Rest by Amanda Laughtland

I like to lie down on my couch
with clean laundry and the noise
of heat flowing through the vents,
my favorite noise next to your voice
on the telephone when I’ve been sleeping
and have forgotten how close
you can sound when your words
fit right up against my thoughts
with a silent click like the pieces
of a well-made puzzle, no need
to force anything into place.



Amanda Laughtland is the author of Postcards to Box 464 (Bootstrap Press). Her poems have appeared most recently in The Seattle Star. She teaches English at Edmonds Community College and enjoys making zines and paper collages.

Breakfast at Eats by Laura Winkelspecht

Eats has a counter
with stools sprouting along one side,

stainless steel stems with red vinyl blossoms,
and tables waffle-ironed into rows.

The breakfast special—
two eggs, bacon or sausage,

hash browns and toast—
will run you six bucks or less.

Through the pick-up window,
underpaid cooks sweat

over sausage and Denver omelets,
telling stories that start with, “Me and …”

and always end with “Wha!”
The waitress wears an apron with pockets,

hoping her tips incubate like Joeys,
and mature into grocery money

by the end of the week.
With pencils in her ponytail,

she carries overloaded plates
balanced across one arm

to gray-haired men in baseball caps.
The dishwasher’s cousin pushes

the charity of a bottomless cup
to small-town extremes

while he sits with a newspaper,
coffee rings circling unread ads.

The clink of spoons against cups
punctuates conversations

with an uneven syncopation.
The neon sign in the window

blinks its modest promise:
Eats.



Laura Winkelspecht is a poet and writer from Wisconsin who writes with the hope of finding lightning among the lightning bugs. She has been published in Anti-Heroin Chic, One Sentence Poems, Rat’s Ass Review, Poets Reading the News, and others. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee.

Lunch with Buddy Guy by Laura Winkelspecht

My lunchtime companion
is an old black man
and his smoldering guitar.
If he were here in person,
I’m sure he’d wonder
what we have in common
(and how he ended up
in a suburban living room),
but as I pick my way through
composing some mediocre stanzas while
eating a “what’s left in the fridge” salad,
I think he’d learn
that we are each trying
to make sense of our worlds
through the act of creating,
and as his music celebrates,
cautions and berates,
I can only say, “yes sir, me too.”



Laura Winkelspecht is a poet and writer from Wisconsin who writes with the hope of finding lightning among the lightning bugs. She has been published in Anti-Heroin Chic, One Sentence Poems, Rat’s Ass Review, Poets Reading the News, and others. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee.

Senryu and Tanka Road Trips by Robert Demaree

1. Going to Canada

Downtown, downeast Maine:
Tidal river at low tide:
Mud, sea gulls, old tires.

Brown-sea flower pots,
Gabled houses, pink lupins:
New Brunswick August.

Four-course lobster meal,
Sunset over Stanley Bridge,
Red and white lighthouse.
Did not attend a ceilidh.
Lucy Maud Montgomery.

Anne of Green Gables,
Cliffs, sand the color of rust:
Prince Edward Island.
A destination wedding,
Japanese girls on buses.

Can you fall in love
With the island but not Anne?
The answer is yes.
A writer put it this way:
“Wooden houses; blue, blue days.”

Itinerary:
We did not get to Scotland.
Cape Breton Island.

Boreal forests,
Blue seascape in the distance
On the Cabot Trail.

North of the causeway:
Highland Scots took it for home,
Road signs in Gaelic.

Bills, coins left over:
Canadian currency,
For use next summer.

2. Going to Florida

Troy, Carthage—bear right.
Highway sign in the Sandhills,
Towns named for losers.

North Carolina:
Quakers, German pietists
Should have hung in there.

South Carolina:
Cross, marchers, a nation’s flag:
Times not forgotten.

On I-95:
Abandoned outlet village,
Giant billboards blank.

Six lanes of traffic,
Seventy-five miles an hour:
Seniors hang on tight.

Hummocks, banyan trees,
Dense, damp, dark green parrot home:
Miami autumn.

Pollo Tropical:
This is the third world she says.
The new world, say I.

Florida junket:
We did not see the ocean.
Hours in a small room.

Not a pleasure trip:
A need to see her brother,
While there was still time.

Epilogue:

Then five months later:
Small memorial service,
The funeral home
On Dixie Highway, Route One,
Interment in Bradenton.

After the service:
Wheelchair ramp, up on its side,
No longer needed.



Robert Demaree is the author of four book-length collections of poems, including Other Ladders, published in June 2017 by Beech River Books. His poems received first place in competitions sponsored by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire and the Burlington Writers Club, and have appeared in over 150 periodicals. A retired educator, he resides in Wolfeboro, N.H. and Burlington, N.C.

High-Wind Warning by Martha Christina

When the house finch
arrives at the feeder,
a high wind warning
is in effect. Gusts
just shy of hurricane
force are forecast,
all afternoon and into
the night. Humans
are warned. . . Stay inside,
stay away from windows.

The thin branches of
the weeping cherry
swing closer and closer
to the feeder, until one gust
whips the finch off its perch,
blows it out of my sight, away
from the window, where I sit
watching, though warned not to.



Martha Christina is a frequent contributor to Brevities. Longer work appears in Innisfree Poetry Journal, Naugatuck River Review, earlier postings of Red Eft Review, and most recently in Star 82 Review, and Crab Orchard Review. She has published two collections: Staying Found (Fleur-de-lis Press) and Against Detachment (Pecan Grove Press).

At the Equinox by Martha Christina

Built high in the maple
the crows’ nest held
sturdy as a burl
through the long winter.

Yesterday, Spring
roared in, proverbial.
Today, the nest is gone,
bare branches, barer still.

And the crows?
Raucous.
Resilient.
Rebuilding.



Martha Christina is a frequent contributor to Brevities. Longer work appears in Innisfree Poetry Journal, Naugatuck River Review, earlier postings of Red Eft Review, and most recently in Star 82 Review, and Crab Orchard Review. She has published two collections: Staying Found (Fleur-de-lis Press) and Against Detachment (Pecan Grove Press).

That Winter Spring Came Late by Howie Good

Like yesterday
and the day before,
today will be long,
yet another void to behold,

sunlight reduced
to puzzling remnants,
chalky gray shreds,

and the leaf buds closed
until further notice.



Howie Good is the author of What It Is and How to Use It (2019) from Grey Book Press, among other poetry collections.

Sunny Side Up by Howie Good

I am embarrassed
that I yell too much,
promising the joggers,
dog walkers, and

parents with strollers
who wander past
my driveway that
we will be OK.

I sometimes catch
their expressions;
it’s a combination
of surprise and puzzlement.

Sometimes they smile.



Howie Good is the author of What It Is and How to Use It (2019) from Grey Book Press, among other poetry collections.

The Spread by Mark Danowsky

Through breaks in clouds
Tiny dots
Us going about our lives

Post-disaster
Tiny dots

Farther away



Mark Danowsky is author of the poetry collection As Falls Trees (NightBallet Press, 2018). His poems have appeared in The Healing Muse, North Dakota Quarterly, Peacock Journal, Right Hand Pointing, and elsewhere. He’s Managing Editor for the Schuylkill Valley Journal.

Garbage by Vera Salter

He knows he must put it out on Thursday
but is not sure which day is Thursday.

He insists on making his own food so I set a can
of Campbell's Chunky Chili Mac on the counter.

Orange and beige pills in little green boxes
labelled for each day are often skipped.

He wakes to see a pregnant feral cat break
into the house as he feels the weight of a baby

in his arms. He does eat the ham and cheese
sandwich I make and we sit close together

on the bottom of the stairs and remember
the many homes where we once lived.



Vera Salter is recently published in Right Hand Pointing, The Writers Circle 2 and Writing in a Woman's Voice. Born in a refugee family in the United Kingdom, she raised a family in the US and is a retired health care administrator and advocate.

Today in the Rain by Steve Klepetar

I saw them, a tall man
and two small girls.

They stood on the street,
and fog swirled between us.

Cold wind ruffled their hair.
Puddles widened beneath

their boots as they waited,
quietly with naked hands.

Were they really there?
My eyes burned. I strained

to see them, blinked and
blinked again, polished my

glasses with a small blue rag.
The man seemed to raise

his hand, though it might
have been a shimmer of leaves.

The girls faded in the mist.
It was so quiet, with clouds hung

over the hills and frogs waiting
until nightfall to begin their song.



Steve Klepetar is holed up in the Berkshires, where he can see the mountains from his writing desk as spring makes its way north.

Balance of Power by Russell Rowland

Father and little girl face off in the front yard.
She is two clenched fists, he a pointing finger.

Dad sees, as God saw in Eden (“What is this
that you have done?”) that at times it’s worth
remembering, you did fashion them yourself.

His child is realizing the leeway of willfulness:
those who misbehave still get clothed and fed.
There will be the expected stories before bed.

Never a balance of power in war, only in love,
where, if weights on the see-saw are uneven,
the long-legged side compensates to equalize.

Daughter stomps off to her bedroom, father
returns to ground beef shrinking on the grille.

Mother’s inside the house, and their old dog
ruminates in the vicinity—oblivious, faithful,
patiently awaiting what falls from their table.



Russell Rowland writes from New Hampshire's Lakes Region. His latest poetry book, "Wooden Nutmegs," is due out from Encircle Publications in Spring of 2020.

Memento Mori: Volcano by Jennifer Franklin

Across Naples from Vesuvius, Solfatara looms—
tempting tourists to walk its treacherous sides.
A young boy ignores the fence and ignites;
his father burns to death trying to save him.
His mother follows, drowns in quicksand.
Their seven-year-old son watches
from a distance. How will he forget
the moment when his family married fire?

He will always remember their screams and how
the air smelled as he watched them disappear—
the ferocious mouths of fantasy book dragons
finally real. The way fire is only itself.
It’s as if he were always an orphan—
their death fated for the bluest day of September.



Jennifer Franklin is the author of two full-length poetry collections, most recently No Small Gift (Four Way Books, 2018). Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Blackbird, Boston Review, New England Review, Gettysburg Review, Guernica, JAMA, The Nation, Paris Review, “poem-a-day” on poets.org, and Prairie Schooner. She teaches at the Hudson Valley Writers Center, where she runs the reading series and serves as Program Director. She lives in New York City.

Corona Afternoon by Richard Martin

By our pond a drake rests his plump body
on a rock, his mate sleeps beside him,
head under wing – a scene of perfect peace.

No voices can be heard, the afternoon is still,
traffic has almost ceased, machines are silent,
rather like a universal pause before disaster --

and the media tell us that just over a million
people have contracted the dreaded virus,
and tens of thousands are already dead.

The ducks slip off their rock into the water,
paddle a while, gobble new-born tadpoles,
until with a great beating of wings they rise
to fly away, untouched by human fears and worries.



Richard Martin is an English writer who lives in the Netherlands close to the point where Belgium, Germany and Holland meet. After retiring as a university teacher in Germany, he turned his attention to writing, and has published three collections of poetry and numerous poems in magazines in England, the US, and Austria.

Walking Home at Twelve Years Old by Roxanne Cardona

He is impossibly blond at ten,
his hair cut to skin, sideburns that escaped

scissors, he always behind me,
dark irises that only saw the floor.

Hayley, sometime friend, almost fourteen,
Two inches over me as all three of us

walk home that wet day together.
My bob tucked inside a rain cap,

our umbrellas cuddling beneath
the drops. I can't remember why—

their umbrellas bump. Bump hard.
In front of our building, my brother Richie

and Hayley exchange more umbrella bumps.
The word stop hopped from Hayley to Richie.

I don't scream when she hurls his ten-year-old
body into the marbled wall. His head

first to land. His chubby hands a shield.
Not done yet, she slams him again,

his temple runs red. My feet rooted.
Leave him, leave him, alone, alone—

You can't make me, she screeches,
like a red-tailed hawk. Her claws turn to me.

I lift-up the folded umbrella, as if a sword.
Strike her, her shoulder, her head

her thighs, again—shoulder, thighs, head.
Her fingers grabbing for pieces of my hair,

slipping on the wet skin of my rain cap.
I rip the front of her dress, my hands a cleaver.

Then her whimpers are a white flag. Richie's stunned
irises. The moans of bruises. Never touch him again,

never—ever. I gather his wounds, wrap myself
around him. Together, we climb the five flights home.



Roxanne Cardona was born in New York City. She has been published in Constellations, Animal, Commuter Lit, Poetic Medicine, Ethel Zine, Writer’s Circle 2, and Charleston Anvil. She has a BA/MS from Hunter College, MS from the College of New Rochelle. Roxanne resides in Teaneck, NJ with her husband.

Self-quarantined by John Fritzell

Think of the aging brook trout
under a low-cut grassy bank
sheltered from the deadly glare
of midafternoon
ignoring the false
hook-laden offerings
from midstream
in favor of the fragile caddis
born of hammocked incubation
about to lose its grip on the blade
just above home.



John Fritzell is a Wisconsin based poet who lives in Appleton with his wife and dog. His poems have appeared in numerous journals including Tiny Seed, Plainsongs, Cottonwood Magazine and Gray’s Sporting Journal.

Boys Don't Cry by Kevin Gu

he used to laugh at
his friends when they
got hurt—
called them
girls for crying

one day
his hospitalized mother
died and
he came to school
with tear streaks
down
his
face

no one
gave him
a second glance



Kevin Gu was a participant in the 2019 GrubStreet Summer Writing Fellowship and his work has been included in Eunoia Review, Breadcrumbs, Marginal, and others.

Twelve Bones of Architecture by Matt Dennison

Daddy's home, dog, you can take that dump
in the middle of the floor now. And cat,
please, a hairball would be nice. Kitchen sink
—my life would be incomplete without
a constant drip. There you go. That's nice.
Oven: grow cold. I insist. And fridge,
you grow warm. Yes. Reading glasses—
you're already lost... Shoes: scuff
your soles slick in the closet,
no one's looking. Car: rub your tires
bald in the middle of the night.
It's okay.You're nervous. We're all nervous.
House: shed your paint at your own safe rate
of dissolve. Roof: I see you up there—
dying to fly away—might as well,
this whole show's going to hell.



Matt Dennison is the author of Kind Surgery, from Urtica Press (Fr.). His work has appeared in Rattle, Bayou Magazine, Redivider, Natural Bridge, The Spoon River Poetry Review and Cider Press Review, among others. He has also made short films with Michael Dickes, Swoon, Marie Craven and Jutta Pryor.

No Magic by Barbara Rose

Sleight of hand
was never
his forte.

When he snatched
the cloth
that lay beneath
her exquisite setting
nothing
remained upright.

Every last piece tumbled,
to the boards,
shattered,
as everyone in the audience,
except her,
expected.

With a flourish of his cape,
he exited, stage left,
and trod,
heedless,
over the wreckage.
No wiser,
bound
for yet another
unsuccessful engagement.



Barbara Rose is a retired marketing consultant from Connecticut who began writing poetry in 2019, inspired and encouraged by a poet friend. Nearly 50 years late, she is finally putting her English major to good use.

Icarus' Daughter by Jason Fisk

She swung
on the rusty
backyard
swing set
pointing her feet
toward the sun
swinging closer
and closer

And then
the chains melted
and the child
fell to the ground
Her tears turned
to steam
halfway
down
her cheeks

A pang of guilt
as her father
watched
from the air-conditioned
comfort of inside
He waved
when she looked
to see if he saw



Jason Fisk lives and writes in the suburbs of Chicago. He has worked in a psychiatric unit, labored in a cabinet factory, and mixed cement for a bricklayer. He was born in Ohio, raised in Minnesota, and has spent the last 25 years in the Chicago area. www.jasonfisk.com

The Poet's Daughter by Jason Fisk

She sat in the theater's dimness
and watched a movie
with her friends

She suspected a sad ending
so she pulled out her phone
and looked it up

She just had to know

Warm tears traced tributaries
down her cheeks
as she read the spoiler
in the chilly theater

She wiped her eyes
slid the phone into her pocket
and watched it all unfurl
on the massive screen before her

And despite already knowing
How it would end
she cried as
the credits
rolled



Jason Fisk lives and writes in the suburbs of Chicago. He has worked in a psychiatric unit, labored in a cabinet factory, and mixed cement for a bricklayer. He was born in Ohio, raised in Minnesota, and has spent the last 25 years in the Chicago area. www.jasonfisk.com

Don't Spread Any Rumors by Jack Powers

Rachelle said before disappearing forever.
I stood mute in that empty, ninth grade hallway, wondering,

Why did she pick me for this farewell warning? A school of rumors
swarmed around Rachelle: boys lined up outside her window each night,

locker room tales the next day. Now the story was Pregnant!
But when she leaned in close – small, dark pupils in her green marble eyes,

her nose long and regal, her sharp chin mouthing the words –
she was a princess forced to flee and I a frightened stable boy.

I nodded or blinked, but said nothing and since, I've seen her only
in dreams, leaning close, lips moving. I am unable to comfort her.

I have dreamed of being one of those boys outside her curtains
and one of those claiming conquest in the locker room

but I'm ashamed only of not wrapping my arm around her slender shoulder,
warming her ear with my breath, saying, Stay. We shall raise him a king!



Jack Powers is the author of Everybody’s Vaguely Familiar and has had poems in The Southern Review, The Cortland Review, Rattle, Poet Lore and elsewhere. He won the 2015 and 2012 Connecticut River Review Poetry Contests and was a finalist for the 2013 and 2014 Rattle Poetry Prizes. He recently retired from teaching special education in Redding, Connecticut. Visit his website: http://www.jackpowers13.com/poetry/.

Family Station Wagon by Jack Powers

Tommy Carroll was the first to get his license and we could pile fourteen guys
into his mom’s Ford Country Squire if three of us sat on the lowered tailgate.

Suddenly our world expanded past Ada’s Variety, out of bike range,
across town lines on long drives to anywhere, to nowhere.

We jammed half our ninth grade team into that car when playing football,
just meant more time with my friends without thoughts of high school stardom.

Saturdays, we’d drive down 95 to play miniature golf or see a drive-in movie.
On the way back sparks flew from the heels of our loafers scraping the highway.

Even on Thanksgiving or Christmas, I’d try to get out to see Tommy, Brian
and Dave because they felt more like family than anyone sitting around that table.

Jostling and joking and shout-singing to the AM radio, time flew by faster
than Tommy could crank up that old wagon even though he hit 90 once on a dare.

When we’d hit a bump, our butts would jump off the tailgate and we’d shout and
hold on to each other as we hurtled backwards, sparks rising from the dark road.



Jack Powers is the author of Everybody’s Vaguely Familiar and has had poems in The Southern Review, The Cortland Review, Rattle, Poet Lore and elsewhere. He won the 2015 and 2012 Connecticut River Review Poetry Contests and was a finalist for the 2013 and 2014 Rattle Poetry Prizes. He recently retired from teaching special education in Redding, Connecticut. Visit his website: http://www.jackpowers13.com/poetry/. 

Havahart by Michael Estabrook

Didn’t have time to be depressed over
the pandemic today
everything canceled and closed
for who knows how long
the specter of death buzzing around our heads.
We kept busy fiddling with
Havahart traps and rodent repellent
because we spotted the chipmunk
that was living in the walls resting calmly
in the entrance to his hole
in our condo siding.
I plugged the hole with steel wool and wood putty
baited three traps with peanut butter
went shopping for paint
lifted weights, got a haircut . . .
staying busy and distracted is obviously the key
to weathering this storm of fear and uncertainty.



Michael Estabrook has been publishing his poetry in the small press since the 1980s. Hopefully with each passing decade the poems have become more clear and concise, succinct and precise, more appealing and “universal.” He has published over 20 collections, a recent one being The Poet’s Curse, A Miscellany (The Poetry Box, 2019).