Fugue of Vodka Light GS with lines & variation from Lorna De Cervantes’ “From the Bus to E.L. at Atascadero State Hospital” The woman screams I want Vodka now! InsteadI offer her more coffee, but tonight youKnow this won’t work. She is adamant—wereYou here you might be scared, hereWhere anger is a daily ruse. She balls her fists. WhereIs the Vodka? She’s in her fifties, delusional. TheWoman grew up in a closed factory town with its woundedMen. Bradford’s blue factory light. BlackbirdsOf men begging for bread. Coal trains warbleAlong the Allegheny River with their industrial jazzFed the furnaces of the Zippo plant. InA town where she was raised by her…

December Evening at Big Y the axle-bentcart swerves,stubborn, aimingfor anywhereI don’t want to gobut I am more obstinateyanking the handleharsh as the harsh lightecstatic song echoesin the pet food aisleheaven and nature singperfect companionsin the cart is my prisonertree, wrapped tightin green meshoutside: the grey rain Written in Winter traversing his endless palace the first emperornever slept in the same room twice for lack of spaceI had to cry in the car Martha McCollough is the author of Wolf Hat Iron Shoes (Lily Poetry Review Books 2022) and the chapbook Grandmother Mountain (Blue Lyra 2019) . Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Pleiades, The Boiler, RadarPoetry, Bear Review,…

Lost …thoughts of a person in agesometimes grow sparer.                               —Jane Hirshfield When I take to dashing awayfrom my computer’s texts and demands, especially finding those codes to prove I’m me, I get lost, even in my own city where I’ve lived over half a century. I pay no attention to street names, so never ask for directions. Besides, I’m geographically challenged. Ask anyone who knows me. They’ll say, “Her? Oh, who knows where she is.” Now we’re talking about this, I find myself driftingthrough a forest of thoughts with quivering leavesleaving myself on the side of…

Small Losses The soupspoons disappeared first, one by onefollowed by knives, a few linen napkins,as if some being on the other sideof the veil was setting up house. I wonderedwho it was, and if they wore my lost sockson their cold feet, my missing glasses ontheir failing eyes. These small losses barelynoticed until later: the slow declineof spring frogs, the carefully worded bill,the quiet appointment of a judge, allthe thin slivers that we believed were ours,pared away like potato skin by thosewho now hold the knives, busy preparingsoup to be eaten only by those with spoons.  Lisa Shulman is a poet, children’s book author, and teacher. Her work has appeared…

My Book Club   Another member died before we finishedone of the great novels No one had wanted to readMoby Dick for fear of getting seasick Anna Karenina was acceptablea love story Everybody had seen the moviewe knew the ending We could waltzthrough eight hundred pages sip cognac      skip parts that didn’t touchthe lover’s hand As I recall     I said Let’s go slowLet’s close read As if the trainwasn’t pulling into the station JoAnna Scandiffio is a graduate gemologist living in San Francisco. Her poems are like bird nests, made with fragments randomly connected to hold the moment. She is like the old medieval monks who copied…

Poem Ending with an Allusion to Issa   A pink scumble of cloudin the eastern quarter, brightening as the sunignites the horizon, and frost on grass and roofsrepeats the colour, faintly. Winter has already turnedtoward another Spring, so there must be stirringsdeep in the soil, seeds thawing, insects ticking as hintsof the fertile warmth find them. The gleam fades to a pale day,and in the same world where the great poets have lived,I feel about average. James Owens‘s newest book is Family Portrait with Scythe (Bottom Dog Press, 2020). His poems and translations appear widely in literary journals, including recent or upcoming publications in Channel, Arc, Dalhousie Review, Queen’s Quarterly,…

Before Everything   we wentonto the night roofoff limitsthis was beforeeverythingwas camera-edand alarmedsmoked a jointshared a tepid beerboth of usstinking of summerand beingyoung talkedabout jumpinghow you’d waveto all the lonelypeople ontheir balconiesas you fellas I fly you correctedand I wasovercomewith sadnessand held you and youlaughed and saidI’m only fuckingwith you, butto be clear, I’mfucking Alexand pulled awayand in that momentI didalmost jumpbut thought the brightawnings of thestreetside shopsmight breakmy fall likein the comicsand your nippleswere hardfrom evening chilland I still lovedmy lifeas I doand as I willfor no reasonbut tenacitytender as a vine Christopher Nelson is the author of Blood Aria (University of Wisconsin Press, 2021) and five chapbooks, including…

Even Now Scattered across grey pavement,                    a spill of spent petals, somehow still           ghostly whole & vivid, whiteas snow. Even now, in summer,      a soft June          morning holds the confettied                     remnants of a promise. The heart shifts.A crow tilts its head. And somewhere a small girl                                   in ribbons & tulle bends down          to scoop up the bright blossoms, handfuls…

Introduced by Laure-Anne Bosselaar There is such a deeply intelligent and multi-layered humor in Clayton Clark’s poetry. She has a keen eye and fiercely focused attention to detail.  I love her unique & compelling observations: subtle, big-hearted and metaphorically delightful. The three poems below reflect her talent for precision and visual clarity. Grief as Present Not sure how to thank you for all the flowers, I’ve received in your name. Not sure why you, as backdrop, are needed to make light brighter, make roses smell sweeter, bring tears to relieve stress. Does it make you giddy, Grief, to push us to the cliff’s edge then drag some lucky ones back with…

Dreaming the Flowers Awake   You know how old friends show upin dreams wanting to shoot upor screw in the backseat like old times?Or smile smug goodbyes as they watchyou drop into free fall? Or suddenlymaterialize, only to evaporate into nervous rain? “Hello Out There,”the theme song for my old-fashionedvariety show. Forgive me the dancing girls—dreams, can live with them, can’t…I want to dream of dead friendsrising like first spring flowers through the uncertainty of frozen earth,but my own children are tramplingthose flowers. Trampling, giggling. Jim Daniels’ latest books include The Luck of the Fall, fiction; The Human Engine at Dawn, Gun/Shy, and Comment Card, poetry. His first book of…