She became Paris that night
we walked through her gut,
cobbled streets, blood cells

on feet and clacking heels,
dancing tongues, shimmering
insides. My city I ran from.

She glides with stillness letting
us pass. She never held me tight.
Not to plant me, not to help my fall.

I tasted her spit, scraped dirt
out of my ears. Beauty fades
in the eyes that know. New

is always sensitive to touch.
Much like a new perfume
she tickled my scalp.

Her air breathes me when I
forget to inhale. We always do
when the light hits the spot.

I don’t want to come back.
I’m keeping her like that.

Natasha Moskaljov is an emerging writer and yoga teacher from Croatia. She’s currently based in Tenerife, Spain working on her fiction, poetry, and learning how to sail.

I woke-up in a terrible mood.
I had a dream.
It was not good.
Couldn’t shake the smell of sanitizer cream.

Everyone wore masks.
Everyone walked 6 feet apart.
Stay home. No more work tasks.
Stay home. No more visits to the museum of art.

TV talked of death everywhere.
Radio played songs of sadness.
Out flowed a tear.
Over and over like infinite madness.

There was fear.
And uncertainty.
There was also a lot of care.
And there was plenty of ingenuity.

So many questions.
So few answers.
To make the connections.
Zigzagging like lost wanderers.

Somehow some people cope.
Tied-up in a knot.
Some have hope.
Others not.

So glad it was just a dream.
Ready to zoom.
Or so it would seem.
Here comes that familiar feeling of doom.

Silvia Baptista is an explorer of the written word. Just recently, Silvia started to write a few words here and there about anything and everything. Silvia particularly enjoys connecting the obvious to the not so obvious in verses of poetry.

Just a small piece of ground,
just 40 acres, it ain’t that much.
I’ve heard it told before,
homesteaders got 40 acres, sometimes more.
Just enough space all around,
for my peace and privacy and such.
I just want to be a little out of touch.
I’m not looking for total isolation,
just enough room to be left alone.
Some time for some self-inner examination.
It is my speculation that if my dream was known,
I’m telling you it’s true,
I think 40 acres would due.
A buffer to the outside world at times,
away from the madness, the craziness, and the crimes.
Some say the world is going to Hell,
some say it’s going in a handbasket.
I know it’s far from peachy keen and all is not well.
I don’t need all that hate and negativity, I’d blow a gasket.
So, just give me those 40 acres, I’d be a happy man.
Now to figure out how to get those 40 acres, and if I can.
Yes, I think I’d then have it all,
just my little dot on the map,
-there I could get away from it all.
and there I ‘m sure I could have a real ball.
Or, I could just go and take a nap,
on this summer day and sleep until Fall.

After a successful career as a Senior Designer working with international mining companies, William David is retired now and living in Tucson, Az. He likes spending time now devoted to his passion: writing poetry.

Every day the delicate gold
circled my wrist, a gift
from someone loved a long time ago.
Today, the watchband clasp
mysteriously gave way,
watch tumbling through the air
from the stairs above the subway tracks.
My arm still felt its presence,
yet it had already hurtled
down onto the tracks,
the time vanished in which I could have changed
anything, fixed that clasp before it failed,
prevented the falling,
the losing.

Elizabeth L. Merrick lives in Somerville, Massachusetts. She and poetry have stayed together through thick and thin. She loves poetry that sees deeply into everyday moments, and that is her fondest aspiration for her own writing. Elizabeth is also a clinical social worker and health researcher.

A silvery mist
like cobwebs of feathers
wind brewing shivers
glided solemnly,
engulfed me.

Caitlin Gemmell is a writer and artist living on top of a hill in upstate New York. When not writing or creating, she spends her days: drinking tea, foraging for wild edibles, tending her garden, and wrangling her child, chickens, and a pig (who wandered here one summer night and never left).

(In Memory of Ernie Minichiello)

First time among friends
I didn’t hear you laugh.
All I could hear
were the engines outside
humming a dirge
at the traffic lights.

Frank William Finney is a New England poet who taught literature at Thammasat University in Thailand (1995-2020). His work appears in many small press magazines, journals, and anthologies.

Motherhood is expected to be beautiful
A butterfly touching the lives of all who see it
Graceful, perfect, and camera ready
But here I am, an ugly cousin
A nuisance, a copycat
Trying so hard to be something
Meet an expectation
A moth
While a butterfly will rest with its wings closed
I’m here with mine open
Open and exhausted
Exhausted and exposed
There is no filter to change the appearance of these drab colored wings
For what I thought they were was the reality that no one speaks about
They are not all the times my child has chosen dad over me
They are not all the tears I shed alone in a dark corner of a room
They are not the times I thought I wasn’t enough
They are not the times I thought I wasn’t doing it right
Instead, they are the embodiment of my soul transforming into a strength that is more powerful than a butterfly could ever be capable of

Amanda Kelvey is a family medicine physician practicing in a community health center in Fall River, Massachusetts. She’s a born and raised New Englander who just can’t bring herself to stomach the renowned seafood cuisine. She considers herself an amateur cyclist and mindfulness enthusiast. When she isn’t reading or writing she can be found learning about bravery and strong-willed determination from her toddler son Owen. She is currently working on her debut novel.

Chlorophyll surrenders, and
Royal Red Maple foliage sways its way onto the shimmering water beside my cabin.
A crimson canopy parts to allow sunlight a dappling on my doorstep at dawn.
Autumn proudly stands its ground.

A Quaking Aspen trembles in even the most well-intentioned breeze,
and bequeaths a quilting of gold to my pond.

Dewdrop tears cling to blue reeds stooping over my sun-lit water.
Morning mourns the moon.
“She returns tonight,” reassuring ripples whisper. “I promise to hold her
until you return to say your goodbye.”

Born and adopted in Luxembourg, Kelly Sargent grew up with a deaf twin sister in Europe and the United States. Being hard-of-hearing, she blissfully enjoys playing the piano and a pink ukulele for an audience of one.

Cogs and wheels creak and turn
in a young overworked mind.

Spindles rusted, unused and protesting,
overwhelmed by emotion
that has sent these dormant contraptions
into the harried state her mind is now in.

She is not used to this.
Chilled air
rushes
goose bumps down her arms,
a short walk away from the source
of her terror.

Muscles move like marionette strings
torn between moving forward
toward what she wants in her heart,
(the strongest marionette string in her body)
and running away.

Oh, that would be safer, wouldn’t it?
Blood pumps faster
rushing to her cheeks
mind flashing to luminous blue,
a captivating smile.

Her breath stutters.
Closer now.
Curtain’s almost up and her mind fills
with panic and giddy terror stuck in the spokes
rendering those wheels useless.

The source comes in sight
and it is too late to run.
He turns a smile on her
as she works up the courage
that will allow her to speak.

Melissa Baron is a fiction writer living in Chicago with her cat and partner. She is an avid road tripper, a Book Riot contributor, and a sometimes rock climber.

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.