Sharon Ackerman holds an M.Ed from the University of Virginia. Her poems have appeared in the Atlanta Review, Southern Humanities Review, Appalachian Places, Still: The Journal, Meridian, Cumberland River Review and various others. She is the winner of the Hippocrates Poetry in Medicine international poetry contest, London 2019. She has one poetry collection Revised Light and a second one in the works.
Cockatiel, not you, a yellow and orange assertion. Bright with her own meanings, clatters round the outside of her cage, without fear, flourishing her freedom. Her eyes, seeds of darkness, see all that is not you, see you too, see dual worlds, one on each side, her head a ball turret, tail a trailing spear. feather in her cap. She whistles “Whataru?” won’t wait for an answer, explores the floor, foraging as she goes, mounts the top of an armchair renowned for its emptiness, spreads her wings and sings her triumph, not yours. Outside the … Continue reading Cockatiel not you by Sean Lause→
—Magicicada septendecim I never thought I could love you, arguing with leaves under midday sun, your body a prune with polymer wings that look like they might shatter at a touch. When my father told my mother he was in love with another woman, everything breakable flew off shelves, shook loose from frames, fell free from cupboards. I was breathless, my lungs heavy with humidity, a death rattle shaking in my throat, which reminds me of you, your song a pall through afternoon and on into evening. If only I’d known your name was … Continue reading 17 Year Cicada by David B. Prather→
On Thursday, there are three chickens in the backyard pecking at each other, plucked feathers scattered on the ground like a gruesome crime scene. You could make a fourth chicken out of this, I think and rescue the yellow one with a bleeding wing. She scrambles in my arms, talons clawing at exposed flesh. I drop her. She returns to pecking, happier in the violence which is more comfortable to her than in my arms: safe but unknown. I do not know how to save them if they do not want to be saved, only … Continue reading In the Nature of Chickens, There is Little Room for Gentleness by Emma Fenton→
Who doesn’t love mysteries and secrets? I can recall sitting under a shade tree as a child with stacks of Nancy Drew, Alice in Wonderland, Tom’s Midnight Garden and the Boxcar Children series. Before that, there was Aesop and Grimm, rife with gore and violence, all the jealousies, abandonments, and disguises that life can throw at you. And how instructive to observe the way choices made by heroic children can lead to downfall or triumph! Psychologist Bruno Bettelheim in The Uses of Enchantment argues for the utility of the classic European fairy tale, supernatural and … Continue reading Writing the Family Secret by Sharon Ackerman→
Five economic terms you should know Scarcity. The bar where I am drinking–because I have money–has more beer than it could give away but it won’t, even to the homeless guy who is standing by me, because how could you make money that way, so I myself give him a twenty for the five dollar cover and tell him to buy a beer with the rest. Supply and demand. This bar has 64 taps because they figure that’s how many taps can make them the most money. Statistically, the homeless don’t count. Opportunity cost. Maximizing … Continue reading Five economic terms you should know and The ring of Gyges, 2 poems by Casey Killingsworth→
The Saint Francis Center is hopping this morning, people lined up all jive and jest the addicts and drunks and misfits file in and out, raw around the edges after a weekend of bingeing the guy in the wheelchair out front seems to be singing an opera tune, the high notes run away from him on little feet, dancing down the block the geraniums in their pots flanking the doors wilt from abuse, their dirt used for more and more and more cigarette butts, an urban ashtray above the city din, the air ringing with … Continue reading Richmond, Monday Morning by Debbie Collins→
With its double doors swung wide and its mower rolled out and parked beside bags of spring grass seed, the open cemetery shed makes each grave seem yet more sealed, more weighted down by the hard ground, the gardener’s ministrations to the earth’s mere surface exposed, those deep below tended only by the natural force— cleansing as wind on the headstones— of handed-down remembrances until the dead are swept of all particulars except their role with regard to the living, so become blank and beautiful, icons of generational endurance, each clan—when gathered for a new, … Continue reading The Open Shed by Mark Belair→
In the space of one hour: coma then a blown pupil, extensor posturing. Hemicraniectomy to relieve swelling from a large cerebral infarction. The dura mater could not be closed. On morning rounds, your pupils react to light but you still hold your arms and legs straight. When I press your brow, your feet point down. You stare straight when I turn your head. You still gag when I jiggle the breathing tube. Your wife holds your rigid hand and I say everything possible has been done. She lets go of your hand and whispers you … Continue reading Primitive Reflexes by Thomas Mampalam→
My dad’s family bible and watch finally arrived in the mail to me nearly twenty years after his death. How it happened is a circuitous story, worthy of a southern novel. Of note, I did in the getting, offer to pay my nephew a sum of money to steal the bible off my sister’s coffee table. It didn’t come to that but hopefully gave my nephew and niece a tale to tell. Novelist Pat Conroy once contended there are no crimes in families beyond forgiveness. Well, that rings true. The presence of these items in … Continue reading Southbound by Sharon Ackerman→
Last night I called you. Moon sharp, I said, like an important message. Look up. The sky has opened its story and shined its shy star. It’s a pearl plucked from the deep. Look up before she hides before we forget the oyster, that we are surrounded by sea. Mary Christine Kane works in healthcare marketing and lives in Minneapolis, Minn. She holds an MFA from Hamline University. Mary’s poetry and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including Bluestem; Mutabilis Press; Plainsongs Magazine; The Buffalo Anthology, Right Here, Right Now; and others. Her … Continue reading Message by Mary Christine Kane→
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