A Review of Romeo and Juliet Silly plot. They die before the drama begins—raising children, paying the mortgage, deciding where to go on vacation,when he likes the Alps and she the Riviera. It’s over before she complainshe comes too fast then falls asleep, before he rues her lost figureor the way her nose, in age, turns like her father’s. How long beforeshe pegged his friends as bores? I’d have seen them liveand suffer more. Valerie L. Egar‘s poems have been published in Barrow Street, Lullwater Review, The Closed Eye Open, and other journals. Her creative nonfiction essay, “Cross Stitch” is forthcoming in The Literary Forge Magazine. When she is not…

High Crossing This part is true.Somewhere right now,a man stands in a car lot, confused.His hands hang unused at his sidesand the sun declines across the highway.He does not understandwhy he is here.The car lot is already closed.Fields of pavementare swallowing the approach of night.The man looks down the frontage roadthen up at the quilted blanket of sky.From here he can see the highway.He can picture himselffloating away on its stream of lightsas sirens echo on the wind.Across the road, the hotel signglows with memoriesbut does not reassure him.He has no knife,no matches, no kindling.Without a fire, he could perishin the talons of creaturesthat come hunting in the night.He climbs…

Mission Church Hall, Sydney I hunt a chair, a heart thump awayfrom the door. Sink into my seat, an imposter. A teen declareshe’s been clean for three weeks. A chorus of applause. His mother’s tight eyes,flighty smile from the trenches. I begin to steep in their ritual of confession. Envious,I dream your face at the door— what miracle that could set in motion.Obliged to explain myself— I trash my sugar cravings, workcompulsions, feign coherence, confess I’m waiting for my brother.A copper-haired woman sobs, thanks me for the memory joltof her family’s anguish. Others ghost-stare. I’m a montage for the parents and partnerswhose love they stunted. Don’t admit I tried to…

Another Day Like This A day like this? she asksThat’s all I need; another day like this. Wet chairs on the front porch. Her voice dripping on each syllablewith berry, wine-slurred lips. Glass-blue puddles in black-brown mud. The only ark that could have savedtwo wave-worn souls like us left this port days agowhile we got drunk in a waterfront cafe. I take it all back – what I saidabout rain, about floods, about that cemetery sky. A full ashtray, a plate of olives,another day like this; Good God. Scott Repass is novelist, poet, educator, and bar owner He has an MFA in fiction from the Creative Writing Program at the…

Poem Where I Confuse Halloween for Groundhog Day The husband and wife are in their small bedroom, talking about whethershe will leave him for the woman she loves. This conversation takes placeevery day. She sits on the green club chair his parents gave themand he balances on the edge of their sleigh bed, rocking back and forthon the curved piece of cherry wood that sold them on the bedroom set.He lists the reasons she should stay: he would like a chance to makethings right and the boys deserve their family to remain intact. She looksat the pattern on the chair cushion and wishes she were a tiny, sewn,yellow flower, indistinguishable…

Burlesque “The doctor told meI have a beautiful bosom,”Memere announces at 80.My sister and I exchange glances,but not surprised.She always tells us, “wear a braeven when you sleep–you will havethe bosoms of a young womanfor the rest of your life!” In the mornings, her bra entersthe kitchen before the rest of her,stiff and pointed like ancient pyramids. Memere’s claim is, once upon a timeshe was in burlesque.Like many of Memere’s stories,we are not sure if it is true.It’s possible. She performswhile she vacuums, swerving, beltingout songs loud like Ethel Merman.My sister Karen and I call her“Ethel Memere.” Memere crochets and fishes.“It teaches you patience,” she says,and teaches me to clean…

Vase Behold the vase upon its plinth. A tight carapaceof sang de boeuf reflectsthe light, warding offthe gaze. The narrow neck closely guardsthe ample base, admittingnothing. Only where the lip flares outto reveal the naked ivory throatdoes it allow that once, perhaps, there was a pouring in or out. Suzanne Osborne—after an early career in theater, a stint in academia, and too many years as a legal secretary—now lives in Forest Hills, NY, and writes poetry. Her work has appeared in New Plains Review, Oddville Press, and Indolent Books’ The Second Coming series, among others, and is forthcoming in Southern Poetry Review.

In December, creative force Patrice Vecchione organized and hosted “The Power of Her Voice,” a benefit reading by poets featured in Women in a Golden State: California Poets at 60 and Beyond (Gunpowder Press, 2025). George Yatchisin and I drove from Santa Barbara to attend. The auditorium was full, buzzing with energy. When Patrice gave her introduction, the room felt galvanized by the power of poets and healers, a collective push back against an Administration that seems determined to strip so much away from our communities. She generously gave permission for her introduction to be reprinted here (edited for context). To the power of poetry! —Chryss Yost The Power of…

Magdalene Purity songs are absent from this placewhere I am newly awake and infans, pre-verbal, body ringing with the echo of anight sitting up, before the morning call from county jail. Your eyelids flutter in sleep, now innocens,non-harming, before you wake to realize who you are, or what they say you are.Are these the right words? What right have I to call you back to life,from a sleep that graces you with lawless anonymity. Purity songs are absent from this place,the morning after a long night in a deep wood. But they are longed for,when life sounds like scripture: He went to work.He sat with a dozen friends. He traveled…

Come October The dry spell ended by deluge, my husbandis mowing the lawn again. Through the cross hatchof the screen door, he’s a kinetic mosaic of manand push mower. The red Briggs and Stratton,a Walmart special we’d bought togetherfor our first home, he’d heaved it offthe highest shelf in the garden department,buckled it into the backseat, and carried itover the threshold like our new bride.To make him laugh, while we put it togetheron the living room rug I had named it MurrayBerkowitz and squealed every time he tighteneda bolt. Now we’re showing our age, wheezingfor stabilizer and catching in stump ruts.I raise my hand, flat palmed in a frozen waveand…