The Cabin 

by Sandy Rochelle


I have a solitary cabin in the woods.
It is my soul.
Do not visit me there.
 
 
* * * * *
 
Sandy Rochelle is a widely published poet, actress and filmmaker. Many of her poems have been influenced by her son, David, who is autistic and deaf. Sandy hosted and narrated the PBS television series, 'On Our Own,' winning the President's Award. She is a Voting member of the Recording Academy and recipient of the  Autism Society of America's Literary Achievement Award. Publications include Verse Virtual, Writing in a Woman's Voice, Wild Word, Dissident Voice, Indelible, Poetic Sun, Trouvaille  Review, Every Day Writer, Black Poppy Review, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Impspired, Spillwords Press, Ekphrastic Review, and others.

Grappling With Gratitude

by Laurie Kuntz


A month after her brain surgery,
Greta met us in the Sawtooths,
and we shadowed behind her scrambling 
over boulders bordering the tree line.

When the wind whisked her hair away
from her downy brow, her scar was visible,
and you, her mother, keeping abreast on the trail,
grappled with altitude and gratitude for this daughter,
lean as a mountain vine, determined as sagebrush
growing on this sketchy track of mountain and world.

                                                                           Who to thank…

Doctors, prayer givers, kind strangers in hospital corridors,

or the daughter who believed, finally, in herself?

                                                                           Where is the marrow of gratitude?

Does it bellow like mountain echoes,
scatter like mariposa lilies in high altitudes,
                            
or just settle in the lines of this poem?


* * * * *

Laurie Kuntz is a widely published and an award winning poet. She’s been nominated for a Pushcart and Best of the Net prize. She’s published two poetry collections (The Moon Over My Mother’s House, Finishing Line Press, Somewhere in the Telling, Mellen Press), and two chapbooks (Simple Gestures, Texas Review, Women at the Onsen, Blue Light Press). Her new chapbook, Talking Me off the Roof, is forthcoming from Kelsay Press in 2022. Recently retired, she lives in an endless summer state of mind. Visit her at: https://lauriekuntz.myportfolio.com › home-1

Poem at 3AM

by Laurie Kuntz


I know I will pay
tomorrow at noon
When I will be expected
to know the world
and its brightness.

It is then, when the day is tipsy
I will yearn to sleep,
but now when out my window,
and door and rooms,
people I love are tangled
in dreams, I am up and moving
in this star strained darkness.
 
Playing with grace and sorrow
bold in a bright starry dress the night’s
silence is a siren’s song
keeping me awake and typing.

I know I will pay tomorrow,
when my body aches and my mind wanders,
but sometimes words in their vestige of truth
come when the world is asleep,
and within their invincible power,
I feel nakedly alive,
awakened in first love.


* * * * *

Laurie Kuntz is a widely published and an award winning poet. She’s  been nominated for a Pushcart and Best of the Net prize. She’s  published two poetry collections (The Moon Over My Mother’s House, Finishing Line Press, Somewhere in the Telling, Mellen Press),  and two chapbooks (Simple Gestures, Texas Review, Women at the Onsen, Blue Light Press).  Her new chapbook, Talking Me off the Roof, is forthcoming from Kelsay Press in 2022. Recently retired, she lives in an endless summer state of mind. Visit her at: https://lauriekuntz.myportfolio.com › home-1

Moving On

by Nancy Machlis Rechtman


I pull up to the driveway
And the sight of the FOR SALE sign hits me
Like a physical blow
Despite the fact that it’s been there
All summer
But this time there is a blood-red banner
Blaring the words SOLD
Across the length of the sign
Like a poorly tuned trumpet
That sends my nerves into overdrive
And I want to cover my ears and scream.

I gingerly step over the broken stone path
That leads to the faded deck in the backyard
Hoping to find solace.
As I sink into the rickety folding chair
Where I am a supplicant
Begging the warmth of the sun to massage my soul
And bring me back to life.

Cheery congregations of flowers bob across the fence to welcome me
But I’ve erected a wall of protection that I’ve hidden behind
So that I could live in denial a little longer
While the surrounding yards fill with children’s laughter
As if life can still go on.
Soon there is an almost imperceptible breeze
That signals what is about to come
And when I look up through the kaleidoscope of the trees
Hovering above me
It’s impossible to escape the tinges of yellow
Unexpectedly mixed in with the verdant canopy
Like mosaic tiles
And I know that the palette
Will soon be the color of fire
Before catching the leaves in the flames
As they will swirl lifelessly to the ground
And all will be as empty
As a broken heart.

I force myself to push the door open and walk down the halls one more time
My footsteps echo jarringly through the barren rooms
Where the memories have now been claimed by the house
And I know that once I leave today
Nothing will ever belong to me again.

When I approach the well-worn entryway
There is one last creak of the boards beneath my feet.
I whisper good-bye
And the click of the key in the lock
Is like an electric shock
Now that autumn’s chill fills the air.


* * * * *

Nancy Machlis Rechtman has had poetry and short stories published in Your Daily Poem, The Bluebird Word, Grande Dame, Paper Dragon, Goat’s Milk, The Writing Disorder, Discretionary Love, and more. She wrote freelance Lifestyle stories for a local newspaper, and she was the copy editor for another paper She writes a blog called Inanities at https://nancywriteon.wordpress.com.

Camden, Maine        

by Laura Foley

 
The winter loons find harbor here,
as do I, my child’s child
walking slowly with me down the street,
her tiny hand like an anchor in mine.
She bids hello to water,
to sunlight on the water,
to the river beneath the little bridge,
to the strange man passing—
who stops and waves, basking in her favor.
No one racing, this quiet Sunday morning—
except time’s thoroughbred waters,
galloping to the sea.


* * * * *

Laura Foley is the author of eight poetry collections. Everything We Need: Poems from El Camino was released, in winter 2022. Why I Never Finished My Dissertation received a starred Kirkus Review, was among their top poetry books of 2019, and won an Eric Hoffer Award. Her collection It's This is forthcoming from Fernwood Press. Her poems have won numerous awards, and national recognition—read frequently by Garrison Keillor on The Writers Almanac; appearing in Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry.
 
Laura lives with her wife, Clara Gimenez, among the hills of Vermont. www.laurafoley.net

Symbiosis

by Laura Foley

 
Evelyn and I
climb the hill
in crisp sunrise.
I lift an oak leaf from the ground,
crusted with first frost
she touches like fairy dust,
and pockets to show her dad.
We rest at a picnic spot,
on wooden chairs,
close our eyes in meditation.
Listen, I say, to the sounds
you hear with closed eyes:
fallen leaves crinkling
in autumn’s morning breeze,
blackbirds squawking, unseen,
somewhere in the high pines,
wind shuffling through hemlocks—
and, she asserts, in thin, high
child’s voice, clear and glad
as a cardinal’s trilling,
the chairs, Grandma, listen to the chairs—
and we do, side by side,
with eyes closed,
instructing each other.


* * * * *

"Symbiosis" was previously published in Live Encounters.

Laura Foley is the author of eight poetry collections. Everything We Need: Poems from El Camino was released, in winter 2022. Why I Never Finished My Dissertation received a starred Kirkus Review, was among their top poetry books of 2019, and won an Eric Hoffer Award. Her collection It's This is forthcoming from Fernwood Press. Her poems have won numerous awards, and national recognition—read frequently by Garrison Keillor on The Writers Almanac; appearing in Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry.
 
Laura lives with her wife, Clara Gimenez, among the hills of Vermont. www.laurafoley.net

The Waning Hours
              (for Sadie, who makes
               it worthwhile)

by Kristin Roedell


You have the record
the earth keeps. As you
lift a leg beside the fence,
I learn the empty highway
is trafficked at night by
wind, and the garbage
truck comes before dawn.

The corner by the fence
is where the cat killed
the white ferret--
you know these things
surely as horses know
a pocket apple.
Here my daughter’s slide
scratched the Japanese
maple, there the guinea pig 
in her shoebox passed
into the ground.

You can sense my age
under my battered raincoat,
but I could teach you things:
how to sense that youth
is leaving, the way a child
leans away.

There would still be more
of interest in the wet
gravel, for both of us.
Like the curtain on a song
bird’s cage, you bring me
up in the hours belonging
to young mothers. It is
an unexpected blooming.


* * * * *

Kristin Roedell's website is at: http://kristinroedell.wikidot.com/

Bear Bandits 

by Claire Matturro

 
Maybe it started with that woman—
the one in the fake Tudor—guiding
her Escalade with Greenpeace stickers
through the drive-thru in her fit of fury
hunger on her way home from her divorce,
willing to slum but when she ripped into
the Styrofoam box, a loose fry shimmied
like some pale thin snake. Figuring that
for a cosmic sign, she tossed burger and all
on her garbage can and forgot those bear locks,
which were all too much trouble anyway.
Hank, who didn’t have a name yet,
was this black bear with a keen sense of smell
who followed that waffling whiff of charred meat
all the way to South Lake Tahoe, then
didn’t see any reason to leave, especially
when the lawyer at the turn in the road tossed out
twenty boxes of old girl scout cookies
he’d purchased so his daughter could get a prize.
Hank didn’t mind stale when he dug
through garbage and snuffled up
those cookies, gorging like a teen with
marijuana munchies. In a sugar rush, Hank
ripped through that lawyer’s patio door
to find cannoli and after practically snorting
them, rolled on the floor in bear rapture,  
slamming a whole shelf of knock-off
Lladro ballerinas into shards on the stone floor.
When that pretty couple on the far side
of the lake forgot to put their quiche
in the fridge, Hank found the four-cheese blend
exquisite and there was no going back
to rooting out grubs or scratching his tender nose
in berry brambles or standing in cold water catching
those salmon with their slimy skins. No,
now dubbed Hank the Tank, he
took up burglary to support his gourmet tastes, 
smashing his 500-pound black bear body through 
doors and windows easy as a wrecking ball to get
those oatmeal raisin cookies and steaks 
left out to thaw and pizza in greasy boxes.
He once eyed some bourbon, but
its sharp smell confused him, yet the
stash of coke in the sugar bowl
drove him mad and he crashed his big head
right through the wine cooler and
that’s how he developed a taste for merlot.
The Tahoe vigilantes plotted and pushed
the game control squads to have him shot,
though of course they called it euthanized
as if killing with a better name
would be any less dead for Hank, but
imagine their surprise when DNA showed
Hank the Tank wasn’t the only thief
but three bears bandits were roaming and raiding
like rambunctious kids on a dare
and with an eye for pizza. People whose homes
were not being trashed rose to defend Hank
and his bear buddies, who after all,
had not bitten or hurt a single person.
Meanwhile, in a cool wine bar with ferns
and folk singers, a California kind of guy
nibbles gouda with gluten-free crackers
and writes lyrics to make Hank a hero.


* * * * *

"Bear Bandits" was previously published in New Verse News, March 6, 2022.
TheNewVerse.News : BEAR BANDITS (newversenews.blogspot.com)

Claire Matturro is a former lawyer and college teacher, author of eight novels, including four published by HarperCollins. Her poetry has appeared in Kissing Dynamite, New Verse News, One Art, Muddy River Poetry Review, Topical Poetry, and is forthcoming in The Tiger Moth. She is an associated editor at The Southern Literary Review.

 

Driving to Meet Him on a Foggy Morning

by Joan Leotta


I did not bring
my electronic
talking maps with me.
I thought I knew the way.
But while concentrating on
what will I say
when I arrive,
as I drive,
my mind wanders,
drifting in the mist
like my car.
I’m now questioning
the wisdom of
making this trip at all.
I fear I’ve missed
landmarks my friend
told me about,
markers to keep me
on the right road.
I begin to understand
that in making this drive,
I’ve become lost in the mist,
that my heart is as untrustworthy
as my sense of direction.
Yes, I am lost.


* * * * *

Joan Leotta plays with words on page and stage. Her writings have appeared or are forthcoming, in Ekphrastic Review, Spillwords, 50 Words, Brass Bell, Verse Visual, Silver Birch, anti-heroin chic, Ovunquesiamo, Writing in a Woman's Voice, and others. She's a 2021 Pushcart nominee. Her chapbook, Feathers on Stone is coming out soon from Main Street Rag. As a performer she tells of food, family, strong women, and nature.

Atlas of Pain

by Laura Ann Reed


My father’s people came from that part of Russia
where Mongolian warriors on foaming steeds

once raged through towns, slaughtering the men
and raping the loveliest young girls, whose wails

echoed in the roads and fields for centuries. No wonder
my dad, handsome man, had those high cheekbones

and lidless eyes. No wonder I was born on horseback
galloping at break-neck speed, my jet black hair flying

around my head as I brandished a glittering steel rapier—
ready for all those long and bloody wars that lay ahead.


* * * * *

"Atlas of Pain" was originally published in Shot Glass Journal,

Laura Ann Reed received a dual BA in French/Comparative Literature from the University of California, Berkeley, and subsequently completed Master’s Degree Programs in the Performing Arts and Psychology. She was a dancer in the San Francisco Bay Area prior to assuming the role of Leadership Development Trainer at the San Francisco headquarters of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. She and her husband now reside in western Washington. Her work has been anthologized in How To Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope, and has appeared or is forthcoming in MacQueen’s Quinterly, The Ekphrastic Review, and Willawaw, among other journals.  

 

Family Tree  

by Laura Ann Reed


Today as I sign a check, I pause
on my middle name
which came to me from my grandmother.
It came to her
from an immigration officer
who claimed
her Russian name, Alta—
first-born child, oldest one—
was troublesome,
and she’d be better off as Ann.

At eight
I know the story well—
her first-born granddaughter,
the oldest one
with her large dark eyes
and changed name.
Allowed to visit on my own
I take the long train ride from the coast
to her inland home.
I arrive bearing a plaid suitcase
with my nametag on a gold chain.

A few days later
my grandmother comes out to
the giant walnut tree
I’m climbing. Did I carve Laura Ann
in the veneered lid
of the wicker clothes hamper in the hall?
I gaze from the spreading limbs
into her upturned face
and wait for a scolding
that doesn’t come.


* * * * *

"Family Tree" was originally published in Sky Island Journal.

Laura Ann Reed received a dual BA in French/Comparative Literature from the University of California, Berkeley, and subsequently completed Master’s Degree Programs in the Performing Arts and Psychology. She was a dancer in the San Francisco Bay Area prior to assuming the role of Leadership Development Trainer at the San Francisco headquarters of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. She and her husband now reside in western Washington. Her work has been anthologized in How To Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope, and has appeared or is forthcoming in MacQueen’s Quinterly, The Ekphrastic Review, and Willawaw, among other journals.  

 

Heart, Lichen, Stone
Hearts Holding On

collaboration by Marjorie Maddox and Karen Elias


This is what they know:
the dip into frigid;
the shadowed shelter of cave;
the beauty of decay at dusk, at dawn;
the tattooed rays of one more orbit
of earth around a sun that says, “Hold on,
hold on, hold on.” And they want to,
and they do, and they will, lingering
a little longer beneath the open branches
of forest, beside the cool stream of hope,
waiting for you, for me, for whoever
stumbles first down the long path
calling their names.





* * * * *

"Heart, Lichen, Stone" is from Marjorie Maddox's collection Begin with a Question (Paraclete Press 2022).

Both Marjorie Maddox's poem "Heart, Lichen, Stone" and Karen Elias's photograph "Hearts Holding On" appear in their collaborative book Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For (Shanti Arts 2022).

Professor of English and Creative Writing at Lock Haven University, Marjorie Maddox has published 13 collections of poetry—most recently Begin with a Question and Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For, an ekphrastic collaboration with photographer Karen Elias, which contains the collaboration published here. She also has published the story collection What She Was Saying; four children’s/YA books—including Inside Out: Poems on Writing and Reading Poems with Insider Exercises (Finalist International Book Awards), Rules of the Game: Baseball Poems, A Crossing of Zebras: Animal Packs in Poetry; I’m Feeling Blue, Too! (a 2021 NCTE Notable Poetry Book). www.marjoriemaddox.com  

Dr. Karen Elias, who taught college English for 40 years, is an artist/activist, using photography to raise awareness about climate change. Her award-winning work appears in private collections and galleries. In addition to Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For, collaborations with Maddox have appeared in such literary, arts, or medical humanities journals as About Place, Cold Mountain Review, The Ekphrastic Review, The Other Journal, Glint, Ekstasis, and Ars Medica. Elias, also a playwright, has had work chosen by the Climate Change Theatre Action and performed in 8 countries. 

 

Early Twenties         

by Stefania Camaci


I don’t feel sophisticated enough
to be ordering a cosmopolitan with my dinner,
I always worry about
the amount of gasoline left in my tank,
I feel underprepared
browsing internship openings,
I came to the realization
that I practiced my signature for checks
instead of autographs,
I bite my tongue when someone asks,
“And what do you plan to do with that degree?”
My younger self figured I’d be much more
mature and ready for the world by now,

it still feels decades away.


* * * * *

Stefania Camcai just finished her final year for her undergraduate. She plans on pursuing a Masters in Creative Writing. She writes out of advocacy for women’s rights. As a young woman living in the United States of America, she understands the importance of banding together as women. She posts frequently on her Instagram @stefaniacamacipoetry.

IN THE LAND OF THE LOST

by Kathleen Chamberlin


She sits beside me, quieter than before, rocking steadily in her chair
Her right index finger slowly moving across her chin, as if to confirm her reality.
Her once bright eyes, clouded by the ravages of time, look outward
Her mind looks inward, untethered and tempest tossed
Trying to untangle the threads of memories from fabulations
That play out unbidden in the theater of her mind.
It ought to be as easy as untangling the skeins of yarn in her knitting bag.
The two of us have done this before, working together.
I soon realize that these snarls cannot be untangled,
Cannot be knitted into new shawls of memory she can warm herself with.
Her angelic voice, still pure and true, soars to find the high notes
This gift of hers has not eroded as her body and mind have.
She knows her birthday but not her children.
She knows her social security number and rattles it off without hesitation
But her grandchildren's names elude her, though she is happy to see them
When she does remember them, it is of frozen images of eight, ten, twelve years ago.
Though sitting beside me in the living room, she is not here.
She wanders through time and space, confused and frustrated.
Waking in the night, she calls my father's name, panicked that he is not beside her
Stolen from her after sixty-two years.
Sometimes she calls for her mother, gone from us long ago.
I awaken when I hear her, tell her she's with me and not to be afraid
“Where's Ed?” she asks. “Business trip,” I say.
This calms her and she returns to sleep.
I stay awake and listen until her breathing deepens.
I know that I am her security and struggle against the immense responsibility
That rests on my shoulders
I do not immediately fall back asleep,
My mind remembers that which she cannot: things past, those loved, those lost.
I glance at the clock, eyes blurry, then burrow under my quilt.
I miss my Dad.
I ask the spirits of the night for patience and understanding, to quell my fears
I toss as I try to submerge myself in the warmth of my abandoned dream
To no avail. I am awake and annoyed.
As night gives way to day, she calls to me and waits like an obedient child.
She is cheerful when she greets me. I am not.
I hate myself for my sour mood but I choose her clothes and dress her
I bring her to the kitchen and make her breakfast, hoping coffee will improve my mood.
On days like this, when I am impatient, I wonder how I can be so unkind.
She is so fragile and lonely.
I feel them watching me, her parents and my Dad.
I sometimes imagine them shaking their heads, looking at her and me with deep sadness.
On those days, I cry.
On other days, I make her laugh and feel loved.
I try to make it up to her, grateful she does not remember my harsh words
Sad she will not remember my kindnesses.
She thanks me for even the smallest things, so unlike the mother I knew
She cries from time to time, missing the only man she has ever loved.
I tell her I miss him, too. I try to calm her and ease her pain but I am hurting, too
I don't want to be the strong one when my own grief is so raw.
For her sake I hold my sorrow on a tight leash.
Over and over, I reassure her of the same things, my new catechism:
There was nothing you could have done to save him and he is at peace
He will always be with us
His love for her was steadfast and will sustain her.
I will take care of her from now on.
She is comforted even as we weep together.
She is grateful and says she doesn't know what she would do without me.
My guilt threatens to choke me and I know I don't deserve her praise
But we will play this scene again, over and over again
As we have since his death,
Through the many days and long lonely nights
Until he comes again to take her home.


* * * * *

"In the Land of the Lost" was first published in Sad Girls Club.

Kathleen Chamberlin is a retired educator living in Albany, New York with her husband and two rescue dogs. She turned to writing creatively during the pandemic quarantine. Her writing has appeared in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Open Door Magazine, The World of Myth Magazine and the anthologies The Book of Black, Breath of Love and Snowdrifts. In addition to writing, she enjoys gardening, genealogy, and grandchildren. 

What If….

by Carol Tahir


I play a game of….
what if…..
You hear a pin drop
On a single waved beach.
what if…..
You hear the roaring of the ocean
Wrapping its arm around the shore.
what if….
The brown hills melt into vanilla sand
Turning purple as it swims back to the sea.
what if….
There was no you or me
To walk the wide open spaces
Of sky, sand and sea….
what if….
The holes humanity left
Cannot be filled


* * * * *

Carol Tahir lives and writes from Southern California. Several poems have been published in anthologies, online journals and more. She loves to write, read, and paint. She hopes to one day publish a book of her poetry.

THE TIN DOLLHOUSE

by Lorri Ventura


Life never changes
Inside the tin dollhouse.
Mommy stands in the kitchen,
Eternally offering lunchboxes
To her two smiling children,
Permanently clad in their best school clothes.
She does not have to fear
That her beloved babies
Will be shot in their classrooms.

Daddy poses forever
On the kelly-green metal lawn,
Attached to the hose he aims
At the ever-blooming zinnias
Painted along the house’s side.
He does not worry that unrestrained 
Expulsion of pollutants
Will contaminate his garden,
The unending stream of water,
Gushing from his hose,
Or the air he breathes.

A plastic woman walks her silicone dog
Past the tin dollhouse
With no concerns that a government
Will steal her reproductive rights,
Persecute her for the color of her skin,
For whom she loves,
Or how she worships.

Leaning against a doorway
Beyond the tin dollhouse
A mother watches her little girl,
Crouched on the floor,
Peering into each miniature room.
She sighs softly
And wishes her daughter’s world were as safe and just
As the one embodied by her toy


* * * * *

Lorri Ventura is a retired special education administrator living in Massachusetts. She is new to poetry-writing. Her poems have been featured in several anthologies, in Red Eft Journal, and in Quabbin Quills. She is a two-time winner of Writing In A Woman's Voice's Moon Prize.

haiku                                                 

by Lorri Ventura


The last man standing
After the apocalypse
Regrets surviving


* * * * *

Lorri Ventura is a retired special education administrator living in Massachusetts. She is new to poetry-writing. Her poems have been featured in several anthologies, in Red Eft Journal, and in Quabbin Quills. She is a two-time winner of Writing In A Woman's Voice's Moon Prize.

Slack Satori    

by Melinda Coppola


I never was an island hopper
jet setting from continent
to continent,
or even state to US state.

When I leave something,
I walk away slow,
dropping footprints
like breadcrumbs

for miles, just in case
some tender thing
wants to follow me,
coax me back
to a different view
of some well trodden path.

Plodding through a life this way,
one has time to take notes
of all the people and places
that seemed unperturbed
by one’s leaving.

Adding to the list of things
one never gets over:

being born,
being shamed
unrequited love

pets and people dying.

Giving birth,
divorce,
miscarriages.

Realizing you aren’t special,
then finally realizing
you are.


* * * * *

Melinda Coppola writes from a messy desk in small town Massachusetts, where her four cats often monitor her progress. She delights in mothering her complicated, enchanting daughter who defies easy description. Melinda’s work has appeared in many fine books and publications, most recently One Art, Third Wednesday, and Anti-Heroin Chic.

The Color of Swans               

by Melinda Coppola


A prism is lifted to the sun. Imagine
a million nuances of color and shine,
fractal languages of symmetry
resting perfectly
between breaths or heartbeats.

The artist knows the power of spaces,
without which there would be no means
to shape the eye’s longing.
Musician has this same knowing,
gleaned through the eardrum’s
oscillations:  there is no song
without pauses
between notes.

Someone in your diaspora of friends
will die tonight, and in the moments
between last exhale
and the doctor’s legal declaration,
a poem is written on the window
in frost.  It lingers
only as long as three pairs of eyes can see it,
and if the heart that goes
with one pair can hear it,
a song will be born,
and if the soul that goes
with one pair can see it,
there will be a rendering
in charcoal, or paint, or crayon.

This is how life continues;
The poetry between things
must draw the attention
of some realized aspect of God,
like you, or you,
and your near-desperate desire
to interpret the miracle
becomes the language, the love, the soil
from which
something else can be born.


* * * * *

Melinda Coppola writes from a messy desk in small town Massachusetts, where her four cats often monitor her progress. She delights in mothering her complicated, enchanting daughter who defies easy description. Melinda’s work has appeared in many fine books and publications, most recently One Art, Third Wednesday, and Anti-Heroin Chic.

 

This month an additional Moon Prize, the 101^st, goes to Laurie Kuntz's poem "The Truth at 42^nd Street."


The Truth at 42nd Street        

by Laurie Kuntz


A reunion, friendly banter as we hurried 
into the subway and separate upcoming stops 
that would keep us apart for another year.

As the car zigzagged into 42nd Street
she gathered her bag and belongings
for a rush to exit.

Just before the subway car swerved to stop, 
she commented on how wonderful my marriage is--
together so long, the twig and twine of history,
the role models for happiness.

Her words a lull in the engine's screech, 
and I started to say that all is not as it seems, 
that no marriage, no history is without a battle 
toward one’s own terms of victory.

But, the train pulled into 42nd Street,  
and she rushed off, her wing-like hug 
a testimony to her belief, 
while the doors slammed shut
on the truth.


* * * * *

Laurie Kuntz is a widely published and an award winning poet. She’s been nominated for a Pushcart and Best of the Net prize. She’s published two poetry collections (The Moon Over My Mother’s House, Finishing Line Press, Somewhere in the Telling, Mellen Press), and two chapbooks (Simple Gestures, Texas Review, Women at the Onsen, Blue Light Press). Her new chapbook, Talking Me off the Roof, is forthcoming from Kelsay Press in 2022. Recently retired, she lives in an endless summer state of mind. Visit her at: https://lauriekuntz.myportfolio.com › home-1

On this month's full moon, the 100th Moon Prize, goes to Claire Matturro's poem "The Hymns We Used to Sing."

The Hymns We Used to Sing

by Claire Matturro


We were civilized as we walked.
The food we’d taken with us, mostly
Cheese, bread, and dried meats, we shared.
There was water, and as we moved along,
Some of the children sang
Hymns and patriotic songs.
No one complained. We were kind to each other.
Then the food ran out, the water gone.
We had to look toward creeks and rivers
Where sometimes dead bodies floated,
Foul and smelling of rot. We were
filthy. We itched, and our breath stank.
We pulled away from each
Other, suspicions grew. And there I was,
Alone, my husband having died in
The first rush toward fighting, the line
Between bravery and foolishness as
Scant as the things left us
To live on. My belly round with a child
I might not live to deliver, and above us
Still the planes and bombs.
My grandmother’s voice rises above the cry
Of the children who do not sing anymore.
“Do not be afraid,” she whispers and I
Think of how I had wanted her with me
When I push this child inside me
Out into the world. Now I wonder
If it would be better to lie deep in dirt
With her, dead to the stink, the pain,
The shrill whistles of the mortars.

As I rest on the side of the road,
My worn-down shoes in tatters,
An old man stops in front of me.
I tense to run—or to fight, fingering
The kitchen knife inside my fraying coat.
He reaches into his pocket and
Pulls out a candy bar. Handing it to me,
He says “Don’t chew it. It’s the last one.
Chocolate and mint, a bit of cream.
Let it melt slow upon your tongue
Like the hymns, we used to sing.”


* * * * *

"The Hymns We Used to Sing" was previously published in Topical Poems, April 24, 2022
The Hymns We Used to Sing - Topical Poetry

Claire Matturro is a former lawyer and college teacher, author of eight novels, including four published by HarperCollins. Her poetry has appeared in Kissing Dynamite, New Verse News, One Art, Muddy River Poetry Review, Topical Poetry, and is forthcoming in The Tiger Moth. She is an associate editor at The Southern Literary Review.

Ghazal for Emilie Parker
           (Newtown, Connecticut:  December 14, 2012)

by Carolyne Wright

 
He had been teaching her to speak Portuguese
So their last words together were in Portuguese.
 
Such simple words that morning: Thank you. Please.
I love you, Daddy. All in Portuguese.
 
Then he rode off to work, past winter trees
And she to school, smiling to herself in Portuguese.
 
She fell with her classmates, the other girls and boys,
Folding into herself like snow. No tongue, no Portuguese,
 
No hearts that walk outside their lives in fields
That winter can’t amend. No Portuguese
 
Can call them back, unspeak their parents’ grief
In English, Spanish, Chinese, Hebrew, Portuguese—
 
Oh Charlotte. Daniel. Olivia. Ana. Josephine.
Dylan. Madeleine. Catherine. Chase.
 
Jesse. James. Emilie. Jack. Noah. Caroline.
Jessica. Benjamin. Avielle. Alison. Grace.


* * * * *

"Ghazal for Emilie Parker" previously appeared in This Dream the World: New & Selected Poems (Lost Horse, 2017). Copyright © 2017 by Carolyne Wright

Carolyne Wright's latest books are Masquerade, a memoir in poetry (Lost Horse Press, 2021) and This Dream the World: New & Selected Poems (Lost Horse, 2017), whose title poem received a Pushcart Prize and appeared in The Best American Poetry 2009. A Seattle native who has lived and taught all over the country, and on fellowships in Chile, Brazil, India, and Bangladesh, she has 16 earlier books and anthologies of poetry, essays, and translation. A Contributing Editor for the Pushcart Prizes, Carolyne has received NEA and 4Culture grants; she is currently in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, on a 2022-2023 Fulbright grant.

 

DESIDERATA FOR HARD TIMES

by Kay White Drew


Be kind, though their assertions make you cringe.
Be compassionate, though you do not understand.
Be at ease, though anguish stalks you in the night.
Be hopeful, though the evidence laughs at hope.
Be steadfast, though the ground trembles beneath you.

I want to help, though I’m not sure how.
I swallow my contempt, though they seem to demand it.
I strain to understand, though things make no sense.
I mourn those lost, even those whose intransigence took them down.
I work toward a better world, though I won’t live to see it.


* * * * *

Kay White Drew, a.k.a. Katherine White, M.D., is a retired neonatal physician and lifelong writer. Her essays and poems appear in several anthologies and online journals, including Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, and the Coin Operated Press zine, Depression Walks. Things that keep her sane in these trying times: writing, meditation, conversations with the people she loves, and spending time outdoors. She lives in Rockville, MD, with her husband. 

 

 

RAGE

by Kay White Drew


Patriarchy to woman:
Thy rage is a sin.
Thou shalt not be angry, for
thou shalt be called shrill,
unladylike, a harridan.
Thou shalt be scorned, despised,
a prophetess in her own country.

Woman to patriarchy:
My rage is no sin, but
the error I embrace.
My rage is the white-hot flame
that keeps me alive
when you try to grind me
under the heel of your boot.
My rage is my fire.
It will burn you to the ground.


* * * * *

Kay White Drew, a.k.a. Katherine White, M.D., is a retired neonatal physician and lifelong writer. Her essays and poems appear in several anthologies and online journals, including Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, and the Coin Operated Press zine, Depression Walks. Things that keep her sane in these trying times: writing, meditation, conversations with the people she loves, and spending time outdoors. She lives in Rockville, MD, with her husband. 

post-procedure         

by Julie Allyn Johnson


late-afternoon appointment—
I walk up a flight of dusty stairs
littered with spearmint gum wrappers
red-tagged cellophane spirals
butts of Winston Lights
corner-ripped Yellow Pages
chicken-scratched phone numbers
inscribed in pencil

several young women
inhabit the space, their rear-ends
occupying every one of the
hard-plastic chairs and faded settees
in this vast cheerless abyss

directed to appear here today
so as to ensure my mistakes
are not repeated, I am stunned
to discover so many others
waiting to avail themselves
of these same post-procedural services

what I regret
is not what’s been done
but that it was necessary
that precautions were not taken
that I was foolish
that I succumbed
to some cosmopolitan sense
of portraying myself as someone
I now know I am not

abandoned by friends, by family too

oh mother, how you destroyed me…

shoulders heaving, I sigh
for what has to be the gazillionth time


* * * * *

Julie Allyn Johnson, a sawyer's daughter from the American Midwest, prefers black licorice over red, cigarette-size Tootsie Rolls and Hot Tamales, practically the perfect candy. Her current obsession is tackling the rough and tumble sport of quilting and the accumulation of fabric. A Pushcart Prize nominee, Julie’s poetry can be found in various journals including Star*Line, The Briar Cliff Review, Phantom Kangaroo, Haven Speculative, Anti-Heroin Chic, Coffin Bell and Chestnut Review.  

River Poetry

by Julie Allyn Johnson


i.
 
I read a river poem
when I was a child; six, maybe seven.
Its waters ran long and clear and flowing.
Slender grasses lined steep banks;
they hid the muskrat,
the gander, the moccasin.
 
ii.
 
I read a river poem
when I reached young womanhood.
Such games that I played… Oh,
the person I sought to become.
Shallow waters: I thought them deep;
the current was swift.
 
iii.
 
I read a river poem
as each day’s hours diminished;
the nights, ever endless.
I saw the waters of the river then
as stagnant, opaque.
They brought me no joy.
 
iv.
 
I read a river poem
come this morning’s dawn.
Sun shines every day now, clouds or no…
Nights bring rest, regeneration.
Waters of the river          unchanged
still long and clear and flowing.


* * * * *

Julie Allyn Johnson, a sawyer's daughter from the American Midwest, prefers black licorice over red, cigarette-size Tootsie Rolls and Hot Tamales, practically the perfect candy. Her current obsession is tackling the rough and tumble sport of quilting and the accumulation of fabric. A Pushcart Prize nominee, Julie’s poetry can be found in various journals including Star*Line, The Briar Cliff Review, Phantom Kangaroo, Haven Speculative, Anti-Heroin Chic, Coffin Bell and Chestnut Review.  

 

on layers of love :: tomorrow i will clean/clear/declutter the kitchen drawer

by Jen Schneider

tomorrow i will sort the mismatched layers of junk. in the rectangular drawer. in the square kitchen. a jumble of joviality (artifacts from kids’ meals & meals made by kids). a cumulation of gems of varying degrees of authenticity (& monetary value). a collection of castaways of varying degrees of recyclability. crayola markers with varying degrees of ink. stickers – looney tunes, garfield, upside down smiley faces – with varying degrees of glue. emojis & emotion. stuck. on/of/in me. many form sediments in mind & memory. i wonder if the local dump would be so welcoming. play doh canisters - electric blue, neon green, tangerine orange. also hardened. with/of time. plastic lids secure crumbles & crumbles of calendar dates. trips of/thru colic & coronations. patience & puberty. mens & manus. pocket-sized plastic figurines. faded features. paint of primary hues. reds & blues. moods dominate motion. all contents secure. playskool robots. lego bricks. superheroes of mixed genders & generations. miniature boots of lavender & disco pink. polly pockets. all pockets stocked. of dust & destiny. my left-hand fingers a small photo. a kodak instant. a canister of undeveloped film waits. lost game pieces. a sand timer. trinkets of here & there – a betty boop watch & a whoopie cushion. silenced but not silent. still suited for play. a playing card of unclear suits. the joker. stray threads. indigo cotton fibers. knotted finger knits. rainbow colors dance. the tango. while tangled. a penny, rust with time. value intact. melted suckers. sour apple specks. a tiny gray wheel. it spins. like the analog clock on the kitchen’s wall. & the gray matter upstairs. tinkertoy sticks. lincoln logs. all matter building blocks to varying degrees. buds in bloom. of spectators & party favor spectacles. wire rimmed. one lens missing. & a key. singular & single. unmarked. on a snoopy themed ring. it’s a (the) key. of hearts & heartache. of confetti & raspberry flavored clutter. tomorrow i will clean/clear/declutter the kitchen drawer. perhaps. not now. perhaps not at all. instead, i consume. inhale. exhale. breathe. sweet scents - paints & potpourri. in small pockets of air where cinnamon kisses cotton candy. eraser dust lingers. days too. rubber (& time) unable to erase mismatched layers of love. 

* * * * *

Jen Schneider is an educator who lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Pennsylvania. Recent works include A Collection of Recollections, Invisible Ink, On Habits & Habitats, and Blindfolds, Bruises, and Breakups.

 

on breaks & breakrooms

by Jen Schneider


i never thought i’d miss the breakroom. not the windowless square with the bulletproof door. its hinges hardened. slow squeaks & rust the color of turpentine. a small vent. in the far-right corner. not the wall of posters. red mustangs & orange suns. desert camels & high-gloss desserts. all corners yellowed. of scotch tape & time. not the oversized aluminum folding table. nor the undersized wicker chairs. a fake potted cactus at the table’s center. no time to hydrate anything other than the humans. an old shoebox, stuffed with expired menus, on top of the metal cabinet. each of us assigned an individual locker. personal space for personal vents. i left black converse high-tops in my cube. i hope they don’t smell. i hope they don’t split. layers of stale coffee & stale breath. sweat-stained pits & discarded prunes. tupperware stocked of day-old lunch meat & one-a-day vitamins. the linoleum floor. a bed to magazines piles. people & vogue. hot rod & road trips. easy crosswords that were never easy. word searches with no keys. each of us always searching. letters with our names. plastic id tags. strings of syllables with our scent. all of us medium rare. silent vowels (& vows). the customer is always right. to be. or not to be. the best version of ourselves. & those we serve. no time to question. always new questions to press time. specials. daily. early birds. expiring. we’d wait. for a break. in the breakroom. i never thought i’d miss the wait. or the room.

10 ways to take/time a break

      1.    softly boil over-sized eggs in undersized pots 
      2.    welcome eruptions of time & temper
      3.    salt walkways with care
      4.    weave ways of life with saltiness
      5     solve crosswords slowly
      6.    confine cross words quickly
      7.    avoid weak coffee & strong crosshairs 
      8.    share stories of bad hair & broad humility 
      9.    pepper dishes with pinches & poise
    10.    dish complements in oversized heaps


* * * * *

Jen Schneider is an educator who lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Pennsylvania. Recent works include A Collection of Recollections, Invisible Ink, On Habits & Habitats, and Blindfolds, Bruises, and Breakups.

The Truth at 42nd Street    

by Laurie Kuntz


A reunion, friendly banter as we hurried 
into the subway and separate upcoming stops 
that would keep us apart for another year.

As the car zigzagged into 42nd Street
she gathered her bag and belongings
for a rush to exit.

Just before the subway car swerved to stop, 
she commented on how wonderful my marriage is--
together so long, the twig and twine of history,
the role models for happiness.

Her words a lull in the engine's screech, 
and I started to say that all is not as it seems, 
that no marriage, no history is without a battle 
toward one’s own terms of victory.

But, the train pulled into 42nd Street,  
and she rushed off, her wing-like hug 
a testimony to her belief, 
while the doors slammed shut
on the truth.


* * * * *

Laurie Kuntz is a widely published and an award winning poet. She’s been nominated for a Pushcart and Best of the Net prize. She’s published two poetry collections (The Moon Over My Mother’s House, Finishing Line Press, Somewhere in the Telling, Mellen Press), and two chapbooks (Simple Gestures, Texas Review, Women at the Onsen, Blue Light Press). Her new chapbook, Talking Me off the Roof, is forthcoming from Kelsay Press in 2022. Recently retired, she lives in an endless summer state of mind. Visit her at:
https://lauriekuntz.myportfolio.com › home-1

If We Want To Dwell in the Grace of Love,
We Must Tempt It To Leave

by Laurie Kuntz


Temptation made me dream  
you had left me, and instead of freedom
that I think about in true time,
there was a smirk on the face of loneliness.

In that dream I walked back
to where we first loved.
The room empty and the air stale.

It could have been anywhere
but it was not.
I could have been anywhere,
but I was not.
 
I was in a dream
and the temptation to yell out your name
in my dark spiraling sleep
was real, and I woke.


* * * * *

Laurie Kuntz is a widely published and an award winning poet. She’s been nominated for a Pushcart and Best of the Net prize. She’s published two poetry collections (The Moon Over My Mother’s House, Finishing Line Press, Somewhere in the Telling, Mellen Press), and two chapbooks (Simple Gestures, Texas Review, Women at the Onsen, Blue Light Press). Her new chapbook, Talking Me off the Roof, is forthcoming from Kelsay Press in 2022. Recently retired, she lives in an endless summer state of mind. Visit her at:
https://lauriekuntz.myportfolio.com › home-1

August, Paris

by Susan Tepper
 

Across the café table a man is drowning,
my beloved, here I met, so help me.
Water had risen to the tops of his eyes,
not a miracle or sacrifice
nor even simple tears
but the springs of who he was,
before he formed,
who he would become,
the eventual suffering into later life.
It ripped me.  In such a way
as could not be explained or rationalized.
I saw the light would drown him.
Grey over the coming winter into spring.
I sat perfectly still, aging in a hotel mirror.


* * * * *

"August, Paris" was first published in Blue Fifth Review and is part of Susan Tepper's collection Confess (Červená Barva Press, 2020).

Susan Tepper is a twenty year writer who works in all genres, and the author of ten published books of fiction and poetry. Her new play "The Crooked Heart" concerns artist Jackson Pollock in his later years and is forthcoming. www.susantepper.com