Again

Later in June, we would wish
the rain over us, welcome that last

crisp of spring. We wanted to hold
these lovemoments, whisper of forever

written in the tree buds. And yet we knew
what was coming, sad repeat of last

year’s summer, drying grass, bend
of flowerheads into the field, the sudden

broken promises, the surrender of our
tired hearts. How we knew again

that everything that started in April
would show its fraying edges, and by summer

the end of all of it would begin.

Late August Evening

Blue moon in the sky, full
for the second time this month.

Just like us, meeting for another
try at love. We sit at our favorite

restaurant, order our favorite meal –
garlic pasta, buttery bread and halfway

through you are certain it’s over. The
rest of our dinner going untouched and me

watching your face, now fallen out of love,
your voice talking about everything

that isn’t us. The waiter remembers
our favorite dessert – tiramisu and two

romantic spoons. I want to warn the knowing
smile from his face. Instead, I take a bite,

sweetness going dead on my tongue. I look
at your hands, skittery birds about to fly.

Meanwhile, outside, the second chance moon
continues to shine, flickering in and out

of the sky, hidden, then not, behind
a balled-up fist of ­clouds.

Francine Witte’s poetry and flash fiction have appeared in Wigleaf, Mid-American Review, Lost Balloon, Stonecoast Review, Moon Candy Review, and many others. Her latest books are Dressed Wrong for All This, (Flash), The Theory of Flesh (Poetry), and The Way of the Wind (novella). She lives in NYC.

Autobiography

The story went that when I was born
my nose broke when I hit the floor.
At four, I watched my mother stuff
my blankie like a headless twitching body
in our trashcan and tamp it down.
At six, I left play forts behind.
At six and a half, the Brothers Grimm.
(Mother threw out the book—of course—
citing the family violence within).
When I was nine, we left our house
with the basement bomb shelter
and moved near the city dump.
At eleven, I left my childhood friends
for a lipsticked group that roamed our district.
On my twelfth birthday, my father left off
smacking me in favor of a lock on my door
and a snarled-back lip in front of others.
At thirteen, I left, but came back in the dark.
At fifteen, I tried to leave my body
but the fuming nurse refused my wish.
Two years later, I left home again, but
snuck back for a suitcase and stumbled into
a realistic toy gun pointed at my chest.

Luanne Castle‘s Kin Types (Finishing Line), a chapbook of poetry and flash nonfiction, was a finalist for the 2018 Eric Hoffer Award. Her first poetry collection, Doll God (Aldrich), was winner of the 2015 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award. A Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, she studied at University of California, Riverside (PhD); Western Michigan University (MFA); and Stanford University. Her writing has appeared in Copper Nickel, TAB, Glass, Verse Daily, and other journals. 

Train Ride

A beginning is also an end.
An end is also a beginning.

On the F, the woman sitting
across from me is wearing heavy

sunglasses. 10:30 might still be early
for some people. It’s the glare of these

metallic cars, harsher than natural sunlight.
When she takes them off, she has a black

eye. The movie The Long Goodbye comes
to mind, how waves of the ocean drown

out their voices in Malibu. Nina, brushing
her blond hair aside, shows us her bruises:

“It doesn’t look like you walked into
a door.” On the wall, the last few lines of

a poem: And at dawn, waking… The
subway blaring, I step out into the light.

On E. 60^th Street

When I was turned away from
a matinee— “Who goes to the movies
at 4pm on a Tuesday?” –the teller says:
“I hate to break it to you, but you’re not
more special than anyone else.” It’s rush
hour: everyone’s leaving, yellow cabs line
up in a row, standstill traffic. I watch
the day wind down from the second floor
of an obscure building. Wind and rain
alternate in unpredictable succession.
On the inside, the outside world seems
to unfold on a distant screen. The sound
of blazing sirens and desire fires away.
And yet, the edge appears closer.
Dreaming of the end, through clarifying
high windows, I see the beginning.

Irene Han writes, “I am an academic and specialize in political theory. I have a Korean background and have lived abroad. Therefore, you will see various cultural landscapes in my poems.” 

History’s Girl
 
Just a scattering, a row or two of mourners,
nurses and carers, is in the crematorium,
as the very old lady’s passing is noted.
We know just a little about her life.

She’d been a country girl, in the orchards,
in health and growth. And then in service
in a Shropshire manor, first a parlourmaid,
then a housekeeper, domestic dignitary.

Somehow to college though, stenography,
a post-war typist in a London ministry.
Later her one boy friend (she was vague on this),
a feverish kind of fun, clogging with alcohol.

Rehab, then another surge, and to Scotland,
junior admin, poll tax and public spite.
Retirement was a release, South again,
and, for a joyous while, the neighbours,
their boy and girl (both in Canada now)
who called her Auntie.

The move to a cottage in Pembrokeshire
brought immersion again in fields
and green and trees. Brought too infirmity,
the final passage to the nursing home.

Now March’s sleet tickles the roof and doors
of the crematorium. And history’s girl leaves us,
in a respectful hush, behind the closing curtains. 

Robert Nisbet is a Welsh poet, sometime creative writing tutor at Trinity College, Carmarthen, living a little way down the coast from Dylan Thomas’s Boathouse. He has published widely and in roughly equal measures in Britain and the USA. He is a Pushcart Prize nominee for 2020.

Pendant

One time your pendant,
ammonite in blue resin,
fell into my mouth
and I let it stay
a moment too long.
I was like one
about to swallow
a folded page so
it doesn’t land in
the wrong hands.

Peter Waldor is the author of Door to a Noisy Room (Alice James Books), The Wilderness Poetry of Wu Xing (Pinyon Publishing), Who Touches Everything (Settlement House), which won the National Jewish Book Award, The Unattended Harp (Settlement House), State of the Union (Kelsay Books) and Gate Posts with No Gate (Shanti Arts). Waldor was the Poet Laureate of San Miguel County, Colorado from 2014 to 2015.  His work has appeared in many journals, including the American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, the Iowa Review, the Colorado Review, Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and Mothering Magazine.  Waldor lives in Trout Lake, Colorado.

Honestly I Hardly Think of Him at All

What I thought might come
of this I can’t recall.

I rarely dreamt of safety
and never forgot how the wax

melts when I fly too high,
the sky there uncluttered by restraint.

I am torched.
I am metal I melt I am molten.

How blue my father’s eyes burned,
like a welder’s acetylene flame,

the 6,000⁰ surface
of the sun. I wished him to sleep

on blue glass the color of his eyes
and wake suddenly afire.

None of that matters yet still
l fall through the atmosphere.

Still come down here.
Every time.

 
Michael Milligan has worked as a construction laborer, migrant fruit and grape picker, homestead farmer, and graphic arts production manager. He took his MFA in Creative Writing at Bennington College, thereby joining the teeming mass of writers with degrees of dubious cachet. He was co-founder of Poetry Oasis in Worcester MA and was co-editor of Diner. His book reviews, fiction, and poems have appeared in Agni, The New Orleans Review, The Valparaiso Review, Chaffin Journal, and others.

–Morning damp fades–

Didn’t pay attention again
world changed left me confused.
Been years or at least
feels that long,
drank self into forgetting.
Dogs bark down road.
Morning damp fades,
leaves hot vehicles odors
drifting down road.
Someone I don’t remember
smiles recognition
damn hangover.

David E. Howerton is a part-time programmer and lives in the American River
Canyon outside of Auburn, CA. He has done landscaping, sign painting,
cooking, and made jewelry to pay the bills. His hobbies include type
design, soapstone carving, walks in the woods, collecting dragons, and
a growing library of Science Fiction.

Saint Lot

I tried to be a good jew + christian
+ preach the word of god to sodomites
they wouldnt listen + in fact his plan
went far beyond those awful carnal nights—
it’s hospitality: if people want
to sodomize your guests (tho what the men
did to deserve that I don’t know—I cant
imagine fucking angels) well you then
offer your daughters + if that dont work
you get the hell out of town—god will put
it in
_____ but pity me: my hag wife dies
+ my hot daughters raped me—on my word—
two nights in a row the ungrateful sluts
believe me—when has a man of god lied?

Saint Wife of Lot

I saw my husband offer my daughters
for carnal knowing to the crowd outside
in place of two strangers
____________________you are so sure
were angels + I saw that he had lied
about everything + I saw my name
erased from history but still I ran
b/c I saw what he would do to them
alone + I was right—you know what men
can do but yes I turned + saw the fire
a city burned I saw the children burn
I saw the angels laugh at us like dogs
I saw that this would be about desire
or sex so I knew it would be my turn
+ so I turned
_____________to look + saw your god

Saint Daughter of Lot

So yes when God turns yr mother to salt
get father drunk + fuck him to have kids
voilà yr christianity: my fault
when obviously it was he who did
the
____drinking + the raping—what’d you think?
a parable about how it’s ok
to fuck yr daughters?
__________________ha ha wink wink
those zany christians—oops I meant to say
those jews—you get my point—it’s all bullshit
control religion to control women
no exceptions for abortion in case
of incest we need punishment
for being sluts + not dad fucking me

Born in Puerto Rico, John Yohe grew up in Michigan and lives in Oregon. He has worked as a wildland firefighter, deckhand/oiler, bike messenger, wilderness ranger, and fire lookout. Fiction Editor for Deep Wild Journal. www.johnyohe.com