Poems from The Choreographer by Gerald Fleming
Companionship, she’d written, certainly at first, and he’d answered—wanted to meet early—so okay, we’ll meet at 8 a.m., she wrote, and at least this is no lazy man, and she came at eight, the café up the hill by, what was it—a memorial to some soldiers, some war?—and he was already there in the blue…Read More
Read Poems from Lucky Break by Terry Ehret
Lucky Break A white marble wheel has many uses: travel, for example, or shaping clay; a simple lathe but, like any tool, needing balance. Else the center, which is empty, cannot hold, lets loose its own purpose, fragments flying untethered from any force centripetal, explodes its form, stone wheeling, broken into clavicle and pelvis, petal…Read More
Poems from Translations From the Human Language by Terry Ehret
Thirst This year I’ve felt the push of antlers thrusting out of my head. I’ve leaned my head many times toward the grass, stretching my neck to drink. This year I’ve awoken from the catacombs of sleep, my cheeks wet with spring water, my heart beating like a river sprung from rock. Sometimes in…Read More
Poems from The World Is God’s Language by Dane Cervine
Breast It was in some obscure motel room, cheap, and I was young. But there it was, luminous orb falling from my mother’s bra as she changed clothes in close quarters. I had no memory of infant days—swell of milk, suckle of nipple—no glimpse of the days yet to come. All I knew, in one…Read More
Poems from difficult news by Valerie Berry
the fallen caryatids: Rodin Close to Orpheus, their backs to the Gates of Hell, they balance their burdens in a slow, bronze falling. Supple as trees these women fold into themselves, assuming the unborn shape left long ago for the difficult work of their straightening. Now weight breaks the symmetry of shoulders in graceful collapse….Read More
Poems from Alkali Sink by Stella Beratlis
Mustard Greens, Interstate 580 With enough olive oil and lemon juice, it was easy for her to overlook the occasional woody stem, their bitter tang: roadside mustard, dandelion greens, right there at the freeway’s side— first a bag, then the entire trunk stuffed full. She came to carry a knife in the glove box to…Read More
Poems from Mapmaker of Absences by Maria M. Benet
Trees at Dawn for Simone Weil In the vaulted spaces that bracketed the trees, I saw her body’s hollow, shaft to thread of light that bolts her to the firmament— Trees, she once wrote, are rooted in the sky, seeing how they live by light— Behold the brilliance, its chiseled periphery, a halo that obliterates…Read More
Poems from Practice by Dan Bellm
Practice Every seventh year you shall practice remission of debts. Deuteronomy 15:1 How simple it ought to be, to practice compassion on someone gone, even love him, long as he’s not right there in front of me, for I turned to address him, as I do, and saw that no one’s lived in that spot…Read More