Say it again,
over the noise—
under your breath.
Let’s go back,
maybe just for today.
And I know it isn’t right
to linger there too comfortably.
Even so, forever,
souls remain entwined.

Melody Young is a working mom desperately trying to balance work life, mom life, mental health and creativity. She has no formal literary education or experience, and is just trying to send her thoughts out into the world to free up more headspace for day-dreaming.

my voice
a record of times gone
cracks sustained
in places enjoyed the most
all along my face
a photo of good times gone
colours faded
in places exposed to life
on its own

Katarzyna is a psychologist with an interest in psychoanalysis and writing. Most recently her work appeared in Spectra Poets. She lives, works and writes in London.

I asked “When? When are you going to die?”
To grandma, grandpa, other grandmothers.
Not soon, I thought, if I’d get my druthers.
Death discovered, though, I did not think why.

I did not ask if death were proud or sly,
Nor did I inquire if death took lovers,
Whether death asserted false alibis,
Or given death, why the living bother.

I only knew that death is when we die.
A tautology test for a toddler,
Confused the grown-ups left me to proctor,
I asked “When? When are you going to die?”
To grandma, grandpa, other grandmothers.

Anne Babson’s poems are published in journals on five continents. She is the author of multiple chapbooks and three full-length poetry collections — The White Trash Pantheon, Polite Occasions, and Messiah. Her latest collection, The Bunker Book, about the pandemic and the rise of fascism in America, is under contract with Unsolicited Press and should be released this winter.

I stare at the salsa jar.
It mocks me.
The safety button only works
once –
I cannot check it.
There is no video.
There are no witnesses.

I stare at it, and it
stares back,
daring me to take a bite.
Perhaps
I will wait for David to come home –
If it is poisoned, at least he will be able to
call an ambulance.

Don’t you know, you say, how
unlikely
that is? How
uncommon
it is to buy poisonous food?
Yes, I say.
I know.
I know.
What I Know, however, is frequently in some spat or another
with What I Fear, and some days it is
awfully difficult
to get them
to talk.

Allison Hunter is an affectionate girlfriend and cat mom, attending college for English and hoping to slow down her life to experience it more deeply. Reading and writing poetry is part of that process. She loves the earth, the arts, and her loved ones extremely deeply.

Before plugging
my laptop
into the socket
to work on my poem,
I found a tiny
crimson and black
spotted hump
on the windowsill.

Whispered, “ooh, a ladybug”.
As if my alto
could shatter her antenna.

Got busy
googling symbolism.
Plotting on the luck
that’s on the way.
Foot-rubbing love,
here to stay.
Pontificating on what
other good fortune lives
beneath God’s feathers and wings.

Forgot to open
the window
so she could get back
to climbing her rose bushes,
the delight of aphids.

I found cloak,
faded to the
color of brick.
Seven black spots
of sorrow.

Carla M. Cherry is a veteran English teacher who is studying for her M.F.A. in Creative Writing at the City College of New York. She has written five books of poetry; her latest is Stardust and Skin (iiPublishing 2020). She is a vegan who loves to go Chicago-style stepping.

The first big step, a gentle push.
Over the edge into the world.
To sing a song, forward best foot,
Nature’s message– life unfurled.

Her virgin wings caress the sky
A fluttering breeze leaves my finger.
A newborn zephyr, she has her why,
To find the how, the answer lingers.

That fleeting moment into the trees.
I know we’ll never meet again.
Should she return, should she so please,
I’ll hear your song, my dearest friend.

Preston Miller is a master’s student at the Elliott School of International Affairs from Atlanta, Georgia. He believes that the most impactful moments in our lives are brief, so he likes to write poetry in a way that captures those moments, however insignificant they may seem at the time.

It’s breakfast –
She stands on tiptoes to look
At the white-yogurt city sprinkled
With windows and solar panels
Spilling into the sea.

Her toes are starting to ache
But that ache – her ache – is written somewhere in a book –
The very same book in which
The long streets and the long shores and the long waves

In rippling lines spill out of the page

and into her blank bowl.

Daniel Revach is a PhD student in cognitive neuroscience living in Israel, though he considers myself a citizen of the world. I approach my poetry like I approach my research: rather than an act of creation, it is the discovery of the universal in the particular.

Wintering In

On cold days, when the cat leaves the cushion at the foot of the sofa and settles onto my lap to curl into sleep, I set aside time to become a mattress.

cat’s purr
the way she says
rhododendron

Tall-Tale

The blue-tailed lizard I have disturbed on my desert hike turns his head, the way a train conductor swings his lantern to call passengers to board, and stares at me momentarily with eyes black and bright as a tap dancer’s shoes, before he scurries to his nearby home-hole, where, no doubt, he will spread the news of his lightning-fast escape from the clutches of yet another giant on walkabout.

the bullfrog
has swallowed a truck . . .
listen!

Keith Polette has begun writing poetry again after a lengthy haitus in the world of prose. He currently lives and writes in El Paso, Texas.

A stranger sitting next to me on the plane
offers me a strand of my own hair.
“Is this your natural color?” she asks.
“No,” I say. “I dye it”

I can see she’s slightly disappointed.
This interaction feels like so many others.
I wish I had lied
I was already pretending, after all.

Olivia Johnson is an archaeologist living in Austin, Texas, who writes poetry in farm fields when she should be looking for artifacts. She spends her free time reading, writing, playing music, and laughing with friends.

Leave me wanting
That way you stay perfect
Just a peak to reveal your beauty
But a quick cover to hide your intricacy

Leave me wondering what could possibly be
A blank tablet to write the tale
A clean slate not burdened by history
A mind free to create the perfect reverie

An intimate touch that will last forever
Not in reach of my fingertips
Vivid in my mind’s eye
Cherished until it’s nearly recreated

Let me be. Don’t let my seductions tear you away
Stay true to your duty, the better off you’ll be
For if you succumb, it will only be a moment
Leave the memory of me chaste, the better off I’ll be

Andrea Recasner is a divorced black female, 53 years old. She was born in Detroit, Michigan and was raised and currently lives in New Orleans, Louisiana. She has over 30 years of experience working as a mechanical engineer. She is the mother of a 25 year old daughter who is studying education in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.