My Sister’s Last Gift
by Joe Benevento
Memories seem more fragile and so
authentic in black and white.
School Year
by Joe Benevento
When a child, I understood the season
of dying coinciding with the start
of school.
How Poppies Grow
by Elizabeth J. Coleman
The last time I saw
his silhouette in that red-
One Way of Looking at Grace
by Elizabeth J. Coleman
For 150 million years birds saw
their reflections only in the sea,
Nudes
by Stephen Gibson
Richard Avedon
The real shocker is the celebrity and not the nude.
Island
by Ernest Hilbert
Coffee did little to wake us since we arrived
On the volcano. We only wanted to sleep.
What I Did Not See Driving from Swansea
by Sarah Kennedy
Not the grave of Henry Vaughan, tombed
by the yew at the top of that
tourists’ churchyard,
The Sheela-na-Gig at Llandrindod Wells
by Sarah Kennedy
In her glass coffin,
she’s surrounded—
The Apprentice Pillar
by Sarah Kennedy
The legend of course involves great desire,
pursuit, a gift from God, predictable,
final violence.
beloved 5
by Donald Kuspit
love rises like a phoenix
beloved 6
by Donald Kuspit
let us imagine
that we’re unimaginable,
beloved 7
by Donald Kuspit
agree to disagree
that mind unfold
its wings,
beloved 8
by Donald Kuspit
the underbrush
of nuance
unnecessary,
The Sign of Steel
by Salgado Maranhão. Translated by Alexis Levitin.
Zip Street Blues
by Salgado Maranhão. Translated by Alexis Levitin.
Moviement
by Salgado Maranhão. Translated by Alexis Levitin.
Letter to Daniel G. Hoffman
by John Ridland
There are dead poets I would never dare
to write a letter to:
“Dear Mr. Frost?” “Dear Mr. Eliot?”
Mushrooms
by David R. Slavitt
The poison in a mushroom does it no good.
It doesn’t know, nor does the fellow who eats it,
but he will find out.
Pythagoras in Crisis
by Lee Slonimsky
It’s just a mood, perhaps, but he stands stunned,
the densest woods so asymmetrical:
Pythagoras’s Broken Abacus
by Lee Slonimsky
To disentangle chaos is his task
this morning in deep woods. Secluded glade,
where birdsong is intense.
Sheb Wooley
by R.T. Smith
Now I don’t care who hears me laughing,
content for the moment to be a yodeling fool
Sergeant John Ordway’s Journal, Last Entry
by R.T. Smith
Looking back,
I am satisfied I saw enough for one mortal,
man, especially the devilish mosquitoes.
Summoning Japan
by Elaine Terranova
Instruction, what I sought. Not from the beginning as would require study, reading, deep thought, the string of something you follow until it’s exhausted, but no, only scatter shot.