Backroads by Sarah Russell

A mosaic of grime blurs the view
through the only window left whole
on this homestead, abandoned to vermin
and weeds grown leggy through the floor.
The fields beyond cast an impressionist's haze --
matte pastels of wheat, barley, sky. In the bedroom,
I find a rag doll missing an arm. I cradle her,
feel the ache of mule-pulled plows,
drought-bleached days.



Sarah Russell has poems in Kentucky Review, Red River Review, Misfit Magazine, and Psaltery and Lyre, where she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her collection, I lost summer somewhere will be published in May by Kelsay Press. She blogs at https://SarahRussellPoetry.net. 

Ephemera by Sarah Russell

I sit at the water's edge,
draw circles in the sand.

It was almost too civil. Last night
we walked down the beach
to the crab shack,
tied bibs around our necks,
and over a bucket of clams and corn
decided who got what.

Circles, short-lived in the tide,
my wedding ring in the dresser drawer.



Sarah Russell has poems in Kentucky Review, Red River Review, Misfit Magazine, and Psaltery and Lyre, where she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her collection, I lost summer somewhere will be published in May by Kelsay Press. She blogs at https://SarahRussellPoetry.net. 

Mornings, after breakfast by Sarah Russell

Mother hangs her tea bags on the door,
winds the strings around the knob. Drips,
like paw prints, stain the old wood floor.
I don’t know why she does it. She never
uses them again. After her tea she gets
the big pot and scrubs vegetables for soup.
Her knife is rhythmic against the cutting board,
her felt slippers scuffing from counter to stove
and back again. I see her mouth move sometimes
as she sways, mincing, mincing her life.



Sarah Russell has poems in Kentucky Review, Red River Review, Misfit Magazine, and Psaltery and Lyre, where she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her collection, I lost summer somewhere will be published in May by Kelsay Press. She blogs at https://SarahRussellPoetry.net. 

Where the wetlands were by Don Thompson

They’ve put down the baskets woven
to hold burdensome years
and learned at last not to worry
about gathering roots and acorns.

No hunger or thirst keeps them here,
but they stay close to implicit water—
an old habit that outlives flesh.
I’ve been watching: Yokut women,

not much more than shimmer,
a presence no one would notice
if not for their Tule reed skirts
swaying in the hot, windless air.



Don Thompson has been writing about the San Joaquin Valley for over fifty years, including a dozen or so books and chapbooks. For more info and links to publishers, visit his website at www.don-e-thompson.com.

"The central Texas..." by Bob Carlton

The central Texas

hills disappear

under develop-
ment to become nothing more

than roof
pitch and elevation



Bob Carlton (www.bobcarlton3.weebly.com) lives and works in Leander, TX.

"What Do You Want, You Naughty Boy?" by Ace Boggess

          —subject line of spam e-mail

as body bends a next line forms
tongued into existence

one I must interpret
landing songbirds on our lips

let them sing the happy consonance of ‘p’
the whiplash accident of ‘k’

shush us with ellipses
drag those jagged exclamations down our backs

I want a literary afterglow
to burn our fingers on a block of ice

to misinfer: I want us to announce ourselves
with hard breaks enjambing quiet

we will leave it to readers to determine
how our feet were tangled in our clothes



Ace Boggess is author of three books of poetry, most recently Ultra Deep Field (Brick Road, 2017), and the novel A Song Without a Melody (Hyperborea, 2016). His poems have appeared in River Styx, Harvard Review, Rhino, North Dakota Quarterly, and many other journals. He lives in Charleston, West Virginia.

Sitting by Matthew Borczon

in
the
waiting
room
I
don't
ask
my
dad
about
his
cancer
and
he
doesn't
ask
me
about
the

war. 

Matthew Borczon just published his 9th book of poetry, This Many Years After the War, which is available through Cajun Mutt Press. He has published widely in the small press and continues to serve in the US Navy reserve. He is the father of 4 children and works as a nurse to adults with developmental disabilities. 

September 2010 by Matthew Borczon

On
the
plane
into
Afghanistan
we
all
pretend
we
are
only
afraid
of
flying.



Matthew Borczon just published his 9th book of poetry, This Many Years After the War, which is available through Cajun Mutt Press. He has published widely in the small press and continues to serve in the US Navy reserve. He is the father of 4 children and works as a nurse to adults with developmental disabilities.

Summer in Starkville, MS by Matthew Johnson

During Mississippi summers,
The state swelters in the haze of an eternal sun.

No one sits out on the levee to moan;
The residents wax nostalgic of the Great Floods.
The shadows of the clouds are hot, and waterless;
The sun rises, and the animals flee to the river.

The catfish bubble and boil
In shriveling swamp water;
The fading magnolias slump to the ground,
Begging for the refuge of rain 𑁋

Despite July chasing away the folk until sundown,
You’d still see teenage boys
On the practice fields and vacant lawns,
Trying to catch the ghost of Jerry Rice.



Matthew Johnson's poetry has appeared in The Roanoke Review, Maudlin House and elsewhere. He is a Best of the Net Nominee (2017) and his debut collection is scheduled to be released in June by Kelsay Books. You can find him on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/Matt_Johnson_D.

12.29.18 / 8.19 a.m. / 50 degrees (Yes. 50. That is "not" a typo) by John L. Stanizzi

Plodding, low-slung clouds dull the pond’s reflection,

onerous and dense, they lay their shadows over the canopy of the hills;
nameless chickadees (which I’d name if could) outnumber the sparrows,
dawdling and silent this spring morn…winter morning.



John L. Stanizzi is author of the full-length collections – Ecstasy Among Ghosts, Sleepwalking, Dance Against the Wall, After the Bell, Hallelujah Time!, High Tide – Ebb Tide, and Four Bits. His poems have appeared in American Life in Poetry, The New York Quarterly, Paterson Literary Review, The Cortland Review, Rattle, Tar River Poetry, Rust & Moth, Connecticut River Review, Hawk & Handsaw, and many others. His latest collection, Chants, will be out in 2019 with Cervena Barva.

12.28.18 / 9.25 a.m. / 43 degrees by John L. Stanizzi

Pinpricks of easy rain like a negative of the stars,
orbiting what fragments of ice remain, and on a
naked branch nearby a crow rattles its castanets, flashing the
drear morning with gypsy sparks of sound.



John L. Stanizzi is author of the full-length collections – Ecstasy Among Ghosts, Sleepwalking, Dance Against the Wall, After the Bell, Hallelujah Time!, High Tide – Ebb Tide, and Four Bits. His poems have appeared in American Life in Poetry, The New York Quarterly, Paterson Literary Review, The Cortland Review, Rattle, Tar River Poetry, Rust & Moth, Connecticut River Review, Hawk & Handsaw, and many others. His latest collection, Chants, will be out in 2019 with Cervena Barva. 

Over coffee she asked me by Rose Mary Boehm

          for Jean Charity, March 2012

She’d just had the verdict:
a huge shadow on both lungs.
They’re not sure whether it’s
the old one or a new one or
whether it’s one at all.

She said they have difficulties
taking out enough with their needles
to make that damned analysis.

They probably have to cut her
breastbone. Or was it breaking
her ribs. So we had coffee.
Sinful, black and strong. The sort
that makes your heart quake.

It may just be a shadow
strategically placed.
It took me by surprise,
her question:
What would I want
to be remembered for.



A German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm lives and works in Lima, Peru. Author of two novels and three poetry collections, her work has been widely published in US poetry journals (online and print). 

Ending by Steve Klepetar

Cold sunlight blazes down onto snow.
Already night approaches.
The old sun is busy dying in the sky,
leaning toward the west.
Crows skim above their shadows
on the frozen lawn,
and now they leap into the air
above the pines like black puffs of smoke.
I stand at the door in my blue coat,
watching as they disappear into the woods
behind the pond, grateful for their visit,
for the mystery of black wings in the bright cold.



Steve Klepetar lives in the Berkshires in Massachusetts. His work has received several nominations for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. Klepetar is the author of fourteen poetry collections, the most recent of which are A Landscape in Hell (Woodhaven Press) and Why Glass Shatters (One Sentence Chaps).

The Weight of Dried Beans by M.J. Iuppa

Pintos, cranberry, black
bean pods hang straight
& long— their sundried

rattle startles me when I
snip them off vines, three
at a time, and let them

drop into my shirt-turned-
apron that fills to overfull,
forcing me to teeter back

to the start of the row where
I left my mesh bag hanging
on a pole, ready to contain

these quick fingers, pointing
every which way out.



M.J. Iuppa's fourth poetry collection is This Thirst (Kelsay Books, 2017). For the past 29 years, she has lived on a small farm near the shores of Lake Ontario. Check out her blog: mjiuppa.blogspot.com for her musings on writing, sustainability & life's stew.

Free to Go by M.J. Iuppa

          Let us forget with generosity those who cannot love us.

          - Pablo Neruda

Evening shadows pool
beneath apple trees, settling

above ruts full of snow-
melt & fallen leaves

that float like sparrow
wings, slicing the sky's

echo in two. A bald
moon stares deeply at us,

watching us slip in
and out of the kitchen

with dinner plates and bits
of conversation that sputter

like a candle flickering on
the sill, like the whistle of

the kettle, like shadows making
their way no further than this

sudden squall of snow.



M.J. Iuppa's fourth poetry collection is This Thirst (Kelsay Books, 2017). For the past 29 years, she has lived on a small farm near the shores of Lake Ontario. Check out her blog: mjiuppa.blogspot.com for her musings on writing, sustainability & life's stew.

uncomfortable smile by J.J. Campbell

the raven-haired beauty
caught me looking at
her

her uncomfortable smile
gives me all i need to
know



J.J. Campbell (1976 - ?) is old enough to know where the bodies are buried. He's been widely published over the years, most recently at Chiron Review, Horror Sleaze Trash and Rusty Truck. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights (http://evildelights.blogspot.com)

Southern Childhood by John Grey

This is the delta.
So much water oozes through
and yet it seems to never move.
That's an egret
pecking in its shallows.
And a couple of kids picking pecans.
And a coral snake
slithering across the surface.
Those are mosquitoes, of course,
whirling black clouds
of the miserable biters.

That's the wrought-iron railing
of a verandah.
Those are windows leading to a bedroom,
a fan spinning shadows across the ceiling,
netting draped over the bed.
Someone is screaming below,
"Do not bring that thing into the house."
A boy follows his father
to a favorite fishing hole.
A wild girl trails at a distance.

One child is living in the north now,
another far out in the western mountains.
The others are somewhere beneath
that greenish-white gathering of tombstones.

The air is as hot and steamy as bathwater.
A body wilts just by breathing.
But not all is lost for those born in the bayou.
Memories, at least, can take the heat.



John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in Homestead Review, Harpur Palate and Columbia Review with work upcoming in Roanoke Review, Hawaii Review and North Dakota Quarterly. 

A Hole in the Hull by Todd Mercer

Movies show resourceful characters
thriving after fate strands them.
Boat sinks, heroes work it out—
a common TV Guide slug-line.
By contrast, those actually marooned
on obscure Pacific islands
typically didn’t graduate
from wilderness survival school.
That’s where you climb rocks
and the instructors ask you:
Which three items
would you take?
When a ship wrecks
on an unmarked reef,
passengers don’t know
what’s indispensable.
Nine times in ten
they let it sink with the craft.
Those swept overboard
make for awful television leads.
Castaways on the average
are (frankly) fairly out of shape
when they wash up
on the sparkling sands
of nowhere atolls.
They’re un-handy, accident-prone,
they are soon hungry. And then…
It’s easy to become unbalanced,
lacking other human reference.
Stuck without calories,
bad at fishing. Missing all their shows.
Real castaways fail at survival,
they suffer and expire
before rescuers get there.
It’s not exotic, what comes of regular people
when ships crack open out there.
If ever stranded, be strong,
strive to be cinematic.
Beat those long odds
sell the film rights,

play yourself if the money is fair.

Todd Mercer was nominated for Best of the Net in 2018. Mercer won 1st, 2nd & 3rd place of the Kent County Dyer-Ives Poetry Prizes and the won Grand Rapids Festival Flash Fiction Prize. Recent work appears in: The Magnolia Review, Plum Tree Tavern and Praxis. 

The Day After by Martha Christina

“I’ll be right there,” she said
to the finches at the feeder.

“I’ll be right back,” she told the cats,
waiting for fresh food and water.

So began the first of many days.

Sympathy cards came in the mail;
more condolences over the phone.

The cats ate and drank.
The birds emptied the feeder.


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).

New Widow by Martha Christina

She shuffles
her late husband’s
marked deck,
lays out another
game of solitaire
on the kitchen table.

She knows which
face-down card is
the 5 of Diamonds,
the Ace of Spades,
the King of Hearts,
but she doesn’t
cheat, even alone.

She loses again,
so she shuffles again,
lays out another round.

She thinks of Edward
Hopper, his skill
at turning loneliness
into something more.

How much
time and work
that took. Takes.



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).