After the River We crossed where the bridge had fallen,Carrying what light we could.No one spoke of the missing,Only of rain,And how it washed the footprints clean.We saw dead birds flat on the river,Their wings branched, broken, burned.At dusk, the water glimmered,As if it had forgiven usFor surviving. Sheema Kalbasi is an Iranian American poet, humanitarian, and historian. Her work explores themes of feminism, war, exile, refugees, and human rights. A Pushcart Prize winner, she has also been nominated for the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation, is a recipient of a United Nations humanitarian award, and has received grants from the Netherlands’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Her books include…

A Bird is a Prayer Especially a bird in flight, especially a bird flying low over a green field of meadowgrass, or clover, or wheat. That lightness and speed, thatburst of wings, that blur lilting so fast you almost miss it, that’s theprayer. The bluebird or finch or, yes, even sparrow nearly weightlessbut weighted enough with some blood and a quick dark eye skims themind’s surface, troubles the morning, gray and soft with oncomingrain, soft enough to cradle the bad news each day brings. So it mattersthat the bluebirds today are tireless, methodical little machines feedingfive new prayers, just fledged, lined up and nearly hidden in the boughsof the pine.…

Tasting Room I ask for a bottle of balance. The girl behind the counter tongues a grape. Slides a glass across the counter. The men make their awkward charm at her, elbow me back behind the napkins. At thirty my youth has fermented. Cities oaked and barreled behind me. All year I’ve been saving up for this trip. Birds sleep, sweet in their excuses. The red barn fattens over the vineyard. Outside this tasting room, a woman with an easel paints what she sees. We inside become the black opening to a building. Our stories the opaque counterpoint to all that light setting the field aflame. Tresha Faye Haefner’s poetry…

On the red cliffs of East Rock sound—cellular its root buds bell one by one crowding the stones below electrons of quail skirr— above, a falcon talons a draft otherwise, barely a stir here where clutter purged and I am a swarm of welcome who sees atop a pawpaw bloom a swallowtail butterfly slowly, slowly lift as though the heft of air some sure thing unseen space agog in infinite small occurrences a ruffed grouse rouses thrum sweet against my ears Lindsay Rockwell—poet, earthling, oncologist—explores the shared landscape of poetry and the sacred. She’s recently published, or forthcoming, in Guernica, Poetry Northwest, Poet Lore, Tupelo Quarterly, RADAR, SWWIM every day, among others.…