Category Archives: Poetry

say goodbye, without disappearing by B. Luke Wilson

Photo of tree with red leaves
 

your namealways tasteslike a palindrome across my tongue minnowingpond wide words      stained red as pomegranate arilsthe sun dies between us      painting ripples aquarelles what is left to say when there is no way forward      that doesn’t feel like retreatwhen clouds lit citrus bright over lakeside cypress      hold that dream i can’t whisper B. Luke Wilson grew up in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and his fiction and poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Moon City Review, LIT Magazine, Artemis Journal, and elsewhere. He is the assistant … Continue reading say goodbye, without disappearing by B. Luke Wilson

Horses by Joseph Mills

Photo of 3 horses facing camera, with misty mountains in background
 

I know people who know horses They ride them and own them and talk about their different points. They look at a horse in a field or paddock, and evaluate it, speak of its attributes. In all the Westerns I read growing up, there were always characters who knew “horse flesh.” I don’t. I know nothing. All horses are beautiful to me. A faculty member at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Joseph Mills has published eight volumes of poetry, most recently Bodies in Motion: Poems about Dance. His book This Miraculous … Continue reading Horses by Joseph Mills

Canticle for the Hand and Mouth by Karl Sherlock

hand reaching up, another reaching down, blue sky background
 

The way one’s mouth shadows the hand because hands spoke the first language. The way the lurid tongue-tip drapes the sill of one’s lip, mobilizing when hands are elsewise picking knots from shoelaces or rubbing together the neurons of a nuanced thought. How the rushed cadence of fingerspelling paces a deaf friend’s lips. How Moses, heavy of mouth and stammering tongue, lifted the sea with a lightness of hands thrust forward. How a forefinger, pinched against the lips, muzzles a neighbor’s fracas, or the well- meaning, ill-mannered way the hand of a relative stranger cups … Continue reading Canticle for the Hand and Mouth by Karl Sherlock

Wondering What is Forecast by Rebecca Leet

Photo of storm clouds above green field
 

I don’t know why I was singled out, being, as I was, simply sitting at my patio table sipping Earl Gray and scanning AccuWeather for a hint of whether or not sunshine would favor next week’s beach trip. As far as I recall, I did nothing to attract the jet black eyes whose stare crept into my consciousness along with that creepy feeling that comes when you realize you’re being watched. Nothing moved – not the eyes not the head not the shoulders – as if we were on a zoom call and the computer … Continue reading Wondering What is Forecast by Rebecca Leet

Cole Shows Set-up by Molly O’Dell

Aerial photo of a large fair
 

late afternoon      on the day before openingcarnival workers prepare their week’s work for the 69th annual Buchanan carnivalRV’s and duallys set up on the grassy park a pregnant woman pitches her grey green tentas close to the edge of the river as she can manage the Ferris wheel assembly’s almost readyto offer a view of the river and Purgatory Mountain men construct railings around the carouseldragon wagon and tilt-a-whirl one fellow finishes polishing the apronof the cotton candy concession two teens tote bags of lemons and saltto the lemonade and French fry stand children … Continue reading Cole Shows Set-up by Molly O’Dell

Moonburst and Shortcuts, 2 poems by J. R. Solonche

Photo of moon with clouds passing by
 

MOONBURST It was wan. It was white. It was sickly white. It was filled to full with white. It was white as a sheet. It saw a ghost. It saw me. I was the ghost it saw. I was at the window and it saw me. I wasn’t dead but I was a ghost. I was the ghost of the me I was this morning. The sun saw me then. It burst through the window. It laughed in my face. SHORTCUTS “Remember, there are no shortcuts,” he used to say. He was my father, and … Continue reading Moonburst and Shortcuts, 2 poems by J. R. Solonche

Some Stories by Claire Scott

a furled brown leaf against a pale gray background
 

Some stories last long past their appointed hour, like light from expired stars. Like leftover houseguests or five day fish. We walk toward remnants of the past like refugees, pulled by the gravity of guilt, the pulse of regret. Is it too late to unspool the alphabet of cruelty, the bludgeon, the blindness, the heated blade of anger? Words cutting like winter-raw wind. Some stories stick like late fall leaves, wrinkled and ready, but clinging to the apple tree like a drowning man to a raft. the drumbeat of regret stranded in the long syllables … Continue reading Some Stories by Claire Scott

Old News by Joseph Kleponis

Elder man in fedora and pink tie crossing a brick street
 

It was late afternoon in fall or spring Because we were not wearing heavy coats. The pale sun was just starting to squinch down. As we left the library for home We lingered on the steps saying good-byes. A man in a brown suit with matching brown shoes, Wearing a shabby sort of fedora, With a full paper grocery bag Crooked in his left arm, a folded newspaper In his right hand stood at the curb, Looking left then right before stepping Into the street. I could not see his face, So I do not … Continue reading Old News by Joseph Kleponis

The Long Goodbye and Solving for X in a Pandemic, 2 poems by Carlene M. Gadapee

Photo from behind of older couple sitting on bench in front of mountains
 

The Long Goodbye The dishes undone, the laundry undone, the checkbook balance impossible to follow or read. Then, the falls. So many falls. It was dark, I caught my foot, I reached and lost my balance. And the pills. So many pills, under the chair, under the table, all looking alike, spilled and refilled far too soon each month. And the money, oh, the money pouring out the door on things you don’t need, people who scam and overcharge for services you have no need for. But we dance around the truth, making empty promises … Continue reading The Long Goodbye and Solving for X in a Pandemic, 2 poems by Carlene M. Gadapee

Autumn Landscape by Elizabeth Mercurio

woman in white leotard mid-air beneath autumn tree
 

How do you bear the middle-aged body, all its longing— ……    a body grown round. It doesn’t curve with the same sweetness it did on days when they snapped your bra in the hallway or nights when they whispered, You’re perfect, though you never believed it. The body gives up its wounds too, all the times you said no without words. It’s yours now. You stretch out your arms, turn in scarlet-yellow leaves your heart still hungry in its cage. —In the lowering autumn dark you are here, astonishingly, here. Elizabeth Mercurio is the … Continue reading Autumn Landscape by Elizabeth Mercurio