“Bus Ride to the City,” by Marsha Mathews
Jul01

“Bus Ride to the City,” by Marsha Mathews

Afghanistan, 2013 Father’s beard twitches whenever my older sister, Mezhgan, comes into the room. His eyes glaze the way they do when they fall on a flower in the snow. I have tried and tried to elicit that same response. I have trimmed my dark brows like Mezhgan’s, I walk slow and purposefully like Mezghan. I have a bright purple banqa like Mezghan. Last summer, I learned to make minced lamb like Mezhgan, and pistachio dessert, too,...

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“Eye See You,” by Toni Martin
Jul01

“Eye See You,” by Toni Martin

That girl broke down. Back humped up like a kitten, breaths jerky, crouched in the leatherette chair. “You okay?” I say. Loud, to carry over her inward grieving. Head flips up. Scared her. Black hair curtain parts. Looks all around, for someone else. I been here so long, never speak. A big brown statue. Other chairs in the waiting room empty. “You okay?” Yeah, me, I tell her eyes. Black as the hair. She don’t talk. Maybe don’t...

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“Under Water,” by Holly Sneeringer
Jul01

“Under Water,” by Holly Sneeringer

The morning after the lady next door dies in the middle of the night, I go inside my house to tell my mother. “Ronnie is dead,” I say to an empty foyer. I return to the front sidewalk where I had been standing, already warm on my summer bare feet. There is a stillness that I have never, ever felt before as I watch the silent blinking lights of the ambulance parked along the curb. Ronnie’s front door is pushed open by a firefighter...

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“Shellacked,” by Jenifer Browne Lawrence
Jul01

“Shellacked,” by Jenifer Browne Lawrence

If I step from slick refinished hardwood to concrete draw the door’s body to its jamb with a click, down to the grit where in darkness rows of Camaros Celicas Impalas drowse like horses at the foot of the drooping bougainvillea if I cross the blacktop like a pasture in which no tuft of grass remains unchewed where the potholes are tamped gopher mounds and the scent of ginger rises from planting beds delicate barb driving me into the...

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Woman with Crows by Ruth Thompson
Jun30

Woman with Crows by Ruth Thompson

Woman With Crows is Ruth Thompson’s second book of poems. It explores her own past from ”hungry ghosts” to the Fool-Crone, “dancing what she does not know to dance.” It was a finalist for AROHO’s To the Lighthouse Poetry Publication Prize and includes poems that won the New Millennium Writings and Harpur Palate awards. The poem “The White Queen” has generated conversation about dementia and multidimensional expansion and a new...

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