“Till That Plate Is Clean, Young Man" by Russell Rowland

The stalemate was over corned-beef hash.
As sunlight faded in the kitchen,
family life went on elsewhere without me.

It was a meal without grace or benediction.

My mind got up from the table many times.
I was back at their wedding,

my little cellophane bag of confetti, tight
in my hands—
I refused to throw any, because it was mine.

I thought back to an even earlier household:

Mother left me there
with another man. I looked a lot like him.
The front door slammed.

Hash-standoff must have ended: here I am.



Russell Rowland continues his trail work for the Lakes Region (NH) Conservation Trust, and his practice of writing a poem every day.

At the Warner, NH Indian Museum by Russell Rowland

Good morning!
You may call me Ellie. I will be your guide today.
My Abenaki name is Lady Slipper.

This exhibit hall is circular,
in keeping with our tradition that all life is a circle.

I will show you moccasins and regalia,
dugout and birchbark canoes, wigwams, teepees.
Teach you to survive winter on acorns,

explain why life depends upon following the bison.

About my Abenaki name.
I come from a subfamily of orchids. We remain
adaptable to varied habitats.

(Imagine being told where you will live henceforth,
and assigned a different name.)

I have sedative properties,
efficacious against nervousness, muscle spasms,
even dental pain.

I am adept at putting museum visitors at ease.
Now if you’ll follow me…



Russell Rowland continues his trail work for the Lakes Region (NH) Conservation Trust, and his practice of writing a poem every day.

Gifted Student by Lorri Ventura

In the amount of time it takes you to brush your teeth
He assembles 500-piece jigsaw puzzles
Starting by turning every interlocking bit
Over onto its unprinted side
Because the visual images offered
On the picture side of the puzzles
Overstimulate him
And trigger hyperventilation

Share with him your birthdate
And, instantly,
He will identify the day of the week
You were born
Recite your car’s license plate
And, even if he has seen your vehicle
Just once,
He will tell you the car’s make and model
But, if an automobile’s license plate
Ends in a letter rather than a number
He will not ride in that car

He sees colors when listening to music
And creates stunning watercolor paintings
Depicting melodies he sees
Loving all music except for G notes
Because G’s are red
A color he fears

He predicts the onset of rain
With the accuracy of a Torricellian barometer
Yelling to everyone on the school playground
When air pressure suddenly drops
And frantically urging them to seek cover
Because he doesn’t like getting wet

“He has needs related to autism,” they sigh
At his special education meetings
His teacher nods knowingly, then replies,
“And he also has gifts related to autism”



Lorri Ventura is a retired special education administrator living in Massachusetts. Her first full-length poetry collection, Shifting the Mind's Eye, was published in 2024.

Anneliese by Rick Swann

          born 8/30/2025

A fire in the Olympic Mountains
cast a golden spell on the moon
the moment of your birth.
Out on the deck, a breeze
from the west brought a whiff
of smoke and the taste of salt,
picked up while crossing
Puget Sound and evoking
memories of campfires
on the beach. The moon paved
a radiant road across the water.



Rick Swann's poems have been appeared in One Art, English Journal, Autumn Sky Poetry, Typehouse, Last Stanza, and other publications.

Bezoar by J.I. Kleinberg

Our third-grade teacher, Mrs. Dyer,
says to us: No Chewing Gum.

But ruminants, we chew and chew —
Double Bubble, Juicy Fruit —

and blink away a rush of tears
when avid teeth chomp down

on cheek or tongue. A probing finger
checks for blood. We snap and pop,

ventriloquists — it wasn’t me! —
until she turns, her palm outstretched

as if we might release that pallid wad
now hardening and flavorless

into her hand. That righteous posture,
lipsticked mouth a lipless line,

that hand outthrust, she wades
into a rising tide of battered desks.

We suck in telltale Black Jack breath,
gaze earnestly at blackboard, book,

attend her steady skirted swish
and square-heeled clomp until it stops.

Dry-mouthed, we swallow, open wide
to show our gumless gums, our blameless teeth.

We watch her hand, which drops to drum
the desk and drops again to strum the pleats

that spill, a brown cascade, from waist to shins
— that empty hand.

The gum, the gum is gone, hard bruise
to track its slow descent, gullet to gut,

where now, we know, we have been warned,
it will accrue, agglutinate, remain. Forever.



An artist, poet, and freelance writer, J.I. Kleinberg lives in Bellingham, Washington, USA, and on Instagram @jikleinberg. Her chapbooks include The Word for Standing Alone in a Field (Bottlecap Press, 2023) and Sleeping Lessons (Milk & Cake Press, 2025) as well as three collections of her visual poems.