Dragonflies perched
in trees, crows screeching
as though tortured,
empty bluebird nest
bottles—all of nature
quivering with terror.
Toxic mutations wrap
the Earth in a crazy quilt
of shredded holy promises.

Diane Elayne Dees is the author of the chapbook, Coronary Truth (Kelsay Books), and has another chapbook forthcoming. Diane, who lives in Covington, Louisiana–across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans–also publishes Women Who Serve, a blog that delivers news and commentary on women’s professional tennis throughout the world. Her author blog is Diane Elayne Dees: Poet and Writer-at-Large.

Things you should’ve said
or said twice or said
every day until they sunk in
too deep
say yes this time
say orange say millimeter say
bamboo
say anything and mean it or
say everything and mean I
just didn’t want it to be quiet any longer I
just wanted the silence to die
raspberry rosemary rochambeau
bumblebee bubblegum bleat
why don’t the floorboards creak anymore
why don’t the stairs moan under our feet
peppermint juniper radish July
saucepan, simmering
soup.

L. J. Walker was born and raised on the west coast. She loves words, party supply stores, and black shoes.

You pass me smiling,
as if you’ve known me for years
and haven’t seen me for longer —

and something wakes inside me,
something that makes me smile
as I glance back, as if

for ages we have been lovers
who are sharing some inside joke,
and then just like that

you are gone — and I
have known people my entire life
who have given me less.

Stephen Jackson live and writes in the Pacific Northwest. As the sole proprietor of the Seattle small press So Many Birds publishing (SMBp), he championed the work of other writers through the publication of individual author chapbooks, the biannual literary magazine Harness, and the quarterly chapbook series Future+Present, showcasing previously unpublished local writers. His own poems have appeared or are forthcoming in a variety of online and print publications. @fortyoddcrows.

On the table, this morning, remains of
last night, of a fire with friends for his
birthday: one more sleep till fifteen.
I clear up, make some coffee, sit down
with the Saturday paper: When I think
that it won’t hurt too much, I imagine
the children I will not have. Choose not
to have, given fears and predictions and
knowledge of impact. I too have carried
these facts, felt their shape, the grief
and the longing. Mostly, a child is so
abstract to me. That too I remember.
That and the moment it turned: suddenly
none of it abstract. Things I can’t now
unimagine: his voice, just starting to
break. His moods and his migraines;
his quirks. The way he loves jazz and
his playing of it and the way he debates
other worlds: the questions they raise
and the answers they don’t.

On the table, tonight, we play poker,
Stan Getz in the air. For now, it is this:
gambles and improvisation.

Ute Kelly started writing poems on her phone during lockdown, often while out walking in the woods or on the moors she can get to from her house. Sometimes while sitting in trees.

A little light in the distance
A place I once called home
A low balance alert
A heartbreaking sigh
A bend in the tracks
A few lost tears
One lost year
The key that I still have to your apartment

Caitlin is a Chicago native with a newfound passion for written word. She spent time during the pandemic to learn more about the events industry through obtaining a Digital Event Certification and writing through self-reflection. She recently visited Utah to recharge and hopes to visit more national parks for inspiration.

Leap of fish —
faint slip
of sound as scales
break the surface
pane. Head arcs
toward tail. Petite
armor plates shoot
rainbow sparks. This
ignition of fin to flame can only
happen when, unfiltered
through wet, sun
hits fish-hide.
Is this why
they jump — to hold
perfect form in
light and color
a moment high
in the element of
death for a fish?

Paulette Callen has returned to her home state of South Dakota in retirement, after 30+ years in New York City. Varying degrees of culture shock in both directions — but always, the place she returned to has been made home by a dog.

I watch her white shirt
sway against the corpse-drapes
shriveled on the wall, wrinkled
like waves under her eroded eyes –
her repetition was a lion,
teeth dug and dragged her
limbs back and forth:
her body a puppet,
her mind a worn-out toy –
But I should be grateful
that her legs are not yet stiff
pale hospital sheets
and her heart still drips
rain through its gutters
even though soon
her mind will be ironed –
her thoughts flattened
like a flower pressed
into a memory book.

Maggie Hall a new poet who derives her inspiration from the ordinary world and emotions around her.

Hope is eating right out of the jar,
knowing that the peanut butter
may be heavy as it coats your throat.

Maggie Hall is a new poet who derives her inspiration from the ordinary world and emotions around her.

Ribboned at the wrists
by rue and sulk. Dressed
in dust, lacey cobwebs.
Since
your shaped waned,
it’s been squinting ventures
in the dark.

Now the sun undresses at the window,
shining as a bench-pressed chest.
It’s gold finders gesturing a
runner across my outline-
the closest amount of action
I’ll get from touch.

Ariel admits she’s a moody girl. When she’s not drawing or sighing, she writes to bring form out of the pandemonium in her.

The house beyond the one we bought had stood
Empty countless years before we moved there
To that spot along the ridge, where the wood
Crept close and smelled always of molded leaves.

The road from our place to it drained downhill
Near a mile before the asphalt gave way
To twin dirt paths that held a memory still
Of the passage of feet and an old truck.

Left derelict in the taller grass just
Beyond the last bend in the now dirt road,
That same truck defeated by time and rust
Squatted like a steel and rubber tombstone.

Rising twisted and bony above it
With limbs sprawled skyward, grasping and gaunt,
Stood a skeletal tree, like a spirit
Of the wood from a time before humans.

A few branches gripped the skins of brown leaves,
But most jabbed stark and angry at the sky,
Like a stubborn old man who prays or grieves
The loss of a daughter taken too soon.

Silkworm nests woven thick and cloudy grey,
Clustered throughout the tree, caught between limbs
Like ghosts that, their haunting done, chose to stay
As markers of those who had long since left.

We too no longer live on that old lane,
But some ghosts, like the silkworm shrouded trees
Or the ache of a memory’s deep pain,
Cannot be so easily exorcized.

A. Keith Kelly grew up on the Crow Indian Reservation in Montana and worked for years as a fly-fishing and bird hunting guide before entering academia. He is now a professor of English literature and writing living on a tiny farm outside of Atlanta, Georgia.