Poetry
-
And Again About My Father
by Mia Vodanovich In another world I inherit my father’s Mustang – We drive to the beach for my 20th birthdayAnd nothing turns to a pile of crushed metal;In the spring my hair whips around my face and all the falling cherry blossoms. My father sits shotgun, no seatbelt. Mia Vodanovich is a writer, educator, Continue reading
-
Two Poems by Haley DiRenzo
Betta FishMy senior year of high school, I pulled a betta fish from a bag. Licorice candy scales reflecting through the glass. An exercise in incorporating an object into a speech: just keep swimming. I tried to return the fish to the teacher, but she told me it was mine. On freedom’s cusp, I did Continue reading
-
I’m Tired of Numbers
by Chloe Lee I’m tired of numbers.Of waking up to a clockand falling asleep to one.Of calculating how many hours I got, how many I missed,how many I still need.They are everywhere.Calories on a granola bar,digits glowing on a bathroom scale, percentages on tests that don’t ask how long I studiedor how much I cried.They Continue reading
-
Two Poems by Stacey Lounsberry
This is Where We SplitMy head breaks the surface for a drink of air, and I see them:my stepsons coming into my water like divorce-sized bombs.Your voices, air-raid sirens, surround me.Your group of teenage boys swarm the mid-lake boulder:pimpled, hairless chests, too-red lips like vinegary ketchup kisses. They look just like you.I swim out to Continue reading
-
Two Poems by Rikki Santer
No, butwhat’s floating inside these couplets and what you know the cold wantsstart with a sign unknownghost in the machine moving through the long perse of doubt andwhat’s clicking between your earswhat could be the lone one linerand what the dream thinksthe din of crackers in your mouthcod liver oil laced with laughing gaslive oak Continue reading
-
Telling the Bees
by Grace Massey In Celtic tradition, families tell their bees everything—births, marriages, deaths. Bees are also messengers between worlds.Three weddings this summergoth princesses, groomsmen in kilts, bride swollen out to here.The voles consumed the lily bulbs, tulips were shipwrecked. But you know this.Over lunch Doris let slip that her dogs will outlive her, they’re oldbut Continue reading
-
Moment in American Nectarine
by Michael Dwayne Smith Thus radiant, therefore unlasting, this poemthat is Cactus Wren with its jar-jar-jar, nesthatching messages from a spirit world humanshave long forgotten. Sublimity, as if it weresky. Minimalism, as if it were happiness. Yourtumor, your PTSD, your children vapingurns full of disenchantment, the slurry speechof your ancient gods, jubilant all. The past Continue reading
-
My Fourth of July Grocery List Reveals What America Means to Me
by Joan Leotta From my grocery listyou might suspectmy heritage is Italian:eggplantred bell pepperfinocchioartichokesgarlicDe Cecco pastaWhen the checkout clerkasks about the finocchioI tell her it is called anise in her computerChicken wings, hot dogs and burgers,will also have a place at our barbeque.She smiles as she rings them up.She and I often exchange recipes.Eggplant will Continue reading
-
Two Poems by Lisa Delan
Poet and how will you feelknees on the groundeye level to the void whereyou must clamp coerce cut compress coax the fat resin of each phraseholding its howl swallowing its oncevoluptuous breath words braided into tight-plait wire straining against cylindric steel whose friction-singed sidesblister syntax scathed flesh of sentencesforming slim scarsas you blow ash across Continue reading
-
Honey
by Jean-Paul Thuot I am not one who praysthe way bees to and fromthe field of golden flowersdo not pray After the sun has passed beyondthe far trees, and dewbegins collecting in thepregnant air Moon rising on her coursesilent as a sail on unshippedseas, velvet brocadeof her passing In all of this — the bees, Continue reading
January House Literary Journal 