On the Shelf by Laura Foley

It’s made of green plastic but
thick and heavy, translucent,
poured into a mold.

Seated in lotus, palms resting upward,
hair in little curls like a cap,
ears hanging low.

He sits with spine erect
and looks quiet
and content.

His presence reminds me
to breathe in,
breathe out,

even in the midst of it.
Last week, when someone crashed
into my car

as I drove by,
I thought of him—
the Buddha.

When the other driver and I
stood waiting for the police—
neither of us hurt—

she kept saying she was sorry,
distracted—
she’s from Iran,

sick with worry
for her mother.

I tell her I’ve been to Isfahan—
we loved the mosques.

Now we’re bombing
her home country.

How we faced each other, then,
and hugged,
on the sidewalk in the sun,

between heaps of dirty,
melting snow.



Laura Foley is the author of, most recently, Sister in a Different Movie (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions April 2026) and Ice Cream for Lunch (The Poetry Box). She has won a Narrative Magazine Poetry Prize, Common Good Books Poetry Prize, Poetry Box Editor's Choice Chapbook Award, Bisexual Book Award, and others. Her work has been widely published in such journals as Alaska Quarterly, Valparaiso Poetry Review, American Life in Poetry, and included in anthologies such as How to Love the World and Poetry of Presence. She holds graduate degrees in Literature from Columbia University, and lives with her wife on the steep banks of the Connecticut River in New Hampshire.

Paul Westerberg doesn’t write love songs anymore by Alex Stolis

& because you expect a poem about Minneapolis
I’ll mention the Cherry on Spoon, crooked stars
dotting First Ave;

a drunkalogue about a barfight at Moby Dick’s
when you grabbed my arm & dragged me out
before I could get my punches in.

It was a first snow then too; catching flakes
on our tongues, making out in the middle of Hennepin
ignoring the car horns

until a cop hollered, take it to a motel or I’m taking you to County.

You started humming your favorite ‘Mat’s song,
I could never remember the title
can’t remember it now.

Can’t remember a lot of things;
can’t remember why I’m writing this
except there are no more memories to make

drinks to be spilled or hands to hold;
I’m too old to be a rebel, too young
to forget winter’s wet kiss

or the bitter cold snap of truth that broke us in two.



Alex Stolis has had poems published in numerous journals. Two full-length collections Pop. 1280, and John Berryman Died Here were released by Cyberwit and are available on Amazon. His work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Piker’s Press, Ekphrastic Review, Louisiana Literature Review, Burningwood Literary Journal, and Star 82 Review. His recent chapbooks are: Postcards from the Knife-Thrower's Wife (Louisiane Literature Press, 2024), RIP Winston Smith (Alien Buddha Press, 2024), and The Hum of Geometry; The Music of Spheres (Bottlecap Press, 2024). He lives in upstate New York with his partner, poet Catherine Arra.

Adaptation by Meg Pokrass

I’ve stood at low tide with my frizzy
hair puffing, looking for starfish.
I could never find them, with their simple
eyes, like everyone else’s family
they seemed to have better things to do.
I stood there hoping to see a glow,
or a pirate ship, or a shark
close enough to measure.



Meg Pokrass is an American writer living in the Scottish Highlands. A two-time winner of the Blue Light Book Award, her work has been published in numerous journals and anthologies including New England Review, Electric Literature, Five Points, waxwing, Plume, RATTLE, Atrium, Cottonmouth, Unbroken and elsewhere.

Out in the Dark by Ruth Bavetta

The television grumbles,
plane crash off the coast,

computer hackers, trouble
in Israel and Iran. Newspapers lie
on the floor.

Out in the dark
the neighbor’s dogs are going nuts.
My grandmother’s clock strikes nine.

The dogs are louder now,
a frenzy of barking and snarling.

The moon is a saucer-shaped glow
in the clouds, the stars hidden.

The lamp by my side is reflected
in the window. Above the noise,

a woman yells, a man shouts something
I almost understand.



Ruth Bavetta’s poems have appeared in Rattle, Nimrod, North American Review, Slant, Nerve Cowboy, Atlanta Review, and many other journals and anthologies. She likes the light on November afternoons, the music of Stravinsky, and the smell of the ocean. She hates pretense, prejudice, and sauerkraut.

Disposable Warmth by Lauren Poplock

Somewhere over the Pacific, wrapped in one of those thin airline blankets that never quite cover your whole body, I realized I was falling for you in that dim, drifting blue of half-sleep. It was only a week— a soft, sun-soaked stretch of days with a near-stranger who somehow slipped into my life as easily as the warm sand between my toes.

When I landed, the morning light felt too sharp, and I folded the blanket neatly on my lap as if that could keep you from slipping away.

That night, I kept waking in the dark, reaching for that same thin softness, certain I could still feel the ghost of your arm brushing mine. I told myself it was just exhaustion, the kind that turns strangers into memories you carry like fabric worn thin from too much holding.

But some loves are like those airline blankets—meant only for the hours in the air, warm for a moment, and gone the second your feet touch the ground.

Lauren Poplock is a writer based in Los Angeles. Her work has been recognized by Hollins University, The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, and The Live Poet’s Society of New Jersey. She is published or forthcoming in The Eunoia Review, Neologism Poetry Journal, Gargoyle Magazine, and more

Little Owls in the Olive Trees of the Castilian Plateau by Rose Mary Boehm

The nearby village promised revelry—
and there would be music, of course,
a neat paso doble perhaps and the Aserejé,
the 'ketchup song.' A little flamenco, a guitar,
there would be tortilla española, various tapas—
empanadas, bollo preñao, grilled chistorra,
and paella, wine and beer in abundance.
There would be laughter and loud voices,
boinas and walking sticks, home-made lace
offered for sale by the old lady with the big boobs,
there would be the caustic old farmer
who always sold the freshest veggies
at the same spot—right by the fountain.
Oh, yes, we were as willing as we were able,
it was the end of summer. Still warm.
Dusk and silence, except for the occasional
splash of a walnut bombarding the ground below,
except for the wood pigeon's hoarse cry,
still calling for her lover.
We locked the gate, brushed invisible fluff
off each other's jackets and started the old furgoneta.
We crossed the bridge over 'our' brook
and entered the dirt road leading through the olive groves.
A variety of suicide bombers splashed
onto the windscreen, even though we drove
oh. so. slowly. Suddenly, there, in the middle
of that old country track a tiny owlet, paralyzed,
its two big eyes reflecting our headlights like two
shiny disks in the almost dark of this Castilian evening.
After cutting the engine and opening the car doors,
we heard the soft ooh-hoos from Mum coming
through the dark from one of the gnarled olive trees.
I picked the owlet up, its small warm body so solid
and yet so vulnerable in my hands,
its heart speed beating in panic. The ooh-hoos
getting more frantic, there were gentle whistles.
I put the little guy down under one of the trees.

We suddenly craved the silence of a late summer night,
and I made a very careful 12-point turn.



A German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm lives and works in Lima, Peru. Author of two novels, eight poetry collections and one chapbook, her work has been widely published mostly by US poetry journals. A new full-length poetry collection is forthcoming in 2026/27. https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/