The Man I See by Robert Darken

I never knew how a life can burn down
like a slow candle, the way my father is and is not
the face at his end of a weekly video call
initiated by a nurse’s aide,
positioned badly in the frame: one eye, silver rim
of eyeglass, bridge of a nose patched long ago
after a carcinoma, thick lips, some teeth,
a missing upper bridge.

Sparse whiskers glint against a sagging throat.
Where do you live now? he asks me,
and I tell him: still Connecticut.
Still a thousand miles from him in Sister Bay.
Is that anywhere near you, Rudy? he asks
the image of my brother in another window.
Rudy is still in California, so no, not close.

At my age it’s still no trouble to conjure a memory
of my father singing O My Darling, Clementine,
as he sits in a lawn chair before a fire
on a family trip to Colorado, or see him
bend the driver’s seat all the way forward
so his three boys can scramble into the back
of the green Ford Maverick during that era
when he drove us to the Field Museum
practically every Saturday. I see him
in a plaid coat and a laughably small blue beanie
stop for a breather in the midst of shoveling snow,
both hands resting atop the wooden shaft.
Was that the same man?
Every moment was a moment that he was becoming
the man I see now on screen.

What do you hear about Helmer? he asks
about his brother, dead more than twenty years.
His hair stands in stalks
like wisps of white smoke
reminding me suddenly of a young Lindbergh
on the tarmac, tousled by an Atlantic wind,
about to pass into the fog and out of sight.



Originally from the Midwest, Robert Darken now resides in Connecticut, where he teaches high-school English. His poems have appeared in One Art, The Orchards, and New Verse News.

What Remains by Robert Darken

Dad never threw anything away, we laugh, chests hollow
and heavy: a dozen toothbrushes, stacks of Christmas cards,
a legal pad where he’d written the name of every Bears quarterback.

We cram books into boxes; drop a desk
with Secondhand Sue. Proceeds go to the food bank, she smiles,
pushing back curls. It’s magic: cast offs made into meals.

We scrub evidence of life: crumbs in the recliner, coffee rings
on the TV tray. The sink guzzles lemon juice, soy sauce.
In three days a home becomes a blank page.

We hurry, make choices: Danish porcelain bubble wrapped,
shipped to California; grandma’s hutch goes to charity.
I have someone in mind, says Sue. There’s life in that yet.

Somewhere, a golden clock chimes on the mantle of a stranger.



Originally from the Midwest, Robert Darken now resides in Connecticut, where he teaches high-school English. His poems have appeared in One Art, The Orchards, and New Verse News.

Inheritance by Ken Wheatcroft-Pardue

From all my old relatives – decked out in always
out-of-fashion clothes that stunk of mothballs –
without even a word, I imbibed:

the Great 1900 Storm, Model T's, Doughboys, Charlie Chaplin,
the Lindy, “The Jazz Singer,” the 1929 Crash, the Depression, WPA,
musicals, big bands, Pearl Harbor, Nazis, Iwo Jima, rationing coupons,
scrap metal drives, VE and VJ Days, the jitterbug, the Bomb,
an economy on high-octane fuel, the Cold War, Korea, Civil Rights
marches, TV, Uncle Miltie, the twist, the sadness of aging –

so many relatives dying so young, the stress of the daily grind
on their minds and bodies, and always the unspoken pressure
to, by God, fit in, to keep up appearances at all costs.



Ken Wheatcroft-Pardue has had poems published in The Texas Observer, Concho River Review, Borderlands, California Quarterly, and two anthologies of Texas poetry. His collection of poetry What I Did Not Tell You (Hungry Buzzard Press) was published in the fall of 2020.

My wife by Ken Wheatcroft-Pardue

is always dying in some hospital somewhere, miles from home.
I am always rushing to get ready: taking showers, shaving,
walking the dog. Then through ground fog and indifferent
traffic I make my way on arterial, meandering roads I barely

recognize to spend a few hours watching TV (old sit-coms
in the main), reading aloud to her her favorite books, chatting
with nurses and techs, sitting in always uncomfortable hospital
chairs guaranteed to cause future back pains. I am always failing

her – getting there too late, or not staying late enough to catch the
ones who don't give a damn. Or, being too distracted by my phone
or just a bone-weariness – lo, these many months – that's numbed me.
Yet another night, she has trouble sleeping. She knows she is dying.

We hold hands, recite our good times like a benediction: our wonderful
daughter, our happy 30 years, camping in Colorado, Arkansas, New
Mexico, our trips to New York, Santa Fe, Asheville. Finally, her meds
kick in and she calms. I kiss her goodnight. Tell her I love her. Turn out

the light. Outside, streetlights lit, roads shorn of traffic, I drive through
ice and snow, through thunderous light shows, my hood peppered by hail,
or nights eerily calm, a sharp contrast to our roiled life. Once home, I walk
the dog, read till I fall asleep in my La-Z-Boy, wake up at two, muddle-headed.

Walk spraddle-legged, like an old man, to sleep fitfully, coiling alone
in what was once our bed.



Ken Wheatcroft-Pardue has had poems published in The Texas Observer, Concho River Review, Borderlands, California Quarterly, and two anthologies of Texas poetry. His collection of poetry What I Did Not Tell You (Hungry Buzzard Press) was published in the fall of 2020.

After a Week of Storms by Martha Christina

I’m ashamed to say I didn’t once wonder 

how the gulls were faring. I worried 

about the song birds who disappeared 

from the feeder. I worried about my roof, 

would the shingles hold or yield a new leak? 

I don’t know where gulls shelter or feed 

in high winds and heavy rain, but today 

they’re eating last week’s stale bread, 

fanning the air with their wings, making 

their own singular music. 

Martha Christina has published two collections: Staying Found (Fleur-de-lis Press) and Against Detachment (Pecan Grove Press). Her work appears in earlier issues of Red Eft Review, and recently in Star 82 Review, Crab Orchard Review, and Tiny Seed Journal. Born and raised in Indiana, she now lives in Bristol, Rhode Island.

What and How He Taught Me by Martha Christina

My bedroom window faced our
small backyard, far from the street,
no need for a pulled shade.

I heard heavy steps
in fallen leaves
behind the house.
I turned off the lamp;
looked out into faint
moonlight. A figure
I didn’t recognize
stood waiting,
like someone
in a theater,
for the show
to begin.

My screams filled every room.

Remember, my father said,
when he came back inside,
you see from dark into light.



Martha Christina has published two collections: Staying Found (Fleur-de-lis Press) and Against Detachment (Pecan Grove Press). Her work appears in earlier issues of Red Eft Review, and recently in Star 82 Review, Crab Orchard Review, and Tiny Seed Journal. Born and raised in Indiana, she now lives in Bristol, Rhode Island.

My Older Sister and I Share Memories of Baths in the Clawfoot Tub by Martha Christina

Hers:

You were screaming. . .two and
a half, maybe three. . .screaming,
but she insisted the water wasn’t
hot enough to scald you; she
insisted. . . .That was the last
time she bathed you.

Mine:

My sister and I took turns
sliding down the tub’s curved back,
splashing each other, laughing.
        Unsupervised.



Martha Christina has published two collections: Staying Found (Fleur-de-lis Press) and Against Detachment (Pecan Grove Press). Her work appears in earlier issues of Red Eft Review, and recently in Star 82 Review, Crab Orchard Review, and Tiny Seed Journal. Born and raised in Indiana, she now lives in Bristol, Rhode Island.

When Virgil Pitches Softball by M.J. Arcangelini

His whole middle-aged body twists
Into the windup, a quickening spring
As he draws back, the ball clutched
Between glove and bare right hand
His body leaning as though the ball
Were a weight pulling him backward
His left leg rises from the ground
His body thus balanced, poised for release
His arm swings out then low, foot reaches
Forward, drops into a cloud of dust, the
Ball flies from his hand toward the batter
Arching into the air, searching out home plate
With maybe a spin added at the last moment
He freezes for a long instant waiting
To hear the crack of the bat or
The thud of the ball finding
The catcher’s mitt
Ready for whatever happens next.



M.J. Arcangelini, (b. 1952, Pennsylvania), has resided in northern California since 1979. He has published extensively both online and in print. He is the author of 6 published collections, the most recent of which is Pawning My Sins (released by Luchador Press in 2022).

After the Storm by Howie Good

A sparrow about the size of a fist
shuttles back and forth, back and

forth, transporting in its beak what
we’d consider litter – now a dead

twig, now a bit of paper or string –
to add to the nest it’s resurrecting

with immaculate care in the sun-
crowned tree just outside our door.



Howie Good's newest poetry collection, Heart-Shaped Hole, which also includes examples of his handmade collages, is available from Laughing Ronin Press.

Talking to Myself by Carolynn Kingyens

You have made us
for yourself,
and our hearts are restless
until it rests in you.

— Saint Augustine



A seminary student,
whom I once knew
back in college, an old friend,
who'd lose his faith entirely
after one of the little girls
at a makeshift church
he helped pastor for a time
in Mawlynnong,
the one with the glass eye
the color of jade,
and the cutest giggle,
was raped and strangled
by a group of barefoot
village boys, who'd
plead guilty, then
disappear in the night,
one by one.

"Where was God for that little girl?"
he asked me over bottles
of Stella Artois and falafel
after reconnecting on Facebook
after a decade
of ghosting each other.

An atheist now, and an insomniac,
who'd get high every night
to Coltrane records
and warm baths,
"a routine," he said, "that coaxed
him to sleep —just fine."

He told me that he didn't mind
when his glasses clinked loudly
inside the kitchen cupboard
everytime the silver bullet
subway train roared
underneath his first floor
apartment in Clinton Hill,
that the sound reminded
him of a cousin's wedding,
when all the guests would
raise their goblet glasses high
and clink them with knives,
forks, spoons, in unison,
prodding the groom to kiss
his bride, on demand.

He told me the story of Joey Cabrio,
the kind, homeless man
he befriended outside his apartment.

He told me about their deep discussions
around the philosophy of Saint Augustine,
and their shared love for Coltrane,
Lester Young, and Johnny Hodges,
who'd end up stabbed to death
over some stupid, imaginary turf war
between a fellow homeless person
off his meds.

"Why are humans
so evil to one another?"
he asked me, now buzzed.

I wanted to say my canned
Christian response to pretty
much all of life's troubles,
the only one I knew —
Because of sin,
Because of free will,
but chose to stay silent
instead.

He told me that every
time I prayed to my
invisible, Judeo-Christian
God that I was merely
talking to myself.

"Do you enjoy talking
to yourself?" he'd quip back
with a fox-like grin.

When I was ten years old,
I came to the realization,
on my own,
that for all those years,
all those Saturday afternoons
at my best friend's house
playing Barbies in her basement —
with her Barbie Dreamhouse,
with her Barbie Camper,
with her Barbie McDonald's,
Jen owned all the good toys;
acting out brutal, betraying scenarios
to put our Barbies through —
the cheating scandals with Ken;
the heartbreak of the blonde Barbie
with the bad haircut;
the runaway Skipper;
the terminal illness of Jazzercise Barbie,
that all along I was playing a merciless god,
myself.

And it was at that moment
I was done with Barbies for good,
moving on to the pretty,
Roman Catholic boys
of St. Anselm's Parish;
once French kissing an alter boy,
who resembled Ralph Macchio
of The Karate Kid
during an innocuous, pubescent
closet game of Seven Minutes
in Heaven
at Jen's twelfth birthday party,
down in her basement,
where I used to talk to myself
for hours.



Carolynn Kingyens is the author of two poetry collections: Before the Big Bang Makes a Sound and Coupling, both published by Kelsay Books and available on Amazon. In addition to poetry, Kingyens writes essays, book and film reviews, and short fiction. She is presently working on the completion of a short fiction manuscript with the working title Attachment Theory that consists of twelve short stories, ten of the twelve stories previously published. Her short story "Bye-Bye, Miss American Pie" was selected for Best of Fiction List, 2021, by Across the Margin, a Brooklyn arts and culture webzine. She has been married to her husband and best friend for almost twenty-three years, and they share two beautiful, kind, and very creative daughters.

My Mother is Not a Crier by Sharon Waller Knutson

and neither am I, so I am not surprised
she is not sobbing when she calls me
and says, I tried to wake your father,
but he was cold and blue. The paramedics
are on their way. Please hurry.

I drive clear across town, expecting to see
my father sitting in his recliner drinking
a cup of hot coffee and I prepare to hand him
his carton of Camels and box of chocolates
he told me to buy him the night before.

We stand frozen as two men wheel a black bag
out of the bedroom. Do you want an autopsy?
a policeman asks my mother. We both stare
speechless. We are two marooned sailors
lost at sea. He thinks we killed daddy, I whisper.

I’m off shift, he says, I’ll be happy to stay.
But we smile and say we are fine. When I return
the cigarettes and candy unopened, the clerk
is confused. My father is dead. My voice cracks
like thin ice on a deep lake where I am skating.



Sharon Waller Knutson is a retired journalist and a widely published poet who lives in a wildlife habitat in Arizona. She has published ten poetry books including: What the Clairvoyant Doesn’t Say (Kelsay Books 2021,) Survivors, Saints, and Sinners (Cyberwit 2022), and The Vultures are Circling (Cyberwit 2023.) Her poems have appeared most recently in ONE ART, Black Coffee Review, Verse-Virtual, and Your Daily Poem. She is the editor of Storyteller Poetry Review. https://stortellerpoetryreview.blogspot.com/

Forsythia Chronicles by Russell Rowland

When the bushes go up with a shout

like pyrotechnics set off at ground level,
we step aside as Moses did, to see
how they can blaze yet not be consumed.

At twilight, these are often the last
things glowing, so we suspect their brilliance
is more than reflective.

It is hard to chronicle the bushes without
wandering into biography;

to pass a long row of them and not detect
emotions like bees in the blossoms.

Why does a man trim the branches back—

what cutting anger, taken out
on their exuberance? It might be the solace
of control, at least over something.

And that woman who breaks off
a twig in passage, to set in water back home:
who is that in remembrance of?

One who died, at last year’s blossoming?



Seven-time Pushcart Prize nominee Russell Rowland writes from New Hampshire’s Lakes Region, where he has judged high-school Poetry Out Loud competitions. His work appears in Except for Love: New England Poets Inspired by Donald Hall (Encircle Publications), and Covid Spring, Vol. 2 (Hobblebush Books). His latest poetry book, Magnificat, is available from Encircle Publications.

Dogwood Flowers by Terri Kirby Erickson

From a distance, it seems
as if an eclipse of White
Spring Moths is fluttering
around the trunk of a dog-
wood tree—each bright
wing the color of Chantilly
lace. But when the breeze
moves on and the tree’s
slim branches cease their
trembling, one might think
that time itself has stopped.
Now, every moth-like flower,
at the pinnacle of its beauty,
seems suspended in midair—
as perfect as a photograph
or a memory we hold so tight,
nothing in this world could
ever tear it from our hands.



Terri Kirby Erickson is the author of six collections of poetry. Her work has appeared in “American Life in Poetry,” The SUN, The Writer’s Almanac, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Verse Daily, and many others. Her awards include the Joy Harjo Poetry Prize and a Nautilus Silver Book Award.

Possible Bag by Richard Weaver

No one remembers how it started. It simply was
something that always happened. Part tradition,
part necessity. We never traveled without knowing
that each stop would be a series of repairs, a never-ending
journey of fixing things. A life spent answering
the questions of probability. My father found pleasure
deep in darkened televisions aglow with new test-patterns
of life and silent radios given voice again. He never tired of trying.
I knew from him that nothing was impossible. Every solution
was somewhere at hand. In the fingers. In the mind.
The patient offering of time. As a child I often held the work light
steady, though not always steady enough, while he searched
the arcane schematic for pathways towards life, or I held the meter
while his probes sought out an electrical pulse. He still tells the story
of the time I took apart a manual typewriter and 30 years later
it still sits in pieces in his workshop, a shining lesson in the method
of “how not to.” My sons bear witness to this, I have made them
my accomplices, just as my father did me. They are quick to believe
in the magic of simple tools and slow to accept the impossible.



Post-Covid, Richard Weaver has returned as the writer-in-residence at the James Joyce Pub. His work has also appeared in Conjunctions, Louisville Review, Southern Quarterly, Free State Review, Hollins Critic, Little Patuxent Review, Loch Raven Review, The Avenue, and New Orleans Review. Richard is the author of The Stars Undone (Duende Press, 1992), and wrote the libretto for a symphony, Of Sea and Stars (2005) which has been performed 3 times in Alabama, and once at Juilliard in NYC. 3 poems appeared in Alabama Poets (1990). He was one of the founders of the Black Warrior Review and its Poetry Editor for the first three years. Richard's poems are forthcoming in the Alabama Anthology (2023) and his 195th prose poem was recently accepted.

Saying Uncle, Saying Father by Richard Weaver

          In Memoriam, AFD, Jr.

I called you Uncle sometimes
though at times I wished
it could have been Father.
I did my best to understand
my father in you, what he became
in your presence. Your absence. Death
has not taken that from me today.
Today, when I make bread for my family,
my hands think of you as they work
the dough into biscuits or bread.
Fred bread they called it, the many loaves
you baked and gave so that others might have.
I add the iced water now and ride a memory:
17 miles off shore, bill fishing, 6’ to 8’ foot swells,
a bottle of port shared between lulls. A sailfish
spotted before we turned to outrun the squall
back to shore. Captain Donnie pogoing
the Mam’selle North towards Dauphin Island,
shouldering the waves aside. The hull shuddering
as the twin Mercs hurled us from wave to wave.
Landing with a thwack. My brothers both sick
at the stern. Teetotalers to this day.

As children we once rose together
into the blue beauty of a summer's day.
My brothers and I in the silver cocoon
of your twin-engine Cessna.
We rose from the thin edge
of a horizon we knew safely as home,
lifting beyond the fireball of the sun.
Looking down we accepted the toy
movements of miniature cars and trucks,
our trailing shadow, a winged dream
as it passed over trees and water towers,
the squared shoulders of buildings;
a first glimpse from heaven. I think
of the black and white photo taken that day:
3 small boys with matching
blond crewcuts, your dark hair
against the backdrop of the plane.
A miracle we never questioned.



Post-Covid, Richard Weaver has returned as the writer-in-residence at the James Joyce Pub. His work has also appeared in Conjunctions, Louisville Review, Southern Quarterly, Free State Review, Hollins Critic, Little Patuxent Review, Loch Raven Review, The Avenue, and New Orleans Review. Richard is the author of The Stars Undone (Duende Press, 1992), and wrote the libretto for a symphony, Of Sea and Stars (2005) which has been performed 3 times in Alabama, and once at Juilliard in NYC. 3 poems appeared in Alabama Poets (1990). He was one of the founders of the Black Warrior Review and its Poetry Editor for the first three years. Richard's poems are forthcoming in the Alabama Anthology (2023) and his 195th prose poem was recently accepted.

Ardor in the Outback by Jean Ryan

Each autumn in the Australian Outback,
a hefty lizard called the shingleback skink
hauls its armored body across miles of terrain,
searching for the love of its life.
Eventually, inevitably, it locates her scent trail,
and they spend several minutes engaged
in a ritual of licking and mating.
For the next eight weeks they knock around together
before the male turns tail and resumes his solitary existence,
leaving his pregnant consort behind.
The two carry on this way for up to twenty years,
neither one inclined to look elsewhere for company.
If the female happens to perish while they are together,
the male will stay with her body, nudging it now and then
in despair or bewilderment—who can say?

It is not the lizard’s monogamy that surprises me—
many creatures live devoted lives—
it’s those ten months of separation,
the unwavering hunt that follows,
the odds of finding one tiny scent
in that rocky, empty wild,
as if the shingleback skink
is here in reassurance,
in proof of faith.



Jean Ryan, a native Vermonter, lives in coastal Alabama and believes that retirement is highly underrated. Her writing has appeared in many journals and anthologies. Her debut collection of short stories, Survival Skills, was published by Ashland Creek Press and short-listed for a Lambda Literary Award. Lovers and Loners is her second story collection. https://jean-ryan.com/

Twilight of a Mild Day by Martha Christina

Earlier, in bright sunlight,
two yellow crocus opened
while I sat inside,
no longer a new widow,
but still breathing winter.



Martha Christina has published two collections: Staying Found (Fleur-de-lis Press) and Against Detachment (Pecan Grove Press). Her work appears in earlier issues of Red Eft Review, and recently in Star 82 Review, Crab Orchard Review, and Tiny Seed Journal. Born and raised in Indiana, she now lives in Bristol, Rhode Island.

My Older Sister Remembers by Martha Christina

Before I was born, our father
set up a ping-pong table
in the hall outside his office
at the school where he was
the principal. They both
laughed and laughed as he
taught her how to play.

By the time I was old enough
to go to that school, our father
had the same job, but he was
not the same man; our family
was not the same family.

Our mother recovered, physically,
from a case of encephalitis, but
her memory was affected, and her
moods became erratic: she was
quick-tempered, often violent;
sometimes catatonic. Ping-pong
or any light-hearted diversion,
only someone else’s memory.



Martha Christina has published two collections: Staying Found (Fleur-de-lis Press) and Against Detachment (Pecan Grove Press). Her work appears in earlier issues of Red Eft Review, and recently in Star 82 Review, Crab Orchard Review, and Tiny Seed Journal. Born and raised in Indiana, she now lives in Bristol, Rhode Island.

Surety by Martha Christina

Sure of food,
sure of shelter,
house finches
fill the feeder’s
perches, fill
themselves,
then disappear
into the shelter
of wisteria.
Mind the birds,
my grandfather
would say, how
they fill up, then
disappear when
a storm is coming.



Martha Christina has published two collections: Staying Found (Fleur-de-lis Press) and Against Detachment (Pecan Grove Press). Her work appears in earlier issues of Red Eft Review, and recently in Star 82 Review, Crab Orchard Review, and Tiny Seed Journal. Born and raised in Indiana, she now lives in Bristol, Rhode Island.

Reliability by Michelle Reale

The crucifix on the pale wall will cast a shadow that dances. The fruit in the bowl will age with grace. The black thread and needle will find their rhythm. The pills in the old-fashioned coffee saucer will find the right mouth. The foot in the shoe will clench like a claw. The mottled and misshapen eyes will twitch. The seer on the television will predict and we will blindly believe and follow. The old man two houses down will heave himself onto the ambulance gurney. He will not return. The fragile heads of flowers will droop dejectedly on their stems. The days will grow impatient and exhausted. The night will have us toss and turn with eyes wide open. Birds will fold themselves into their iridescent wings. Dinner will burn in the pot. Mothers with great anxiety will pace wooden floors with wailing infants while their partners will grind their teeth into dust. Piebald dogs and wolves bearing grudges will whine with resignation and loneliness. The evening news will drone yet paralyze us with fear. Spots will appear on the hand that trembles. The weather will have its way with us. We will verify unintelligible words for those who need it. We will stigmatize those within the domestic sphere appropriately. The weather will have its way with us. We will forget what it is we ever wanted to say. We will make room for what we no longer need but still want. We will peek over the high walls from the place we carelessly and begrudgingly call home.



Michelle Reale is the author of several poetry collections, including Season of Subtraction (Bordighera Press, 2019) and Blood Memory (Idea Press), and from Alien Buddha Press is her prose poem collection, In the Year of Hurricane Agnes. She is the Founding and Managing Editor for both OVUNQUE SIAMO: New Italian-American Writing and The Red Fern Review.