Poetry

Because of their format, several poems that appear in the current issue are included as pdfs. To read them, click on their titles below or on the right side of this page.

Hurricane
Catherine Staples

 

The harbor hardly sleeps at night, what with
listening in, glittering. Masts hover and sway
while keels answer in watery knocks, their own way

In a Hurry
Catherine Staples

 

It’s the peeling birch and the lake glimpsed through it,
sheets buckling in wind, the emerald seams of moss
between pavers, three children rounding a bend.

The Nest in Winter
Kimiko Hahn

 

In the Father’s shadowy hoard
pillows belch feathers across
mattress and floors:

What Feeds on Want
John Rybicki

 

I row with the wind in my apple-wood skin,
maw on crow’s dust and raw turnips.
What feeds on want behind the masks of houses?

California Christmas
Noah Warren

 

A year of rain in an hour.
Then dawn. On the Quikcrete
patio a leaden mirror.

On Sundays
Willie Perdomo

 

On Sundays we composed our own music.

Tapped a nickel against a mailbox,
pounded the wall with the heel of our
palms, and sought a demo-type sound.

Beret
Natania Rosenfeld

 

Strange word for so simple
a thing as a flat felt hat.

Don’t forget your bear-ay,
my mother’d say, and I thought it

Nick
Natania Rosenfeld

 

You nicked me
now give me back,
un-wrinkled.

Unbudgably Yours
Samuel Hazo

 

Summering in Pennsylvania
  and wintering in Florida
  would give me two addresses.

Albuquerque Aubade
Randy Blasing

 

Making a pilgrimage to Albuquerque
to give thanks I cheated heart surgery
of a bad outcome only last month,