What she sees
Michelle M. Kittleson Los Angeles, California, United States From Openclipart. Public Domain. I know she does not believe me, Why won’t you save my son? Why won’t you see what I see? Her firstborn; calm and chubby; Why can’t he walk? He’s one. Why won’t you see what I see? Genetic tests […]
What it’s about
Wesley Chou Boston, Massachusetts At coffee-flecked booths And down corridors, wending A way through the staccato chatter, We guzzle down the details: “empty waiting room” by Julep67. 2006. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Oh let me tell you, One fisherman to another, Of fingers turned tassel by a firecracker, Soiled plastic and muffled screams leaking Out a […]
Me, my father, and the angels
Hope Atlas Livingston, New Jersey, USA I’m Home by Jeniffer Guilherme. November 2019. Published with artist’s permission. The handle of the dresser drawer talks to my father while he sits in bed Whenever he likes he can conjure up the face of the dresser drawer with its pointy ears, droopy mouth and metal earrings […]
Half-skull
Sophia Wilson New Zealand Photo © Chris Downer / Twelfth century headache / (cc-by-sa/2.0) a ghost shrieks at the window, threatens to break through, shatter eye-cover. throbbing fingers infiltrate soft crevices; neuronal mass pulsates. knife twists, gristle-turning; stoat gnaw, rat’s claw. mind summersaults to snap-trap pain, can’t let go its axon’s branch. cerebral crevices convolute; […]
Réquiem
Prasad Iyer Singapore Poet’s statement: This poem expresses the feelings of parents who have recently lost a child to cancer. The first stanza deals with sadness, the second with guilt, and the last one with acceptance. Death with a Child, from the series The Five Deaths. Stefano della Bella. 1648. Fine Arts Museum […]
Para site
Sophia Wilson-Gunther New Zealand Photo by Camila Quintero Franco on Unsplash they burrow, gnaw and niggle I scratch, claw and wriggle they linger, lurk and loom I pick, and probe and groom they crawl, revolt, return I rip and pull and squirm they bite, prick, sting and tunnel under skin I battle, bawl, hand-wring […]
Sleep
Sophia Wilson-Gunther New Zealand Photo by Snapwire on Pexels The fabric of sleep descends like a tired paw, turns off our lights, offers mouth-to-mouth oblivion. For a while we can pretend we’re like stars and that we don’t reside here anymore, between impossible grindstones and the birth-death quandary; We drift weightless as falling leaves, […]
Some subjects are given
Michael Salcman Baltimore, Maryland, United States Self-portrait with fiddling Death. Arnold Böcklin. 1872. Alte Nationalgalerie Berlin Some subjects are given to the authors of poems and songs, of mechanical puzzles and lives, given over and over like a spiking fever in an old TB ward or the low level irritation of a cancer […]
A city of two tales
J. Trig Brown Durham, North Carolina, USA “Homeless Jesus” by Timothy P. Schmalz, SculpturebyTPS.com Installed at Saint John’s Hospice, a ministry of Catholic Social Service of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Photo by Sarah Webb / Courtesy of CatholicPhilly.com CME dawns. Hello, Philly, city of brotherly love, home to Homeless Jesus two blocks off Broad. […]
Maimed
Laura Wendorff Platteville, Wisconsin, USA Your friend says, Photo by Laura Wendorff think of the Amazons who cut off their right breasts in order to easily draw back their bows. But the loss is not like that. It’s more like a flower dug out of the ground, soil still clinging to its roots like […]