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Issue Thirteen
all day
rain has come down
drop by drop
the pain of your absence
has penetrated me
-Keith McMahen

a thin trail of clouds
goes on
for a whole county
rushing the ghosts
to their carnival

-Zack Rogow
 
Issue Twelve
in a dream
making love with an old flame
becoming mother
to a swarm of fireflies
he bugs me still
-Jeanne Lupton

forsythia
so eager and bright
in early March
quietly slipped away
will you

-Watha Lambert
 
Issue Eleven
burning
yet this morning
the porch light
I switched on last night
as you strode away
-Ann Horn

jingle of the dog's collar
out in the hall-
we pause
in our lovemaking,
Christmas Eve

-Michael Dylan Welch
 
Issue Ten
Explaining the use
Of the particle wa
Your mouth shapes itself
As if
Preparing for a kiss.
-Paul Bray

in line
so close to Mother's Day
longing
to pick grains of something
from that boy's matted hair

-Joann Klontz
 
Issue Nine
I'm just saying
how good it is to see her
when suddenly
she sticks out her tongue--
catches a snowflake
-Larry Kimmel

Anne Frank
how you scribbled,
endured,
and now I tramp up these stairs
they hurried you down

-Sanford Goldstein
 
Issue Eight
i am alone
at dusk
you make risotto
perfume
another life
-ai li

Beautiful stranger
beside me on the train--
what is it about me
that keeps her filing her nails
for nearly fifty miles?

-Tom Hartman
 
Issue Seven
Today
my forty-seventh birthday ~
the translucence
of white azalea petals
in this unrelenting rain.
-Pamela Miller Ness

sitting alone
in the seaside cafe
my apple pie
arrives with an extra squirt
of imitation cream

-John Barlow
 
Issue Six
don't take me
into your old age
with you, mother--
even the waning moon
keeps its distance
-Jeanne Emrich

not speaking
all the way home
measuring the silence
one telephone pole
at a time

-Michael Cecilione
 
Issue Five
Headed back
from good-byes at the airport
I keep checking
in rear-view the sky
where your contrail lingers
-Marianne Bluger

With the promotion
a corner office--
two window reflections
now vie for
my attention

-George Swede
 
Issue Four
riding a bus
through the Oklahoma heat
an old woman
tells everything that matters
to someone else's son
-Marc Thompson

air raid siren
again. . .
kicking, kicking
my child
in my womb

-Fay Aoyagi
 
Issue Three
I glance up
the clouds have changed
configurations
while I read of love
and inconsistent moods
-Francine Porad

walls full
of artwork
but all I see
is her skirt moving
in the ventilation breeze

-John Sheirer
 
Issue Two
facing my father
across the room-
the nervous chatter
of our china cups
and saucers
-Nasira Alma

as if headed full steam
for the year's end
I wonder
if I ought not dust off
the old cushion and sit

-Sanford Goldstein
 
Issue One
what has made
that aspen tremble
without a wind?
perhaps it too may be
troubled by the past
-Anna Holley

this credit card
already at its limit
I employ
this frosty morning
to scrape my windshield

-Zane Parks


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