by Sharon May They called me Sheriff, though I had been out of office for five year. Listened to that scanner every day after I retired. In my blood. I knew there’d be trouble when they started building houses up there. First one house, then another. On the sixth one, they was found. Was just… Read More Redeeming Hills
by Gayle Baldwin Sorrow all the Wilder Nest The bulging eyes of water bloat A sail beach-frozen Welded in sand Navigating nowhere, animated by crabs Palsied, probing. Sorrow all the Wilder Nest Flame licking fallen ashes Hardened, lava hills On which the she-goat bleats Full tits hanging, She screams for her young and they… Read More Wilder Nest: Bleat
by Denise Lynn Two things the husband-of-thirty-some-odd-years did every Sunday morning in place of religion: watch the TV news talk shows and accompany his wife to eleven o’clock hot yoga class. This was the concession he made to his wife and her frequent admonitions that he needed to take better care of himself. In… Read More Namaste
by Laura Lanni He stood very still. The children, unable to be still, watched him open the thick binder and feel the pages. He must hold their attention for only half an hour, their eight-year-old selves in his care. When the bell finally rang (after the incessantly loud second hand on the clock ticked… Read More Feel the Music
by Michael Lythgoe Remember fish & chips, Yorkshire bitter, lunch at Rule’s with the ghost of Dickens. In those days, I wandered flea markets, collected old prints, wood blocks, drawers to hold letters, brass knockers. On one corner of the neighborhood stood a tall building, like a missile ready to launch: Moss Bros. I… Read More Convent Garden
by Allen Guest The assignment is a lyric poem; pastoral, she said. He knows this does not involve preaching, but now all he can think about is being in church. He is twelve years old. It’s May, and the tall sanctuary windows are open. Springtime gospel pours in like creek water, drowning song and… Read More Broken Dams and Benedictions
by Allen Guest I run this cold December morning along the high dike that protects my college town from the big lake, which today mirrors a smooth, gray sky which, in turn, mirrors the flat, gray water. Lake and sky converge on the far shore, two featureless sheets zippered together by a line of… Read More The Kingfisher
