Issue 48

Bill Melton

the white racing clouds skip from puddle to puddle never getting wet

Julie Dickson

legs thick as tree trunks on concrete wonder how freedom might feel gray beast sways in sorrow

Justin Orlando

Shadow's shadow cut from the wall, split by candle flame.

Natalie A. Drozda

Morning dove perches, silent in unconfessed darkness I am a stranger to myself.

Suzanne Cottrell

Winding road lined with memories Risks involved in retrieving Some better left behind

Michael Flanagan

childhood memory… a red flame in the darkness and a dog’s wet nose

James Hanlon

tonight I saw a god not a man in the moon

Sabina Morris

the brackish water underneath the bow the oars clicking, your breath hot the pelicans still, watching our death

Heather Teague

Sitting at the computer Mocked by that ever beating ebony bar Words confine hearts seeking liberation

Jackie Maugh Robinson

candle flames adding weight and time to chiffon cake

Hannah-Rose Tristram

Branches heave with wet red fruit. Fecund cider scent comforts orchard air.

Laurie Decker

Scarlet lips kiss a song Fingers tickle ivory Whiskey pours, lovers drown

Michael Proulx

bells in the background sound of the river flowing covering the sound in my heart

M.J. Iuppa

winter’s foggy gloom— the flower shop’s door opens: wholly daffodils

Erin Castaldi

chasing altitude droplets pelt the glass in-flight jitters

Ray Spitzenberger

blots on rice paper freshly cut bamboo, new ink words no longer flow

Claire Scott

circling and spinning sticky silk waiting for a fly or the careless hand of God wiping his forehead

Diane Jackman

summer river flows implacable to the sea sadness ebbs away

William Spencer

Hard spring wheat lay In golden sun. An ocean grows: Red Fyfe tsunami.

Cynthia Young

Children perched like Hitchcock's birds on steel playground bars at Recess, looking just as innocent.

Richard Hartwell

Flattened frog, wafer thin road toad, dried, sprung free of the pavement, lifted by wind, floated to the berm.

Susan Gentry

Buried treasure fantasies and sand castles by the sea contaminate reality

Vyomi Malik

Ocher humps The camels and the hillocks Drink in the indigo lake’s breeze

John Powell

Though you are a thousand miles away This is our space And you saturate it

Angela Hedman

thoughts unraveling tangled knots of fragile threads catastrophic mess

Jake Sheff

The caterpillar’s vision flies away. Good false targets find good aim.

Samuel Barnhart

Dead earth holds answers Who will ask it a question? In snow, memories

Ryan Waters

Traffic jam Red light drishti Breathe...

Scott Lilley

What the moon sees I capture in a mason jar and leave it rotting, labelless

Heather Teague

Perhaps the sky is only blue because we declare, nodding our heads in fallacious approval, "It must be."

James Piatt

My mind reaches out Finding bits of absurdness In the emptiness

Sunayna Pal

Separated by distance, Heart doesn't meet the cherished but in desires and dreams.

John Deal

the cold smell of fear punishes the blackest night to warn of the one

Steve Dodson

running to the top even as the top is falling even as you say your last prayer

Patricia Rossi

blank canvas perched on easel palette strewn in freshly squeezed color waiting for inspiration

Nolo Segundo

Solitary bird, why sing you only of spring outside my window?

Nancy Iannucci

Women cower to his will A hurricane blows Palm trees bend

Maria DePaul

Steam rises from the blacktop at midday Children dance through sprinklers Laughter greets the butterflies

Erin Werner

Episodic schizophrenia: Grandma needn't strain to hear the voice of God.

James Gaines

We watch wrestlers rant and pose Blue veins like excited snakes Writhing beneath their skin

Nells Wasilewski

sparkling sapphire eyes flash of long forgotten love sunlight on water

Cary Barney

boots propped on tables hats pulled down over tired eyes flight delayed again

Abigail E. Wright

hand picked roses sunday evening garden of truth

Michael Smith

A tarnished mirror, Casting all of my complaints. Oh, why do you lie?

Stephanie Metzger

It was the distance between the head and the heart that kept us apart.

A.M. Lynn

Swirling suds drown old worries Clearing the streaming mind, but All the world falls in droplets

Jillian Clasky

Charcoal-threaded skies rampage through the sunlit fields, purging Earth of virtue.

Linda Sacco

Atop a spindly-armed tree, waving to indifferent cars. Last autumn leaf.

Ken Simpson

The autopsy showed truth died of neglect many years ago.

Rachel Zempel

brush strokes capturing the taste of his lips; painting art and love as one