– after Rita Dove
Morning. I look at my fuzzy chest
in the bathroom mirror. What are these
hard disks, like quarters, under my nipples?
I’m a boy; am I growing breasts?
I can hear the girls in my class giggling.
Last evening during homework,
my father called me to the living room,
and back at my desk, I couldn’t remember
what he’d said, but I realized
he had not yelled at me like the day before
and the day before that and . . . The letters
in the book swam like fish avoiding
a bigger fish until the current
in my eyes calmed.…
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Sweetness begins like the drizzling of a raincloud
Sporadically spitting in tasteful bursts
Like ink blotches on wet parchment,
Sugar waltzes with taste buds and
Bides its time before bursting the dam
And flooding the mouth with ambrosia
Pray the bees do not mind.
– Sarah Al-Hajj
Note: This piece was previously published in Sarah Al-Hajj’s poetry pamphlet, Wonky Fingers, in February of 2024.…
...continue reading
for Ava
Today my daughter—
now twelve and already looking like a young woman—
stands with me at the edge of a field.
I tell her California’s mustard flowers
are an invasive species first planted
by Spanish colonizers
so they wouldn’t lose their way.
She tells me about the blue bowl
she made in pottery class,
that comet pieces and moons make up Saturn’s rings.
I point to the park on the other side of the road,
where small children climb monkey bars,
where we used to play every Saturday
and wait for the first evening stars to let us know
it was time to go home.
She says she is too old for places like this now.
All around us are blazing pink daffodils
and brilliant lilies of the valley.…
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The fall
has halted
for the
yellow maple
leaf, fresh
caught, bright,
casting a
tiny shadow
in the
porch corner
from the
spider’s web
in the
last light
of this
October day:
no escape,
no meal.
– John Beck
Note: This piece was previously published by LansingOnlineNews.com, a now defunct local news outlet, in 2012.…
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this heart of mine feels dull and lonely
aching for your love, only
are you thinking of me where you are?
are you looking at the same stars ?
did the moon tell you i’ve been telling her stories about you?
and how every shade and every hue
is more vibrant next to you ?
carolina skies are nothing compared to your eyes
and my my my… i sure do miss my guy
the one who dons himself in paint
my patron saint
in t e c h n i c o l o r
my dream of a lover
personified
just in time
to save my soul
was that your goal?
because now it’s yours
careful to treat it well, toujours
she’s a delicate little thing, this heart
but i’d sacrifice it all and call it art
– Madi Huffman…
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If only there could always be hamentaschen for breakfast:
little cookie triangles crumbling into coffee.
If only there was always coffee.
If only the coffee would grind itself—silently.
If only I craved tea in the morning and not coffee.
If only there was always optimal-temperature tea and time to read
during a rainstorm, soft light, a blanket.
If only in the rainstorm a cat named Edith found her way to me.
Or an Eddie. I would also take a male cat named Eddie
in a rainstorm, bedraggled, slightly grumpy.
If only Eddie would be willing to contemplate a name change
to something that better fits his personality. Or if not,
if only he’d let me tell everyone that Eddie is short for
Editorializer,
Edification,
One-half-of-a-set-of-identical-twins.
If only Eddie could gain the power of speech to tell me
that last one seems like a stretch.…
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The sand squelches between my squirmy toes,
as I clutch my red bucket of curious creatures—
captured by my bubbling interest.
I venture closer to the ocean’s edge,
a shell suddenly slicing into my foot.
My blood mingles with sand and gravel,
like strawberry syrup and graham cracker crumbles.
The sea eagerly laps at my wounded skin,
salt sizzling against the rawness within.
My bucket topples, releasing its captives,
and I watch them scurry back to their homes.
I received a warning,
a debt to settle for my youthful curiosity.
A price in lifeblood,
transaction now complete.
– Lawren Coleman…
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