John McKernan I sometimes go to sleepWith a white umbrellaSuspended above meIts black spotlightOf shadows blanketingWhat must be calledMy Body Who needs a home?What cries for a roof? ...
Carolyn Oliver And the world’s the same, lessa few smashed tulips.The melting comes beforethe hyacinths I cut yesterdaybell open.The fleshiness of the flowers!As if they relish the endthe stems...
Stephen Tuttle On the fourth night, Samson woke to remember he had no hair and had no eyes. He had dreamed of angels plaiting his locks into seven cords that reached a golden city and brought it...
Matthew Tuckner Instead of dying, I decided to rename the birds.Outside my window is the yellow-throatedme-in-me. Holding its wing in my hand, at a rightangle, it looks small, smaller than the radial...
John McCarthy When we get home from working long days, we know there are longer days ahead that do not love us. The white salt-streaks following us home in the...
Jeff Ewing Bolinas, California isn’t quite there. Threads of fog drift across the middle distance, making the landscape insubstantial, the people half-formed. I can hear the thud of breakers...
Elizabeth Galoozis My first exposure to Honey Creek School was in second grade, when our class, like every other second grade class in the county, took a field trip there. Our teacher, Mrs. Stone,...
Meagan Ciesla I wasn’t alone on that long walk when the dog came around the hedge, snarling. My friend was pushing her two-year-old in a stroller, and when she screamed, I thought she was joking...
Jessica Franken C major: Unsalted. Straight as train tracks. Children’s key. Your niece (six, with a tiny teenager inside) is learning piano, white keys first. If she grows cross, whisper that C...
Olivia Treynor Fourteen years old and my sister decides she is going to starve herself into the shape of something beautiful. She has not yet told me this is her plan, but from the way she studies...