When I was just five
the water truck dampened the stone-clogged roadways
in a daily ritual
to bless the paths we traveled to touch one another.
Their corduroy surfaces laced our community, binding us to each other
a fortuitous family, once strangers
who built lives at the end of dirt roads. Continue reading Dust Dreams by Nancy Lee
Be All That You Can Be by David Kirby
I pick up pieces of paper I find on the sidewalk because
you never know what you’ll find, and the other day,
after I find this note in which the writer expresses sorrow
for her sins and vows to sin no more, I show it
to Barbara and ask if she ever felt that way, and she says,
Thoughts without words by Mike Zimmerman
My grandfather began to cry
at Thanksgiving dinner when
my grandmother asked him,
“You remember how we met?”
He cried. They don’t know why. Continue reading Thoughts without words by Mike Zimmerman
Keep Breathing by David Rodriguez
Keep Breathing
When I breathe, I know, open-mouthed,
I allow my ribs to pull up and out,
tensed as the frame drum’s spitting beat,
air pressure lowering so I become
a bubblegum-colored slide into the alveoli.
Continue reading Keep Breathing by David Rodriguez
Expiration by Naushena
Expiration
A leaf- a brown leaf
Dangled on a brown tree,
Shaken by the blowing wind Continue reading Expiration by Naushena
Two Prose Poems by Daniel Romo
Stomping Ground
Each step is a lesson in reverse. A nostalgic walk caught between moving forward and revisiting hurt. This is high school; everything is a matter of mattering. Continue reading Two Prose Poems by Daniel Romo
My New Neighbors by Christoph Keller
My New Neighbors
Jack doesn’t live in his house anymore. John, who now lives there, told me that. It’s a corporate decision, he said. John barely knows me but insists on being friends. He brings an expensive bottle of wine and hugs me. This is too fast for me. Continue reading My New Neighbors by Christoph Keller
My Mother’s Photograph by Cheryl Heineman
My Mother’s Photograph
My mother kept her cup of gin nearby.
She had sex in the afternoon. Habit kept
order, swept the floors, ironed the pillowcases,
kept the light on and made her death little by little.
Continue reading My Mother’s Photograph by Cheryl Heineman
Vivarium by K.J. Williams
but human life is confined in a glass box
draped in a black curtain;
there’s nothing behind it.
but it’s our audacity that makes us try
Continue reading Vivarium by K.J. Williams
Two Poems by Karen An-hwei Lee
A WIND MACHINE FOR ORANGES UP NORTH
When asked about
the last orange grove in Orange County –
I am at a loss.
8-WEST PRESS 