Tag Archives: Spring 2021

Farm Girl Flying by Trish Annese

Bright red female angel
 

Loosed from the arms of her mother by the shame of wings, borne on blue, feathered splendor, she watches earth fall fast, past sycamore, linden and pine. A farmer saw her, waved and shook his head, said to his son: you have to be careful—girls like that, they’ll rise when you least expect them, take your self-respect along with an embroidered tablecloth or two. How can she explain it? Flight without tether? If this girl knew Brueghel she might well fear flight: The farmer threshing his wheat and his son, just a boy, pretending not … Continue reading Farm Girl Flying by Trish Annese

For My Sake and Battle, 2 poems by Khaled K.E.M.

Photo of man in doorway of store
 

For my sake At dawn there are no residues left from last night’s shift. I offer no sympathy to the crawling hours of a newborn day. With fog I travel across the city to buy a large coffee with half-half cream, a cinnamon raisin bagel toasted with cream cheese. I always pictured Brazilian goddesses harvesting coffee beans, cream collected from melted clouds underneath flying cows, cinnamon a rebel swami fought in southern India, raisin fostered in a local farm watered from Niagara Falls, the homemade bagel is the pride of an old town, the cream … Continue reading For My Sake and Battle, 2 poems by Khaled K.E.M.

Here is a Paring Knife, Here is the Metaphor and Not that I am Desperate, 2 poems by Michael Milligan

Photo of watermelon slice and knife
 

Here Is the Paring Knife, Here Is the Metaphor to cut the damaged parts away. So bruised and all. Peeling the flesh of the torturer you become of yourself. Here is the skin off your hand. The skin off your back. The delaminated rind of your life. Have you noticed how we tend to avoid poetic mention of these things by their names: Birth. Life. Love. Death. Pile up a few metaphors, that’s the standard prescription. A glimpse for a moment before the blinds are drawn. Pretending to look at the sun, at the face … Continue reading Here is a Paring Knife, Here is the Metaphor and Not that I am Desperate, 2 poems by Michael Milligan

Puzzle Envy by Vicky Oliver

Photo of hand holding pen filling in crossword
 

Each week, my husband completes the New York Times Sunday Magazine crossword puzzle in about thirty minutes, leaving no square unfilled. He writes in pen and never crosses anything out. Starting at 1 Across, and moving across the puzzle like a ravenous lawnmower razing grass, he completes all the Across sections to approximately 120 Across, only deigning to glance at the Down clues if he reaches a difficult patch. If I were an insecure person, I’d feel pretty dumb by comparison. The only clues he ever asks my help with are the names of makeup … Continue reading Puzzle Envy by Vicky Oliver

Incandescence and I am an Onion, 2 poems by Priscilla Melchior

Photo of blurred hanging lights
 

Incandescence Few will understand. Light bulbs, for heaven’s sake. But I was awash the night I found spares waiting to meet my need and remembered when need was swallowed by the dark. My little stash of lumens in flimsy boxes leaned in tilted testament to the day shadow vanished from my life and I fairly danced to the lamp to replace the dead gray globe and twirl in luminescent grace. Even now, I rejoice anew not when a light dims, but when I reach out knowing another waits to shine. I am an onion but … Continue reading Incandescence and I am an Onion, 2 poems by Priscilla Melchior

Liquid Bandage by Michele Riedel

white bandaid against pale blue background
 

Brush a thin film over the slit on your papered skin— ………..feel the throbbing start to numb. Shields against……………………………..daily scrapes ……………………………………………………blisters and callouses ……………………………………………………prickles ……………………………………………………exposed nerves I scan directions for protection from…………………………….splintered remarks lodged so deep they remain hidden until the skin regenerates……………….pushing the sharpness slowly ……………………………………………………toward the surface Search for……………………………………toxic comments from others …………………………………………………..places not yet recovered …………………………………………………..pummeled layers from sharp tongues turned red to purple to blue to yellow from deep tissues that ooze their spew. Scars that never faded, alleyways from the past. My palms sweat as I touch the thick callouses … Continue reading Liquid Bandage by Michele Riedel

Going Up by Andrea Lynn Koohi

Photo of spire on tower
 

The summer I worked as a tour guide at the CN Tower, it was the tallest free-standing structure in the world. One thousand, eight hundred and fifteen feet tall. On my first day there, I shadowed a colleague as he delivered the elevator speech I’d soon be memorizing—perfectly timed for the fifty-eight second ride. Halfway through, a blonde woman knelt by the boy at her side and gestured toward my colleague with a snarky smile. “You see,” she interrupted. “This is why you stay in school.” My colleague gaped at her while the rest of … Continue reading Going Up by Andrea Lynn Koohi

Some Day We Will Replace That Hideous Window by Virginia Watts

thin stemmed yellow daisies
 

  My mother has forgotten about the sun Her gaze gauzy, living room window a bay shape she has always detested Here comes the mailman My father is in the Rehab Center Our king and conqueror of transient ischemic attacks Your father’s strokes are just mini strokes Stacked in a corner of oil stained garage Forest green plastic lawn chairs unparted for cobwebby eons Virginia, what are you doing out there? On the small concrete front porch of that one bath, three bedroom rancher I place two empty chairs in the sunshine as white spiders … Continue reading Some Day We Will Replace That Hideous Window by Virginia Watts

Abraham’s Mustard by Philip Newman Lawton

Photo of people walking down sidewalk
 

There was small marble sculpture of an aged figure on an unpretentious pedestal near the eastern end of St. Donatus Park, a leafy space in the old city of Louvain, Belgium. The figure was that of a seated elder with eyes wide open and a biblical beard; were there not an owl on his lap, were his hands not serenely folded, he might have been a prophet. The pedestal bore a placard, in Flemish, that read, “Wise is he who wants to know where Abraham gets the mustard.” The park had a wide dirt pathway, … Continue reading Abraham’s Mustard by Philip Newman Lawton

On Marriage to a Statue by Emily Bornstein

Photo of statue
 

I could have stayed married to David if he wasn’t so unwaveringly chiseled. If his deceptively supple face wasn’t so perfectly defined. If Michelangelo could have given me a dress that was low-cut, a dress that would force David’s undulating cliffs of eternal gray hair to turn and fly rebelliously (momentarily) from the craggy sides of his head. Alas, I have no such dress (but rather, baggy plaid pajama pants that some dancers shot off the stage at a bar mitzvah) and I figure that even a silvery ball gown couldn’t turn me tamed and … Continue reading On Marriage to a Statue by Emily Bornstein