What's a Boy But the Contents of His Pockets? by John Hicks

A lucky stone that sparkled to you;
a ring shaped like a cowboy saddle
found while digging in grandma’s garden;
a length of twine rescued from the kitchen;
receipts you can’t yet read; skeleton key
from the junk drawer. Your pockets
reliquary of the world beyond
what grown-ups said was best for you.

When you asked: What’s this for? Where
did this come from? adult answers were vague,
or you couldn’t understand them, or
they dismissed with When you’re older.

So, you made your own stories—
like the ring lost by a passing cowboy;
messages hidden in grocery receipts; a secret door
in the basement the skeleton key would open.

Some things you shared with other boys:
a single-bladed pocketknife with a broken tip,
the shiny Zippo lighter that might be made to work,
the rusty railroad spike from behind the depot.

You hid your talismans in cotton darkness,
to take out when alone: a copper nugget
from a desert camping trip, blue and roughly round
(larger than your blue marble shooter),
a pearl button like on Gene Autry’s shirt;
a wheat penny from the floor of the Willys.

But wonders found gave way to car keys,
credit cards, and currency you emptied
onto your dresser top at night. You came to
care how clothes fit; stopped seeing things.

A wheat penny in my change today.
I held it up to read the date, wondering
if it was from the year I was born, a reminder
of what slipped away.



John Hicks is working on his first book. His poetry has been published by: Valparaiso Poetry Review, I-70 Review, Poetica, Blue Nib, Verse-Virtual, and others. He writes in the thin mountain air of the southern Rockies. He’s been nominated for two Pushcarts and one Best of the Net.

What I Wanted to Say by Joan Leotta

What I wanted to say
to the handsome, bearded young man,
walking along the beach, wearing
black shorts and t-shirt, his phone, like mine
poised to capture the precise moment
when the sun leaps out of the sea to
balance itself on the tightrope line of the horizon--

what I wanted to say
was, “You look so much like my son!
Maybe a bit older.” But I kept silent,
simply smiled briefly in his direction,
fearing that if I spoke, after my declaration
of his resemblance to Joey,
he might ask, “Where is your son?”
Then I would answer truthfully,
“My son died a few years ago,”
and this young man might recoil, perhaps
consider it a bad omen to resemble
a departed one, even a beloved departed.
So, instead, I quietly watched him walk
away, snapping his sunrise pictures
as my own son might have done—
kept still instead of saying
what I wanted to say.

Silently, I sent a blessing
to this young man, wishing him
many stunning sunrises and a peaceful life
full of love and joy.
At last, I turned and climbed the steps
to leave the beach. From the top step,
I glanced back down
for one more glimpse of him
but he was gone.



Joan Leotta plays with words on page and stage. Internationally published as an essayist, poet, short story writer, and novelist, she’s a two-time nominee (fiction and poetry) for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. As a story performer, she offers folktale programs and a one woman show, “Louisa May Alcott Comes to Speak.”

On What Would Have Been Our Son’s 48th Birthday by Sharon Waller Knutson

Cowboys on horses
round up cattle
with their blue heelers
like he and his brothers used to do.

ATVs roar by in a cavalcade
and I swear I see him
in the driver’s seat leading
the pack up the dirt road.

Two does and their fawns
frolic on the lawn and I can
picture him sitting cross-legged
on the couch watching.

The flicker knocks and knocks
but no one opens the door
and I hear him say how lucky
we are to live out here

before he walks away
and disappears into the white
clouds that swirl in a sky
blue as his eyes.



Sharon Waller Knutson has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She has published 12 poetry books, including the most recent, The Leading Ladies of My Life (Cyberwit 2023) and its sequel, My Grandfather is a Cowboy (Cyberwit 2024.) She has published 1,000 poems in more than 60 publications. She is the editor of Storyteller Poetry Review and lives in Arizona.

Before I Leave the House by Jacqueline Jules

I have to check the stove again.

And the coffee maker. Is it unplugged?

The refrigerator closed?

What about the back door? Is it locked?

And the toilet? Did it stop running?

I have to be sure everything
is safe and secure while I’m away,
so there won’t be any headaches
over house stuff, the last thing we need
right now when we don’t know
when you’ll come home or if.

So I haven’t left yet.

Still busy going back to the stove
and the back door and the bathroom,
circling like a hawk over all the bad things
that could happen if I don’t check one more time
before I go to the hospital where I’ll be
helpless to control what happens to you.



Jacqueline Jules is the author of Manna in the Morning (Kelsay Books, 2021), Itzhak Perlman's Broken String, winner of the 2016 Helen Kay Chapbook Prize from Evening Street Press, and Smoke at the Pentagon: Poems to Remember (Bushel & Peck, 2023). Her poetry has appeared in over 100 publications. Visit her online at www.jacquelinejules.com

Tell Me About Him by Jacqueline Jules

That’s what she said.

Not “I’m sorry for your loss.”
Or “That must have been so hard.”

Instead, she asked me
to describe the person
he was before he became
someone to be sorry about.

It made me blink.
I was so used to nodding my head,
mumbling a platitude in return.

“He had my mother’s eyes,”
I offered softly. “Grayish blue
with flecks of green.”

“Lovely,” she said, touching my arm,
giving me permission to say
he coached Little League in the spring,
and cooked outside on an old grill
that came with the rented house
he shared with three college buddies.

“So he loved baseball?” she asked.

“And hockey,” I answered.
“We used to watch games together.”

“You must miss him,” she said.

I do.



Jacqueline Jules is the author of Manna in the Morning (Kelsay Books, 2021), Itzhak Perlman's Broken String, winner of the 2016 Helen Kay Chapbook Prize from Evening Street Press, and Smoke at the Pentagon: Poems to Remember (Bushel & Peck, 2023). Her poetry has appeared in over 100 publications. Visit her online at www.jacquelinejules.com

Marriage by Rose Mary Boehm

We kept the mattress on the floor
for reasons of economics—remember?
When our baby son crawled in to sleep between us
without much ado, it became a godsend.
We didn’t keep each other warm,
laughter hid our emptiness.
We didn’t notice the spiders
undoing their fragile web.

The luxury bed that lifted our heads
and feet if we so chose, the 500-thread cotton,
the large, mirrored wardrobe,
the jacuzzi, the private school, the two Beemers
were only hiding wounds that could not heal.

We smiled and nodded like wind-up toys;
I spent time with the mothers and sometimes fathers
of the kids’ friends. You were always too busy.

One day a young woman came to our house
and asked for your hand.

We all survived the end of another marriage,
the quake and its aftermath,
forever changed by the tsunami of our lack of wisdom,
everyone in their own kayak riding the rapids.
Loathing—the hors d’oeuvre
Forgiving—the main course
Friendship—the dessert

Many years ago, we each married others,
but when you dared to die, I missed you.



A German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm lives and works in Lima, Peru. Author of two novels and eight poetry collections, her work has been widely published in US poetry journals. https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/

Gravid by Tamara Madison

A young deer steps
with caution
across the grass
toward the fence
at the edge of the garden.
It is afternoon. He is alone.
I have seen him here before
I think, a yearling
behind a pregnant doe
walking slow. Yesterday
she was alone; I watched
her shadow move
into the dark woods
beyond the fence. Perhaps
she was seeking a place
to lie down in damp grass
to foal. Now her elder child
walks alone. I think I know
his loneliness, his puzzlement.
And I know her need
to do the hard, natural work
in solitude. In these woods
I've seen the wild apple trees
gravid with blossom, standing
alone among the birches
who have just given birth
to a new generation of leaves
glistening with dew,
trembling in wind,
opening themselves
to the wonder that is rain.



Tamara Madison is the author of three full-length volumes of poetry, Wild Domestic, Moraine (both from Pearl Editions), Morpheus Dips His Oar (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions), and two chapbooks. Her work has appeared in the Writer’s Almanac, Sheila-Na-Gig, Worcester Review, and many other publications. Read more about Tamara at tamaramadisonpoetry.com.

Bones and Song by Jennifer Mills Kerr

Today I discover a pile of bird bones
near the chain link gate, licked clean
by my cat, embroidered by ants.

An offering of pick-up sticks, a strategy
of careful tenderness–a game you
never played. I can’t decide if remembering
our distances draws you closer or
outlines your absence.

Maybe it doesn’t matter, maybe tangled
thinking is perfect, as daughter playing
mother, I learned the endless practice
of pulling apart your knots, trying to unravel
what I’d done or didn’t do to upset you
again. Now I bury the offered bones

beneath the front porch. The soil, never
touched by rain or sun, a silky sand,
transparent as the love songs you sang
alone in the kitchen every Sunday when
you thought no one was listening.



Jennifer Mills Kerr is an educator, poet, and writer who loves mild winters, anything Jane Austen, and the raucous coast of Northern California. Connect with Jennifer through her Substack, Poetry Inspired or say hello at her website.

The Moonwoman Dreams of Pluto (November 2016) by Penelope Moffet

After the election
I woke in sorrow
night after night,
wondering what
would happen
to the earth,
the air and waterways,
bees and wolves and newts
with no one strong enough
to say their health
means as much
as ours, that
our health
leans on theirs.
Day after day
I dragged up
out of bed
feeling a close
relative had died.
All I could do
was add a little color
to a drawing
before I went to work,
dwarf planet Pluto
and its five moons
above a golden camel,
a white rabbit,
a gray Moonwoman
rattle – crescent
eyes, strong nose,
crooked lips open
as if to gasp
or speak.



Penelope Moffet is the author of the chapbooks Cauldron of Hisses (Arroyo Seco Press, 2022), It Isn’t That They Mean to Kill You (Arroyo Seco Press, 2018) and Keeping Still (Dorland Mountain Arts, 1995).

Painting by M. Benjamin Thorne

I think my father secretly
wanted to be a painter;
he’d talk about retirement,
stock market pressures behind him,
and buying paints and canvas, maybe.
His once-thought-lost high school art,
preserved in framed collages, featured
dazed Don Quixotes, weeping Vietnam vets.
It’s odd to think about, the armors he donned
at various points to suit his need: leather jacket
for the street trouble-seeker; varsity coat
in football season; smock for art class;
pin-stripes and tie for Merrill Lynch.
The last he wore longest, and heaviest
I think. But when you come dirt poor
from West Virginia to Wall Street, you need
some heraldry to prove you belong,
some shield against ridicule and scorn.

Mornings meant shined shoes and tied knots;
evenings a collapse into silence and cigarette haze,
his ironed shirt and Brooks Brothers shorn
for sweats and crinkled newspaper wall.
Sometimes his eyes peered over the crenelation,
and rarely, defenses lowered, I’d see a smile—
and what beautiful vistas that simple stretch
of tired muscles sketched in my eager heart.



M. Benjamin Thorne is an Associate Professor of Modern European History at Wingate University. Possessed of a lifelong love of history and poetry, he is interested in exploring the synergy between the two. His poems appear or are forthcoming in Griffel, The Westchester Review, Rising Phoenix Review, Feral, Gyroscope Review, and Molecule. He lives and sometimes sleeps in Charlotte, NC.