Tag: Poems
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Vigil
Terri EricksonPfafftown, North Carolina, United States In a care home in Göteborg, Sweden, my husband’s sister, Jensina, sits vigil at the bedside of their Aunt Astrid, who is dying. She holds her hand, speaks to her as if everything is as it was, the two of them talking in Astrid’s apartment, her sharp mind and…
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When I heard the learn’d epidemiologist
Dean GianakosLynchburg, Virginia, United States Sitting on the maroon recliner in my den, I am having trouble concentrating on the epidemiologist who is talking on the television. He points to a Covid hot zone on a color-coded map of the United States. The screen changes before I can locate Virginia. Were we brown, or yellow?…
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Ignes Fatui of the neurotic mind
Ashten R. DuncanTulsa, Oklahoma, United States Rocking in my vessel sturdyUpon the waters of a swamp so dirty,I am in the crow’s nestEn route to my impending test. Ever since I was young,I have been given to the far-flung:Quiet panic of a possible foe,Wishes to never disturb another’s flow. In the confines of the nest,I…
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What it’s about
Wesley ChouBoston, Massachusetts At coffee-flecked boothsAnd down corridors, wendingA way through the staccato chatter,We guzzle down the details: Oh let me tell you,One fisherman to another,Of fingers turned tassel by a firecracker,Soiled plastic and muffled screams leakingOut a hermetic room that anImplacable observer lords over. We’re in on a dirty game,As if our lives have…
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Half-skull
Sophia WilsonNew Zealand a ghost shrieks at the window,threatens to break through,shatter eye-cover. throbbing fingers infiltratesoft crevices;neuronal mass pulsates. knife twists, gristle-turning;stoat gnaw,rat’s claw. mind summersaults tosnap-trap pain,can’t let go its axon’s branch. cerebral crevices convolute;razorsreplace thoughts. vessel spasm,vision tremble;light jars, sound breaks, eye inverts andnausea heaveslike tidal rise. intention leacher,sight imploder,plan thwarter, work blighter.…