The First Time it Rained After Moving to New York
I didn’t think they would allow it.
I didn’t quite believe
that the grey interstates above
were made of the same
scattered light
that used to watch over me
(but not too closely –
more of an aunt’s gaze
than a mother’s)
changing hue with the sun’s
location, hosting rainbows
and thunderheads,
the occasional tornado.
Or peering
through the lacy canopy
of leaves.
Looking up those vertical
hallways—raindrops searching
for soil and seeds, tributaries
or tongues—I ducked behind
the huge glass door and
considered the possibility that
I had not, after all,
left the planet.
—Skye Gilkerson
Gown
She rises from
the sheets
of our
bed
wearing nothing
but a
gown
of morning
light
—Ryan Brennan
tinderbox
You can’t fault me for thinking that
every little ache ’n pain
is my last. I mean,
look around!
Only half of us are left
if that. There’s been a lot of
dying of late
and it hurts
near my heart
or what’s left
bereft of plays
and promises.
Road kill and compromise,
tomorrow’s actions
turn away
from the pillaged wine
and abhorrent fact that
we failed those innocents
we once called infants.
The best of us failed
and the rest of us followed.
Aloof to a world on fire.
—Mike Jurkovic
I would never
Kiss you on the lips
My dear true friend
I would never hold your embrace for long
I would never whisper in your ear I love you
My dear true friend
—Lisa Merksamer
Seen/Scene
Am I passing you,
or is it the other way ‘round?
Lines of sight collide
on a cresting highway of hurt
Are you here for me,
or do I have it all backwards?
Once again we bloom
In quarters too cramped for comfort
Why we are drawn to this fray,
this crush of precisely planned accidents?
Like magnets spinning lazy
We push til pull whirls ‘round
When at last we head home together,
each gives up one by one
Til we’re left just the two of us
Unsure if we’re hungry or whole
—Cole Sletten
Muhheakunnuk
Not a love letter today
I want to show you my respect
You felt rough
Made it tough to swim across
Felt like clothes in a washing machine
It was hard, was all I could say
Tried to go smooth
Tried to find my rhythm
Feeling standstill while steadfast
Worked out, I made it
Despite being so in my head
Not anxious about you perhaps
Before colonization and your naming after Hudson
You were called The River That Flows Both Ways
Great Waters Constantly in Motion
And that is what you are
You show your greatness and your current
Life lives through you
You are ebb and flow
Both/and
Let me feel it through you
Feel your beauty, your scale, your motion
Joy and sorrow
Turn towards
I am in awe of you
—Heike Jenss
Memories
We had come far
That summer
Two thousand hot miles
Traveled together
The sun in our eyes
Our plans made in another world
Under the leafy arch
OfWashington Square Park
I hear the sound of sand under your foot again
And we are in the high desert
The dry red desert
Sandstone orbitals once underwater
Frame a scudded sky
Now nothing
But the dry wind
The salt
I thought I knew you then
Forgive me
—Augusta Block
Misgiving
I gave you a stone
You promised not to throw it at me
I gave you a page
You said you’ll write on it
I gave you my opinion
You said
You don’t understand me
And you threw the stone at me
—Ze’ev Willy Neumann
Road Rage
Driving into traffic
I cut a guy off my mistake
sparks his anger no surprise but
the intensity
is so alarming
it lives like a storm
follows me down the road
at a traffic light stop
he gets out of his car
calling me out
calls me “tough guy” startled
I try to apologize
he’s not having it
no harm done
yet the rage I caused
blows me away!
—C. P. Masciola
It Lies There
Decay—
it
lies
there
under
the white
of
fresh snow
fall
as
the white
of
fresh snow
falling.
—Daniel Brown
Autumn Descent
Having been adrift
leaves spoon each other
on ten stone steps
descending
the park’s grounds.
—Diane Webster
The Work of a Poet
A touch—the ushering in
of some mood—a dazzling,
awakening quietude.
—Christopher Porpora
Thirst
Thirst is the worst,
a relentless dearth
of what’s essential;
when you long for water
you feel you’re not long
for this earth.
Spit
won’t cut it.
Only thing harder to bear
is no air.
—Patrick Walsh
Sentinel
Blown back
By western winds
Sweeping gnarled cedar roots,
Sand-anchored, shoring riverbanks
In place.
—Tina Dybvik
Nos Novato
became the Phoenix
and we, from ashes reborn
begin at the start
—Brian Gallio
Untitled
Come back in a day
You’ll fall forward a night
—J Sweet
Testimony of loss
I saw my mother.
She was at a party, laughing and talking,
with a plate of food in her right hand.
In the dream she looked to be in her 40s or 50s—vivacious,
the way she was before she retreated first to a chair,
then to a hospital bed
and all the while to a place I couldn’t reach.
I sat in a corner, watching.
A sweet dog slumped across my lap,
with her head and paws draped over my legs.
She seemed deflated and I wondered if she was sick.
Still, I didn’t move, the better to hold close her warmth and softness.
Then she was gone.
She must have slid off and slunk away while I savored the moment.
I tried to find her but soon realized I never would.
And then the images, the story, vanished too
as I awoke into a well of disquiet.
—Sue Books
Waking
If you’re lucky, there’s the glitter of a dream,
A minnow’s flash of silver through your body’s soft net,
But more often there’s simply nothing,
And your sleep is only a tunnel through the eyes
Brief closure, whose end is when you are again
Wrapped in the familiar blanket of the self. In a dawn soaked room
Each thing, from the stale glass of water on the bedside table,
To the book left open on the tangled sheet, becomes another
Cloud in an unchanging range of sky,
The bearers of a weightless logic. You can see from bed
That the potted orchid near the window has opened
While you were sleeping.
—Nicholas Pagano
DB
A long driveway will tell you who you love.
—Gary Barkman
This article appears in October 2023.
