David Rock Winner of the Greg Grummer 2021 Poetry Contest The friction of experience— a little something heavyto carry around in a pillow case to remind us that our motherembroidered her blossomsat...
Benjamin Niespodziany Runner up for the 2021 Greg Grummer Poetry Contest The twins live in an old house with a stick that speaks three tongues. Atop the stick there sits a shifting egg. It rots and...
W. Todd Kaneko My grandmother once fed meclementines in the living roomwhile she spoke with my father, words in Japanese droppinglike spiders from her lips, scurryingacross the carpet and into...
W. Todd Kaneko I watch my father crawlon the ceiling tonight, moving like a bat in the stalactites, a wishin the form of a man clingingto the plaster. I watch someoneelse’s father slither up the...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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? ...
John McCarthy I went to church by myself the other day after having given up on God. I swear the light falling through the stained glasslooked like your initials—it even sounded like...
