What I Failed to Notice Sometimes in August, the heat demands that your brain shut down, that nothing more should occur to you, even if it is only that the squirrels and crows seem to be having a cocktail party in your backyard, the squirrels like frat boys, the crows observing with mild disdain, even if it is only to ponder a small microwave that the neighbors have placed on the mangled stump of their fallen cotton- wood, where it shimmers and remains for a week. The sun glares in August and distorts your vision: maybe the crows are hawks, maybe the microwave is a box. Tension pulses in the…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

The Bite   Each time I pass by, I recall that August daywe biked up the gravel road — dust clouds swirling —scent of peach nectar rising from the farmstanddelicate as butterfly wings on the late morning heat. Between us we had just enough cash to buyone red-tinged globe, firm yet soft at once. Icradled its fuzzy heft in my palm, bit in. Juice randown my arm, pooled at my elbow, dripped on the road. You laughed when I handed you the peach. I thinkthat’s the instant I fell in love with you,just one sloppy bite and a laugh in a flashwe shared on a dust-covered road. But falling out…

Raft     Darkness settles in the roomlike feathers falling on a lakestill rippled from a rising flock.Two dreamers float across the gloom, arms entwined to form a raft,mouths softening as if agapeat something dawning in their sleep,moored loosely so they’re free to drift. Holding each other, they hold a placein the wakers’ world, a tepid peace.Dreaming doubles them, as a swan in a pool’s reflection rides its twin,their bodies stilled by this embracewhile underneath the webbed feet spin. Spoils I want the flower bedof you and not the flower:soil that grips the rootand blackens rain; not the blowsy damein the blooming hat, but the dirtshe’s standing in: fermentingspoils heaped…

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…

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…