Somewhere in Iowa

Sure, the drive’s monotonous
but you can’t eat scenery.
Grain has to grow somewhere
and the Midwest is where it chose.

The roads are straight, flat,
and lined with fields 
of corn, soybeans and rye.
It’s no place for trees.
The few that remain 
cluster around farm-houses.

I pass by the occasional 
man of the land
high up in a tractor’s saddle.
Half wave,
half go about their business.
No city I know
could come close to fifty percent.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, North Dakota Quarterly, and Lost Pilots. Latest books, Between Two Fires, Covert, and  Memory Outside The Head are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in California Quarterly, Seventh Quarry, La Presa, and Doubly Mad.

The Whole Point

In the north country each road downtown
seems to head you toward one mountain or another,
as if the whole point

of settling a town was to build roads that take you
to this trailhead or that—

as if the advantage of living here at all
is the chance to view your aspirations from higher up.

Many villages have a steeple making the same point.

Show me someone killing time
downtown, who says, “What’s in it for me,” or even
“If I can’t have her, nobody will,”

or “go back where you came from”—
I’ll show you someone who isn’t strong into climbing.

Russell Rowland writes from New Hampshire, where he has judged high-school Poetry Out Loud competitions. His work appears in Except for Love: New England Poets Inspired by Donald Hall (Encircle Publications), and Covid Spring, Vol. 2 (Hobblebush Books). His latest poetry book, Magnificat, is available from Encircle Publications.

True Love Never Did Run Smooth

I loved Adriana. Picturing her chocolate mane, blazing hazel eyes, and ruby mouth, I’d arrive at her apartment, heart galloping with anticipation. We’d grasp frantically, tumbling onto the floor as we caressed before I carried her to the bed where we’d make love as the setting sunlight poured through her bedroom window, giving her body a golden glow. We didn’t think about food until midnight. 

Torrid months led to hints about commitment, which I deflected. My passive attitude was countered with random digs. Criticisms, I understood, which reflected her frustration, but, even so, the pressure made me uncomfortable.

Why did I cheat? Because a young, flirty thing gave me the eye? Subconsciously, did I want to punish Adriana for her jibes? Regardless, my ego trumped good judgment, and although I immediately regretted my decision, I had no “do-over” for a bad choice. My self-loathing made me careless, like I wanted to be punished. Adriana saw my lover’s explicit text and she exploded. I protested that a one-night stand meant nothing, but Adriana couldn’t be calmed. Vitriol spewed out of her. She accused me of crushing her feelings, then tossing her aside without conscience or regret. 

The pistol she produced shocked me frozen, my attention riveted on a black-cavern barrel, my body becoming dank with putrid sweat. She held fire, and I hoped she was reconsidering, not enjoying my fear. I begged for mercy as my mind flipped through a rolodex of images, searching for words that would assuage her.  

The sting of the gunshot burned, and I grasped my chest, my shirt slimy wet. Adriana’s hand caught a sob before she turned and ran. Collapsing to the ground, I lay in a copper-smelling pool of my own blood, staring at a cloudy sky, feeling my heartbeat in the wound, smelling asphalt and gun smoke. 

I realized I was dying, and surprising thoughts of forgiveness entered my head. I cheated. Adriana felt deeply betrayed. Shooting me was justice. 

She hadn’t dropped the pistol. There were no witnesses. She might be suspected, but if she kept her nerve, nothing could be proved, and she’d stay free. But she couldn’t just get on with her life. Killing me was a grave act. Her conscience would plague her, and her immortal soul was in jeopardy. If I really loved Adriana, I must give her the opportunity for repentance and redemption. As my life ebbed away, I panicked over how I could help her, until it came to me. The authorities would see to it. As an act of true love, I smeared my blood onto the sidewalk spelling the words, “Adriana killed me.”

Joe Giordano’s stories appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, and Shenandoah, plus his short story collection, Stories and Places I Remember. His novels include Birds of Passage, An Italian Immigrant Coming of Age Story, and the Anthony Provati thriller series: Appointment with ISIL, Drone Strike, and The Art of Revenge.

http://joe-giordano.com/

Left Fourth Finger                                                                

When I am working.
When I prepare and eat a meal.
When I unwrap and open packages.
When I use my hands
to help express my heartfelt spoken thoughts.
When I move heavy boxes.
When I get dressed and tie my shoes.

At these times I see my wedding ring,
securely placed on my left fourth finger,
reflecting the light and shadows of my hand,
placed over veins that enter my core.
I see this jewelry symbol of caring,
gently greeting open eyes
in an ancient universal language
that has no need for words.

I can hear our vows
symbolically melded
into a shining precious metal circle.
A circle that whispers
within a diameter of less than an inch.
That I am not alone.
That I share the present.
That I share an unwritten book
of remembered life stories.
That we touch in the middle of the night.

End Roll

A boy, 
Stained red and
Bruised blue, 
Dreams a 
Happy Dream
Where he has a happy life, 
Reliving how
Blood got on his
Hands.
Monkeys,
A birthday cake,
Faith,
Dragons,
Jealousy,
Alcohol,
And a lack of a
Mother’s love.

The credits never stop rolling.
The credits never stop rolling..
The credits never stop rolling…

Alexandra Dark is an undergraduate of the University of New Mexico who has worked on the staff of Blue Mesa Review. Her work was published in Outrageous Fortune and will be published in The Academy of the Heart and Mind. Her favorite color is purple, and she loves oddities.

Game Room Prize

Soft hands used to mean status.
No need to work
fine, delicate skin.

I shook the hand of a man
possibly a boy
with hands soft
doughy
not from lack of work but the
inability to do it.

It made me think of the
tickets, red and perforated (like
the kind you get at the game
rooms playing skee-ball or
shooting hoops).

It made me think of the games
I played to win a stuffed raccoon
(doesn’t even
look real to me)
and how much it seemed to
mean at the time.

Not once did I ever think what
it would be like to have hands
that can’t do anything. I think
that now as I watch the back of the
boy’s (man’s) head while
he nods it to a
country-western song
in the mid-afternoon sun.

LB Sedlacek is an award-winning writer and poet. Her latest poetry book is Unresponsive Sky, published by Purple Unicorn Media. Her latest short stories book is The Renovator & Motor Addiction, published by Alien Buddha Press. She has been nominated for Best of the Net and a Pushcart Prize, both in poetry. Her mystery book, The Glass River, was nominated for the Thomas Wolfe memorial prize. She also enjoys swimming and reading.

Flutterings

On the ground
aspen leaf shadows
flutter a butterfly
kicking free
from its chrysalis
to fly in swallowtail
black and yellow colors –
an aspen leaf
in October.

Diane Webster’s work has appeared in El Portal, North Dakota Quarterly, New English Review, Verdad, and other literary magazines. She had a micro-chap published by Origami Poetry Press in 2022, 2023, and 2024. One of Diane’s poems was nominated for Best of the Net in 2022. Diane retired in 2022 after 40 years in the newspaper industry.

This Much Is Mine

She appears at the gate
to my apartment building
one night. Round
yellow eyes glinting
in the streetlight,
two little lanterns
of curiosity and longing.
She slides her tiny body
along the bars of the gate
and I kneel down
reach out my hand
and she meets it
with the top of her head
closes her eyes
and begins to purr.

Another night
I round the corner
and she comes
mewling sweetly
up the street. We sit
together on the stoop
and I stroke her gray
and white vibrating neck,
and she falls asleep in my lap.
Listen
to the steady magic motor
in her throat.

I bring her upstairs
and she sniffs every
corner and crevice and surface
and then she hops
up on the bed
and kneads my belly
and closes her eyes and when
she slowly opens them again
through the narrow
slits they glow
mine, mine, mine.

She drinks from her blue bowl
in the kitchen. She spreads
a forepaw to lick
the crevices between
all five toes
and all around them,
then places it on the floor
and lifts the other paw.
From the back the chair
she licks the top
of my head as I read.
Her whiskers twitch with dreams.
It snows a thick
layer on the fire escape
she dips her paw in it
then shakes it wildly,
the cold white fluff flying.
She is lit from inside.

My breakfast crumbs fall
and she puts her nose
to the floor to inspect them,
her tiny head dipping down
and up and down.

She wreathes her body
in circles around my shins,
and then she runs
to the bed
and rolls around
in the pile of freshly
laundered towels.
When I stroke her
she is electric
and the sound she makes is electric
as she stretches and contracts.
She grows fatter every day
and sleeps wrapped
tightly around herself.
She sits in the sun
on the windowsill
watches the leaves
blow around below.
She chatters
re eh et et eh at birds.
She sees me and I
blink back.

Wende Crow’s poems and stories have appeared in Ploughshares, LIT, New Haven Review, Inquisitive Eater, and Hartskill Review, among other journals. She received her MFA from the New School and teaches poetry for the International Writer’s Institute in Amsterdam. 

Mirrored Moon

The waning moon
reflects in a
puddle left behind
by the all-day rain …

its valleys &
seas so clear
in the chilled waters

Poet-translator Lorraine Caputo’s works appear in over 400 journals on six continents; and 23 collections of poetry – including In the Jaguar Valley (dancing girl press, 2023). She is a Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominee. She journeys through Latin America, listening to the voices of the pueblos and Earth.

Death Wish

He was dead as a doornail. And to think it could have been me. The icy wind whispered into my ears. My skin felt papery. And my tongue tasted the metallic blood splattered across my skirt, shining like the sequins on the Diwali outfit I had brought to wear. The thought of wearing the zari embroidered skirt had become like a noose tightening around my neck. I tried to run, but my legs refused, reminding me of the times Rahul cornered me in the bathroom of my house in Mumbai. He never did that when everyone was home. Diwali lights turned the streets into a wonderland and the women and the children walking on it turned into fairies with their shimmering clothes and tinkling laughter. I could never ever be like them. I could never ever even imagine it. This isn’t your street and neither is this your bazaar, they cried looking at me. The tainted kurtas of honesty and purity kept me awake at night. Sometimes, I would open the windows and cover the skies with my sequined, silvery white dupatta before crawling back to bed. Little Me knew it helped her dream better of a cozy, golden future far away from the gray, dirty reality that seemed to accumulate like festering secrets in the corners of her house. And one day it would all stop flowing, the blood and the hurt and the shame. Until then I will still feel the cold, white skull of a night upon me. Jaisi karni waisi bharni—what goes around comes around cries the vast green fields as I wait for him to never wake up from his death laced with ice-cold blood and lust. 

Roopa Raveendran Menon lives in Dubai, UAE. Some of her short stories have been published in Corium magazine, Nunum, Bright Flash Literary Review, Tiny Molecules, and elsewhere, and have been nominated for Best of the Net and Best of Microfiction. Her debut middle-grade fiction, Chandu and the Super Set of Parents, has just been published by Fitzroy Books. She tweets erratically @roopamenon01