any organ medical history records. Or so I was told as a teenager by a friend of a friend who was sick of watching me hurt her friend. I had every excuse in the book: I loved her too much, I loved someone else, I wasn’t in love enough. In the end, I hurt everyone involved and failed to learn a thing. And now … Continue reading Diagnosis by Andrew Gent→
Allow me to be a reflection of all of her tastes, including that core piece of her that makes fun of me for not screaming the lyrics of a song about John Deere green. How could I truly love her without owning one pair of Wrangler jeans? It is because I love her I still drive the forty minutes to sit at a field party near a retention pond, where one of her friends, a lawyer now, shoots fireworks over a two-lane highway with multiple decorated crosses for teenagers that couldn’t find the middle lane. … Continue reading Emily as She Spends Three Consecutive Days in Licking County by Darren C. Demaree→
how do i fit a city into a suitcase and how do i fit the feeling of waking with the sunrise or not sleeping until the stars blur how do i fit the scent of a rose peeking through cracks of concrete, fragrant plumeria blossoms lining streets, the comfort of seeing rows of olive trees little dots on a hill, or being surrounded by mountains wiser and older than all who inhabit their foothills how do i fit a city into a suitcase? the quiet nods as greetings of friendly hello when spoken languages don’t … Continue reading fitting places into a suitcase by Hibbah Haddam→
Last night the dreams poured in through the window. The plants, brought in for the first threat of freeze, let them rest and take stock on their last leaves. The dreams— knowing so much— didn’t know where to enter when I taped my mouth shut. And then they just became me, and I became the window, which amounted to nothing but seeing. I woke up in the back of my head and my understanding of the size of the sky turned purple, pink, and apricot. I think my place on this earth is in my … Continue reading Knowing and Oh My, 2 poems by Julia Falcinelli→
Imagine being told at your annual physical that you have a cancerous spot on your right lung. Then, in a follow-up that you have a year left to live. One year. That’s all. Imagine having to squeeze all your dreams and plans for the future onto the pages of a single wall calendar. That is what happened to Dawn West, who is still alive today, twenty-six years after that terminal diagnosis. Dawn and I had been dating for a month when she received the devastating news. After her first diagnosis, we visited other doctors for … Continue reading Beating a Death Sentence by Bill Glose→
Our touring barge plows south through Mekong waters soon to arrive in the Delta. It’s been years, yet the names of these places are still familiar. Glossary of napalm and agent orange, of families fleeing, of death. I stand on deck and see a peaceful land, little battered boats, hut homes, rice-carrying hoys, their painted eyes alert for evil spirits. Everywhere in the brown current, islands of hyacinths float — invasive spread of jade leaves, plum blooms and unseen roots that hang in the water and thrive. Close by a flat boat drifts, nets piled … Continue reading Unseen Roots by Martha Snell→
I don’t blame my body for its language, for keeping its sacredness secure with words, its spleen tagging towards holiness and eternity, since I don’t seem to understand its nature, or why it mistakes my joys for sorrow, my pains for happiness, my tedium for freedom. I have kept the momentum of my dreams, but my body betrays me each time I reach out to have a sensible conversation about our future. It’s not too hard to make up with your enemies, except that sometimes they open the wounds from which you struggled to escape … Continue reading The Language of My Body by Chibuike Ukah→
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→
…………. ………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→
Sukey Gap Graveyard The road here is pocked with holes, graves strung mostly in mistflower or phlox, apt to spread airy trails. Not a place for plastic lilies who squall into the quiet, but moss with enough give to muffle the whole of your existence, let a mythology larger than your own encompass the knee, the folded hands, words dampening what’s left of sunken or toppled names. One stone says Perninia, my third great grandmother, who holds open the iron gate then closes it behind me, and flies softly into the trees. She sings from … Continue reading Mind the Gap by Sharon Perkins Ackerman→
Streetlight Magazine is the non-profit home for unpublished fiction, poetry, essays, and art that inspires. Submit your work today!
