fourteen reasons to always say goodbye

by Jen Schneider

1.     i never got to say goodbye. to the man in the white tank. ribbed cotton. vertical stripes. a smile as wide as the ocean from which he/my love for him grew.

2.     i saw his footprint in the sand today. toes on souls, he’d say.

3.     i placed my sole in his and waited for the crushing wave. the ones we’d wade in, talking about things we’d like to do in/for/of the next five years

4.     scuba dives and cycle rides. travel of various degrees – far north. further west. city hopping. baby popping. tail wagging. down payments. no more basements. upward acknowledgments. butterfly wishes. afternoon kisses. lemon spritzes. sunday drives to nowhere. up coasts. down mountains. in theatres. of books. menus of letters. letters of love. diner specials from everywhere. days of nothing special. evenings of everything.

5.     thought of our lists. sketched on throw away napkins and drive through receipts. doodled on diner placemats. traced on palms of grease and backs of oil.

6.     things that made us happy - hearts of palm. palmetto trees. trees of bees. honeysuckle vines. scrabble lines. slot machine dimes. love. lovely lists. 

7.     the ones we’d compose then compile while consuming things that made our hearts ring – crosswords and curry – and our voices sing – lennon and mercury

8.     talking about things that made me/us (he often, not always, agreed) angry – incarceration rates, feuding states. states of suspension. days in detention.

9.     pondering things that he/we (I often, not always, agreed) found interesting – me. us. education baits, soulmates. historic dates. unknown fates.

10.  why wait, he’d say. too many reasons to count.

11.  i sat in the sand and counted. waves. gulls. children. shells. grills. sandy hills. unpaid bills.

12.  then counted letters. letters in bottles. on ice cream trucks. on chair backs. on bare backs.

13.  anything to forget when I could only remember.

14.  i never got to say goodbye. to the man in the white tank.

  

* * * * *

Jen Schneider is an educator who lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Pennsylvania. She is a Best of the Net nominee, with stories, poems, and essays published in a wide variety of literary and scholarly journals. She is the author of Invisible Ink (Toho Pub), On Daily Puzzles: (Un)locking Invisibility (forthcoming, Moonstone Press), and Blindfolds, Bruises, and Breakups (forthcoming Atmosphere Press).

Mixed Marriage

by Annie Klier Newcomer


He loved the strength of Metals, Opera, Shakespeare, the Arts.
She loved pretty things, fancy dresses, a good piece of gossip,
the newspaper. They came together often enough to produce 
twelve children but generally fought over things each knew well 
but the other could not comprehend and wasn’t about to try
to understand. Her red nail polish bled all over his pride; 
his leather bound books shut her out and somewhere between 
the first and the last page, they forgot how to hold one another. 


* * * * *

"Mixed Marriage" was first Published in di-verse-city (Austin International Poetry Festival) and is part of the author's forthcoming poetry collection Comets: Relationships that Wander (Finishing Line Press, February 2022)

Annie Klier Newcomer teaches poetry classes at Turning Point, a Center for Hope & Healing in Kansas City, Kansas. She also helps coach chess for After-School Programs in mid-town KC. Annie writes as a way to connect and to add value to her life. Presently she is an editor for Flapper Press Poetry Café and a member of the Key West Cigar Factory Poetry Group.

 

Tiger Lily

by Karen Walker

 

In April, Mother Nature waits for me at the kitchen table. I'm late, though it's early in the year.

She picks at the roses in the plastic tablecloth and wishes I was like them: a daughter warm and dry at home. A pink August debutante destined for a bouquet wrapped with silk ribbon.

Not me, Mother. I wear a leather jacket in the spring snow.

Says she, sadly: You're growing too fast, Lily. 

True. Sprout long, luscious stems and two perky buds, and the bees take notice. They hum honeyed words that I'd become their queen if I'd just open up.

How green of me to have believed them.

I'm now fifty-six. 

Still with the hungry beetle that came along after the bees. He's chewed black holes in me over the years, left my leaves ragged. But if I bloom an orange flower every day, he'll crawl down my throat and declare, yeah, I'm still a tiger lily. 

In June, Mother Nature waits until I sleep. She tiptoes from the kitchen table to my bed. Scatters grass seed all around so it'll grow lush in the hot flashes of midsummer, in the downpours of middle-age, and hide the bug's trail to someone fresher. Rosier.

I'd leave him, but I'm rooted here.

* * * * *

Karen Walker writes flash fiction and prose poetry in Ontario, Canada. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming in Reflex Fiction, Sunspot Lit, Unstamatic, The Disappointed Housewife, Retreat West, Bandit Fiction, Five Minute Lit, Sundial Magazine, Potato Soup Journal, Bright Flash, and others. 

To Ryan Upon Realizing It’s Only Day Sixteen

by Suzanne Allen


Time doesn’t so much fly as dissolve. I think it’s two, but the clock says five, and I thought it had been twenty-seven days. I have no idea how many people died today. Ask a hundred great men what knowledge is; they’ll say an edge, a curse, a fleeting thing, but ask just one great woman and she’ll tell you simply that there is always more mystery, like Cat, how each morning before she’ll eat, she insists on that spot of light that bounces off my phone screen in the sun, chatters at its shimmy on the ceiling, lurks as it slides down the wall, then leaps and leaps. Her food was delivered today, but you knew that. Enough for two months. Do you think she knows she’ll never catch that light?


* * * * *

"To Ryan Upon Realizing It’s Only Day Sixteen " is part of Suzanne Allen's new collection We Wash Our Hands (Write It! She Said, September 1, 2021)

Suzanne Allen is a teacher from Southern California. She holds an MFA from the CSU in Long Beach, and her poems have appeared widely in journals, magazines and anthologies, both in print and online, some have even won awards, but this past year-and-a half, the newest ones have mostly only been written on postcards and mailed near and far; not coincidentally, her first full-length collection, We Wash Our Hands, is newly available on Amazon.com. She also has two chapbooks: verisimilitude from corrupt press (2011) and Little Threats from Picture Show Press (2018).

Erasure of "The Twelve Brothers"
            ~for Hillary

by Suzanne Allen


Once upon a time a girl sat and mourned entire days until she unlocked the doom and went out into the woods where it was darkest. The time passed quickly. She had a good heart. Everything had happened in the evening. The bewitched little house had belonged to them. They kissed, then agreed, sat at the table eating. He continued speaking—I know more than you do. So she went into the woods. Wild game, deer, birds, and doves lived happily with her. There were twelve lilies all for nothing and a large greyhound asking her to become his wife. She neither spoke nor laughed, secretly convinced she was innocent.


* * * * *

"Erasure of 'The Twelve Brothers'" is part of Suzanne Allen's new collection We Wash Our Hands (Write It! She Said, September 1, 2021)

Suzanne Allen is a teacher from Southern California. She holds an MFA from the CSU in Long Beach, and her poems have appeared widely in journals, magazines, and anthologies, both in print and online, some have even won awards, but this past year-and-a half, the newest ones have mostly only been written on postcards and mailed near and far; not coincidentally, her first full-length collection, We Wash Our Hands, is newly available on Amazon.com. She also has two chapbooks: verisimilitude from corrupt press (2011) and Little Threats from Picture Show Press (2018).

Bird

by L. Meredith Chandler


Standing before the darkening sky, I hear the single bird
Among the sirens and the cars, all with somewhere fast to go
Among the human discontent it sings its song
Above it all, simple and strong.
 
Somewhere behind me, someone comes home
Dishes get done, an infant cries up the road.
I hear it all but it is the bird I listen to
The grace of Maya, uncaged now and free.
 
I want to know what this bird knows
Smell the sweet sap
Hold tight to that tall branch
Truly earn the sight of that height.
 
Taste the clean of the highest air
Clear and cool on my tongue
To carry my own song up and out
Just like you.
 
As the sun sets on our day, I want to earn what you know
Simple and strong, above it all.


* * * * *

L. Meredith Chandler is a native New Englander who grew up in Maine and now splits her time between the Maine woods and the Massachusetts coast. She holds a BA in English from Adelphi University and an MA in English from the University of Rhode Island. L. Meredith has been writing poems since age 10, with themes ranging from family roots to addiction to the complexities of freedom and human emotion. Her first chapbook, The Human Heart and Other Chambers, will be completed later this autumn.

SNOW DANCING AT MIDNIGHT

by Mary K O'Melveny


backlit snow flirts
against dark skies
circles   flutters    swirls
like meteor showers 
or surprised sparrows
miracles are expected
of us when angels
pirouette   laughing
in frosted midnights
they dance
against darkness
mingle like fireflies
as light and movement
interweave
among  deep thoughts
sometimes sparks
explode
against blackness
so deep
we cannot fathom
our decline
cannot focus
our sights
on true north

in this immaculate
auditorium
where our hushed
audience drifts past us
we can re-evaluate
everything
which dream
gave us pause
which sharp regret
sped us toward
ancient galaxies
which memory
should vanish   forever
press your finger
against my lips
so I do not spoil
this night of
frozen carousels

it is so quiet
I believe we could
hide in our meadow
as drifts pile high
and re-tell our story
as if it was new


* * * * *

"Snow Dancing at Midnight" is part of Mary K O'Melveny's new poetry collection Dispatches from the Memory Care Museum (Kelsay Books, 2021)

Mary K O’Melveny (www.marykomelvenypoet.com) lives with her wife in Woodstock NY and Washington DC. A Pushcart Prize nominee and award recipient in national and international poetry contests, including Slippery Elm Literary Journal Poetry Competition, The Pangaea Prize (The Poet’s Billow), Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Competition, Writer’s Digest Annual Poetry Competition, Anthology Magazine Poetry Prize, Mary’s poetry appears in many literary journals, anthologies, national blog sites such as Writing In A Woman’s Voice and in three collections: A Woman of a Certain Age, Merging Star Hypotheses  (Finishing Line Press 2018, 2020), Dispatches From the Memory Care Museum (Kelsay Books 2021).