UV / Joanna Grant
early summer, Doha, Qatar: 110 degrees Fahrenheit
I know what it does to me—
that desert sun, wheel of fire—
how little time it takes
for the rays to pierce
the membranes, to roil
the cells. We’re all drilled
in the sequence, that old minuet—
Work, water, rest. Work, water, rest.
Shade and damp cloths
for the faint. Loose, breathable
layers to protect the skin.
Oh, I know what it does to me,
this desert sun. But like the moth
to its flame, back I come,
again and again. Oh, Light-bringer,
scald me, scorch me, blister me
if you must, but just—let me
feel that first gush of warm honey—
Just once, just once, just once—
Risin and Kellingir / Judit Hollos
At times when we fight, in your adolescent rage,
you grow into a giant in black ripped jeans,
from the tiny toddler who not so long ago
was small enough to fit into my arms
and slept like a blooming strawberry tree.
At times, you’re romping throug the skies
or shape-shift into a silver-tailed fox,
as we climb up monstrous mountains to steal
village-dotted islands, noticing our failure
only when we turn into stones at the first rays of sun.
red maple blossom –
a pair of locked antlers
frozen in a stream
Like Weeds / Zach Hauptman
If I knew then
I might have said
it’s okay.
we will grow like weeds.
they can’t tear us up
no matter how hard they try
because we’re like mint
our running
roots
tangled
together
at the
source of water
ghazal for a volunteer day in west denver / Brice Maiurro
hungry for a love to be witnessed firsthand in these days
always craving the touch of simple earth’s hands in these days
digging a hole to plant a fruit tree for humans with mouths
so completely unphased by where the dirt lands in these days
an orchard by a city street with a church in the back
(this constitutes my most exquisite of plans in these days)
the city becomes a distant memory the church walls fade
my little stream heart like a river has ran in these days
feet mixed in with the mud all mixed in with the wind as well
i feel more like a being less like a man in these days
& then snow coming down so what– it’s the dream after all
the shovel the barrow the gloves are my clan on these days
i gobbled up my phone–it never did tell me the truth
digital pigeon’s nonsense just wasn’t landing these days
i even abandoned the poem for the poetry–
so long to whatever to never abandon these days
but brice! the poem! sit down & finish what you were writing–
enough fruitless rooms–i don’t get full on stanzas these days
Waiting in Jamba Juice While My Teenager Sobs in the Car, I Read a Poem About My Former Poetry Teacher / Kimberly O’Connor
there are only six shapes in nature and one of them is the meander
–Bonnie Naradzay, paraphrasing Stanley Plumly
He’s been dumped and refuses to come inside, yet thirsts for pureed frozen fruit. I choose strawberry surfer and hope for the best, scroll my email while the lone worker shuffles from freezer to blender. The poem is beautiful, memorializing our teacher I did revere, but wouldn’t, like this author, call a mentor, because–let’s face it–I got pregnant. He was horrified and didn’t try to hide it. Was this on purpose?
It was. It was so on purpose I was obsessed with it. Obama’s American fever dream tricked me. With no thought of the future, I fucked and peed on sticks till I got two blue lines, then felt sick with shock.
His pat on my head months later as I waddled toward graduation held all the paths I might have taken but didn’t. From time to time I hear his unspoken told you so. The hours I’ve spent tending pile up over the decades as hours not spent reading or becoming tenured. He was right. There are six shapes in nature, and one of them is mothering, and it spirals into itself, leading nowhere particularly discernible or distinguished.
He taught me not to end a poem too soon, so I’ll say now how I took the plastic cup to the car and we drove home in the winter sunset and the words I’d read under those fluorescent lights echoed in my head all night, even as I slept: it’s awful not getting what you want.
I didn’t know what I wanted. I don’t know what I want. There are six shapes in nature, and one of them is the untaken path, and another is the heartbreak of knowing very well the path you chose.
Double Burial Depth / Michael Schad
Going to Riverhead to see my grandfather’s
grave, he was buried atop my grandmother
in Calverton National Cemetery, which is really in Calverton,
but we just say Riverhead because it is more pleasant
to think of my grandparents buried in a place that has a duck
building as its main attraction, rather than an industrial
wasteland left by Grumman, one of many left by the aircraft industry,
like Fairchild where my grandfather worked, or the Grumman
plant in Bethpage where my other grandfather bought a Grumman
aluminium canoe after they had tried to resurrect the flailing industry.
Calverton is quite pretty now as it borders the pine barrens,
and contains Long Island’s premier water part, Splish Splash.
Even the cemetery has a certain attraction with beautiful
maple and oak trees mixed with pine and the grass is perfectly
tended so the markers are clean and bright as we pay our respects
Both names are clear with the epitaphs “Now I Am Home”, and
“Asleep in Jesus”.
Halves / Kashiana Singh
white lotus
in a vessel of water
folded palms
rearranging puzzles
the halves of everything
ardhanarishvara
frozen morning
the fry pan sizzles
into our silence
aura and aria
breath climbs, falls
other lingers soft
Summertime in Technicolor
Everything bloomed.
Everyone sneezed. The dogs
raced around the fields and then
collapsed in piles soaking up sun.
As the trees leafed out, filling up
previously open space, wildflowers
filled the meadow nobody hayed:
bee-balm, black-eyed susan, laurel.
Sad Girl felt like a Disney princess
living among friendly animals.
She served at Strawberry Supper
at the parish hall with Betsy, the
café waitress, now engaged to the chef,
with a budding baby bump she
constantly caressed peeking out of her
unbuttoned cutoff jeans.
