Karen Ross ~
The new parents,
both rabbis,
have dark circles
under their eyes.
Instead of davening
with prayer shawl,
at each sunrise,
they are drowned
in diapers and breast milk.
Or maybe the drowning
in diapers and breast
Jan Jahner ~
They came up from the center of the earth, The People
where sky speaks to corn,
speaks to cottonwoods, to runoff in the wash.
Living beneath black-slashed canyon walls
home to sheep and weavers.
He is one of them, my patient
Daniel Becker ~
At work there are three kinds of drills: fire, earthquake, shooter.
During a fire drill the building empties into the parking lot
where crowds kill time and blame the fire marshal.
The smokers want to smoke but don’t.
A doctor talks to
Melissa Fournier ~
Inked footprints on paper
a one-ounce trial size
of Johnson’s Head-to-Toe Baby Wash
one-quarter gone
a striped receiving blanket and knit hat
folded inside a clear plastic bag
zipped to preserve her scent
a vial of holy water
Francie Camper ~
Parkway, three a.m. Ambient light.
Try to shake off the sleeping pill.
Open car window. Rock station 104.3
Watch the divider, the white line.
Count the other cars on the road,
make up stories to stay awake.
Don’t miss the
Thomas Nguyen ~
Consider what remains: chipped yellow
paint, roman candles, wilted gardenias,
so many photographs. Accept that
time makes things distant, that his
absence doesn’t bleed into your memories
as much as it used to. Try harder and
harder to remember the
Judy Schaefer ~
How can I write a poem, nurse, in this pelted room? Nurse? Nurse!
Memory loss, southern pine–nurse, this is not a poem-writing-room
The floors ooze resin at your footsteps
Spanish moss, from every wall
Spongy trod of medical students
Surgery went well,
Sandra Miller
Every evening at dusk
As the sun finally shutters its eye,
The mosquitos rise and sing
Their tiny tuneless song
Because mosquitos cannot know
They have only a few weeks to live and find us
They cannot grasp how we recoil
John Grey ~
Your bones tremble.
Freedom no longer suits you.
Warm sun on skin feels wasted.
The smell of pine…
where’s that old familiar ether?
So many active people on the sidewalk,
behind the wheels of cars.
Who have they come
Wynne Morrison
A man a few feet ahead of me
is pulling a rolling carry-on,
a clear plastic “belongings” bag tied
to the top by a white drawstring.
I can’t resist a glance in the bag,
like a stranger who wonders about lives
Cortney Davis
The minutes dragged. She worked at it–
sweat pooling in her frown, her lungs
bellowed in and out as if the air were oil.
Her expression never changed.
Beneath the light,
my mother’s skin looked violet.
Nolan Snider
People say it’s the last place
They want to go.
But when push comes to shove,
It’s the next-to-the-last place.
Although there are some who are
Ready to move on to that last place.
Others stay as long as they can
