Poetry | December 2025

Toddler Tutor

Isaiah, who’s two, wears his boots again
shining blue, hoping for rain…
even if his pants are gone,
two blue boots must stay on

He looks up. His face asks
“Who are you?”
He’s wary; I’m new.
But
He doesn’t know how to Other.
Yet.

Other better than me Other ugly
Other amazing Other skinny
Other stupid Other scary
Other confusing Other gorgeous

That Other has another god
That one’s lost a limb
That Other one seems really odd.
That one? Is that a he, or a she?

Isaiah’s wide brown eyes simply say
“Who are you?”

My Other is too fat or so thin,
so perfect, or so strange…
That one so sad,
that one, likely, has no future

Can I be like him?
Can I, just, open-eyed, look?

Please, Isaiah, be my tutor

—Jean Churchill

Glimpse

A deer slips across the trail—
at least, that’s what I think at first,
then sense a different shape,
fluid motion, tilted grace,
sly beauty in a spotted coat.
All summer, I’ve been tantalized
by videos of backyard romps,
lethal eyes peering from the brush.
I find no paw prints in the dirt,
no confirmation of my dream,
just trees reclaiming rolling ground,
lichen targets on their backs.
Bobcats want to stay unseen,
and today, I might have done my part,
but I’ll run the route again,
hoping for a better glimpse
of this animal so secretive
an encounter is as rare as love,
to be able to say, I saw you.
I saw you and won’t forget.

—William Keller

Ready

“It’s not fair,” I say.

“It’s the work of God,” she replies.

My mind rejects quickly and head turns to look at fuchsia leaves on trees wavering in the wind. If I call on the Goddess Tara and offer my plumped figs, inner pink guavas, place the golden bowls filled with water just right on the red satin tablecloth, light the candles and burn the passion fruit scented incense, all of Dahlia’s suffering might stop. What can I say?” I ask. “I’m going to heaven,” she says with a bright smile. “I bought my ticket early,” she teases. “I’m going to be with the lord.” My eyes float over the pond surrounded by weeds and mossy rocks. Paprika-colored leaves float in it, and the fresh scent of the new season enters my nostrils. Dahlia asks the nurse for ice chips to suck on before the physical therapist enters the room at the rehab center. “Are you ready?” she questions with a jolly tone. The kind that gives hope to patients. Dahlia answers, “Yes, I’m ready,”

—Jerrice J Baptiste

Moon

Outside,
a fractured moon dreams
softly unexposed.

Slanted light
falls through the window,
silver on cotton sheets.

A marble girl
lies with her spine
on the edge of her bed.

Her fingers
trace porcelain veins

of a lover
she stopped loving
long ago.

Ruby lips dive
into pale mouth

while

empty
gray eyes
stare vehemently
into darkness

and radiate nothing—

—Diana Waldron

“…all the time. All. The. Time.”

Calling him a sociopath feels so plain,
Like stating water falls from rain,
In currents strong that never cease,
A flood of thoughts that bring no peace.

He’s like piss—perpetual, unceasing, and raw. A relentless tide that wears and erodes, the truth so clear, it hardly bears to be told.

—ooznozz

Resilience, you think
is not a hard thing

A small moth drifts past
its wings catching the last trace
of something confident
each drop holding
the world inverted
sky below, earth above
the creeping, generous climb
of the sun

You stand there
ankle-deep in pasture
and realize
that nothing in this field
is asking to be eternal

—George Cassidy Payne

Deep Mutual Concurrence

I’ve been meaning to write
you dear as things are not
what they seem; truthfully
dear you’ve been appearing
in my dreams and just last
night in one tossing gravity
aside we stepped toward one
another, wildness in our eyes
and becoming one

we began to shake

and
gasp—

suddenly I found myself
startlingly
awake

—Christopher Porpora

What You Were

Two glossy pages in full color,
The thickest slice of bread,
A fountain in a courtyard,
A Wednesday visit to the cemetery
With no shade and cicada song,
The piano solo in “Rhapsody in Blue,”
The empty space between two olive trees,
The third glass of wine,
A corridor with all the doors open
Except for one, at the far end,
The sun at noon in July,
The falling of an arc, or its highest assent,
Or both, like a bridge between two shores,
The deepest part of the river,
Raspberry jam, peach pits, flowers in a vase,
And not the pearl in the ring on my third finger,
But the grain of sand inside it.

—Emily Murnane

On My YouTube

The avalanche has melted
into a techno rave babe in a thong
An ice dam has broken
to release Tom Cruise parachuting
into a fist fight for a midtown parking spot
A gorilla wears a “Try Me” T-shirt advertising
understanding Thomas Pynchon in 20 minutes
The sunrise over Lake Ontario is the same as
Guillermo drinking a tequila shot on a water slide
On my YouTube I learn who I truly am
Dr. Dribble behind the back and through the legs
of the sad-faced Bigfoot having sex behind a mossy log
If I click now, my new bath towels arrive tomorrow
Jon Ossoff wants $5 to save America from
the camera that fell from space filming all the way

—Will Nixon

Sweet Solstice

The day stretches its legs like a golden pup
ready to fetch and meet and discover.

It has grown impatient in spring’s wings
of waxing and waning and waiting.

So now it yips, bright and open-mouthed
and leaping up into a rainbow.

And that is when I seize it, grateful
for the promise that licks my face.

—Nana T. Baffour-Awuah

Graffiti on a Tenement

Gray walls breathe—
yeah, they breathe—
like old lungs full of dust and memory.
And then—boom—
color explodes.
Red screaming against rust,
blue cutting through the smoke,
yellow daring the sun to come back.

This is not art school.
This is survival.
A shout in the silence,
a mark that says, “I exist.”

Glass windows—
eyes gone blind,
still watching the street hum below.
Fire escapes—
those crooked ribs of the building—
climb like questions,

metal lines sketching escape
that never quite arrive.

But look—
beauty doesn’t need permission.
It drips, it runs, it bleeds
down the walls,
turning decay into rhythm,
concrete into heartbeat.

Because sometimes
color is the only language left.
And this—
this riot of paint—
is the tenement
remembering it’s still alive.

—Craig Roberts

Haiku Musings

Maybe I’m jaded
Sipping on the same syrup
Until it bitters

Down in my foxhole
I hear voices of reason
But war keeps me safe

When love meets patience
And patience overrides fear
Is trust a given?

Ships in my harbor
Untethered thoughts colliding
Wreak havoc at sea

—Liz Fraser

Saratoga Springs

morning dew and sky blue
just starting anew
spring came about after winter was through
all about to blossom
but then i met you

it all seemed real true
but oh sometimes i’d lie
and up in the glistening, sparking sky
there were flowers and sunshine
and cupcakes, all kinds

down on earth
the rain fell
but oh i’d never tell
so you never quite knew all the things that i felt

now i’m pleased to be
at home by myself
as the snow out my window
melts straight down to hell

i know that someday i’ll fall for someone else

but tonight i’ll hear your love
at my doorbell ring

god bless these winters,
i miss saratoga springs

—Rosa Weisberg

Lifesaver

Tis my lucky day—
ice forms on my cracked window
—Mayueroa
Today, I Drank With My Foreign Friends
Today, I drank with my foreign friends.
They were funny, talk loud, drink strong.
We had good time. I laughed a lot.
But when I walk home –
suddenly, quiet.

Street is empty. My heart too.
I don’t wanna go home yet.

So I stop here.
Small place. One bowl of ramen.
Hot soup, simple taste,
steam hit my face.
Feels . . . peaceful.

Maybe this is me.
Korean man, 50s, little drunk,
just eating noodles before home.

—Woody Shin

This article appears in December 2025.