Ash Loaf by Steve Klepetar

The bakery burned all night.
Flames rose like astonished birds.
The smell of sugar turned bitter
as smoke stitched itself into the trees.
By morning the windows wept soot.
Someone said they saw a face
in the rising ash, the baker’s wife
or no one at all.
Children came with buckets,
scooping black crusts into the air,
pretending it was snow.
I stood by the curb,
holding a loaf I’d bought yesterday,
still soft, still throbbing with warmth.



Steve Klepetar lives in the Berkshires in Massachusetts. He is a contributing editor for Verse-Virtual. His poems have appeared widely in the U.S. and abroad and have received several nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.

Ordinary Life by Terri Kirby Erickson

My father wore threadbare white t-shirts
and blue pajama bottoms to bed, a plaid
bathrobe in the mornings. He liked to read
the local paper on the dining room table,
Jake the Cat curled at his slippered feet. In
the kitchen, my mother cracked eggs and
fried bacon while gazing out the window
over the big backyard where bird feeders
rocked from tree branches with the weight
of hungry squirrels, their whiskers shedding
husks. Mom looked like a blonde bombshell
in her plain cotton nightgown, but she never
noticed—Dad a real heartthrob with his salt
and pepper hair and dark, soulful eyes. Yet,
all my parents ever wanted was an ordinary
life. They liked being together in their own
house, never traveled a lot or cared to, didn’t
particularly like company except for family.
So this is a poem where nothing happens and
nobody dies, where my mother and father are
having their bacon and scrambled eggs on an
ordinary day. You can live forever in a poem
like this one—and now they will.

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

Cashews by Penelope Moffet

Every month or so they come,
Mom quietly, Dad trying to be nice.
Last night he had me slivering cashews.
He wanted them precisely sliced
but I kept dropping them.

Dad raged about my clumsiness
and the cold air coming from an open
door and window. Mom slipped outside
the sliding glass and closed it, stared at me
without reproach, waiting to be let back in.



Penelope Moffet’s most recent chapbook is Cauldron of Hisses (Arroyo Seco Press, 2022). Her poems appear in Eclectica, ONE ART, Calyx, Sheila-Na-Gig and other literary journals. A full-length collection of her poetry will be published by Sheila-Na-Gig Editions in 2026.

Maui Wowie by Howie Good

Grass smells funky, just like it did when I was young
and cool and my use of it was nonmedicinal, but now,

given my accelerated rate of decay, the aftereffect
of cancer treatment, it lifts me out of my broken body,

like a mother lifts a howling red-faced baby out of a crib,
gently, and fills me with distance and strangeness and

light that has traveled thousands of years to be here.



Howie Good's latest poetry collection, True Crime, is scheduled to be published by Sacred Parasite in early 2026.

“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.

Letter Home by Richard Weaver

After the train to Canton no one believed
I wanted to walk. There is the train they said.
Or bus. But for twenty days I’ve walked
across China. And by this month’s end
I’ll face the sea-blue mountains of Tibet.
I sleep in graveyards, not because it is quiet,
or the only high ground not given over
to growing rice, but because there are soldiers
whose eyes follow me through the villages.
I am safer with their honorable ancestors.

Walking fast is impossible since everything I see
is strange and new and fills me with green fire.
I feel drawn to every shadow and light.
When I stop to draw a boy herding geese with a stick,
those who see me wonder how I can
work with a brush held so poorly and not
made of bamboo. The people are kind though,
offering rice and even wine. I’m learning
language as I go, although my accent
will never be other than Mississippi.

Mary, they ride water buffaloes here
the way you ride a horse, meaning no insult to either.
You could show them a trick or two I’m sure.
I saw a group of women in a village
all fanning themselves like pelicans.
I wasn’t sure if it was my presence, their habit,
or the weather. But I’m glad my fate isn’t that
of a water carrier, balancing two pots
on a six-foot stick. I’d last no more
than day at best, and no doubt
I’d drink up the profits!
My love to you and ours
from the mountain’s shadow.



-Previously published in Underfoot Poetry



Richard Weaver continues as the official writer-in-residence at the James Joyce Pub, though he splits time with Hooley’s Public House in San Diego.

Father Mississippi: A Prayer by Richard Weaver

Bless these ferns that struggle to lift their heads
in a world where temptation

is a bulldozer and man is blind to everything
that doesn’t bite him first. And bless

the four-legged starfish who crawls across the reef
only to be eaten, and rejoice in the kingdom of salt.

Bring peace down
upon all those who glow in this dark

so that we might see their way.
And allow the beached dolphin one last glimpse

of the daymoon before it too fades into blue.
Let the treefrogs sing their song of this earth.

And the earth turn this flesh
back to shapeless clay.



-Previously published in The Cape Rock

Richard Weaver continues as the official writer-in-residence at the James Joyce Pub, though he splits time with Hooley’s Public House in San Diego.

Confessions of a Beachcomber by Richard Weaver

If I wake early I walk
toward the sun; if late, away.
I accept what the island provides.
Obvious things I leave:
shells, numinous and ordinary.
driftwood--it burns faster
than I can carry it to camp.
But always there are surprises:
a pair of shoes came in one day, my size!
A bottle of port wine.
A pair of unattached wings.
Lemons, onions, an alligator pear, toys.
One day a book washed in --
The Pageant of Literature-
and a pair of trousers. My size.
And once, for seven or eight miles
the beach was green with banana stalks.
All the animals on the island
joined me in the feast.
I took my share, leaving the rest
for the grackles and crabs,
the few raccoons who won’t
wait for them to ripen.



-Previously published in Underfoot Poetry



Richard Weaver continues as the official writer-in-residence at the James Joyce Pub, though he splits time with Hooley’s Public House in San Diego.

Absence by Steve Klepetar

If only the wind had leaned in with a whisper,
instead of slamming the door like a judge.
If only the tea had steeped a little longer,
and the sparrow hadn’t struck the glass.
You might have lingered by the stove,
watching steam rise like old secrets.
We could have wandered to the orchard,
where dusk gathers in the branches like sleep.
If only I had remembered what you said
about time, how it folds like a napkin,
never straight. But your eyes were already
turning toward the dark shape of the road.
Now your absence sits in my chair
each morning, quiet as a coat filled with rain.



Steve Klepetar lives in the Berkshires in Massachusetts. He is a contributing editor for Verse-Virtual. His poems have received several nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.

Beyond the Frame by Ann Leamon

The woman lies alone in the field—
you’ve seen the painting—peering
over the horizon. The gray, weathered
house looms behind her, overwhelms her fragile
life. Did she really drag herself
out to the field? Why? Maybe for the same reason
my mother dragged the four of us back then:
to pick blueberries.

We packed a lunch, spent the day. Mom
picked berries, we climbed the rocks
along the cove, water cold
and green and clear as our futures seemed to be.

As the sun slipped low, Mom’s buckets full
of berries for jam and winter muffins,
we went to the steep hill
you can’t see in the painting,
above the little graveyard, and threw ourselves
down to roll,
roll,
roll,
arms and legs flying, shrieking
with delighted terror and surprise, to end
at the bottom dizzy, covered with twigs and leaves.

Stumbling, sunburned, sleepy—
Mom piled us in the station wagon for
the long drive home. The berries are still there,
I hear, and Christina hangs in the museum,
looking out of her frame to that hill,
to the graveyard at the bottom,
where she will be buried.



Ann Leamon writes poems, reviews, essays, and technical finance material. Her non-technical work has appeared in Harvard Review, The Arts Fuse, Tupelo Quarterly, North Dakota Quarterly, and River Teeth Journal, among others. She lives on the Maine coast with her husband and an opinionated Corgi-Lab mix.

Love Song in Silence by Ann Leamon

Four days before Christmas,
          he died.

She wrapped herself
          in silence.

No need for that constant stream
of one-sided
conversation,
explanation,
commentary,
description,
documentation,
the unending, inevitable questions
answered
          and answered
                    and answered again.
How often can you speak the time, the day, your name?

Few responsibilities now
except the fire,
children busy with the farm,
sunlight streaming warm through the
skylight, its bright square trudging
across the tattered carpet with the hours.

Why speak?
No one would answer.

The doctor ordered, “You must speak.” The brain contracts
without words.

Now, she drinks her tea
and reads aloud her poetry
to the husband
who left her one week
before their 64th anniversary,
who waits, not far, with their lost beloveds,
who understands
what she’s saying,
with words and without.



Ann Leamon writes poems, reviews, essays, and technical finance material. Her non-technical work has appeared in Harvard Review, The Arts Fuse, Tupelo Quarterly, North Dakota Quarterly, and River Teeth Journal, among others. She lives on the Maine coast with her husband and an opinionated Corgi-Lab mix.

Small Acts of Subversion by Ann Leamon

We are becoming a police state,
says HCR, who lives across the river.
Apparently, she never
sleeps. Her essays, cited thoroughly
—to rub metaphorical salt
in psychic wounds—
no longer conclude with hope.

She chronicles the collapse
of a culture that tried—for a
faltering, flickering, firefly’s moment—
to improve, to trust
its better angels. The lesser angels
won this round, ICE among the swing sets,
tax-payers dragged to prison camps.
I practice saying, “You do not need
to answer any questions.” My voice breaks.

Animal shelters are full and turn away
owner-surrenders as people
losing their homes find one more mouth
—even a small one, even attached
to a fuzzy face and a wagging tail—too much
to feed. A pet becomes a stray,
crying, hungry, wondering
what it did wrong. I donate dog food
to the food pantry.

My husband fixes houses
for our neighbors, stretches
his tiny budget to cover
windows and doors that don’t close,
leaking plumbing, rotten floors.
I fill the feeder for
woodpeckers, finches.

The one milkweed from last year
has returned in triplicate,
three times the welcome
for the monarchs that matter.



Ann Leamon writes poems, reviews, essays, and technical finance material. Her non-technical work has appeared in Harvard Review, The Arts Fuse, Tupelo Quarterly, North Dakota Quarterly, and River Teeth Journal, among others. She lives on the Maine coast with her husband and an opinionated Corgi-Lab mix.

Reunion Registry by Shoshauna Shy

Methodist Social Services sends mention
my maternal grandmother suffered
with arthritis, died of diverticulitis,
but there is nothing more.
The adoption agency’s report lists
my mother’s age, height, color of hair
at time of relinquishment.
The Adoptees’ Association tells me to
petition juvenile court for sealed records.
Instead, I fly the under-radar route, apply
to reunion registries, hope my arrow
of request makes data slide into one
vertical slot proving a half-sibling, nephew
by marriage or cousin-once-removed–
even a shirttail one–stretched their bow
and hit mine.
But within a month, all spinning stops.
Triplicate replies stack up and form
a buttress: No Matches Found.
My mother, my father, singly or together
leapt like deer into a tamarack woods
gone golden with sundown in September,
to their ongoing ready-made lives, to
other children they cherish.



Shoshauna Shy's poems have been made into videos, produced inside taxi cabs, and even decorated the hind quarters of city buses. She is also a flash fiction author — but that's a whole ‘nother story!

Knots by Frank C. Modica

My impatient adolescent brain
thought Alexander the Great
got it right when he severed
the Gordian knot with one slash.
I spent many years trying
to emulate his example,
racing through life
as I attempted
fast, easy solutions.

I think about all
the wasted effort;
how I lost so much
with the quick cuts.
I hope I’ve gotten
wiser in my 8th decade
as I pick at the twists,
untangling strands
one at a time.



Frank C. Modica is a retired teacher. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Sheila-Na-Gig, Trouvaille Review, and Uplift Lit. Frank's first chapbook, What We Harvest, nominated for an Eric Hoffer book award, was published in 2021 by Kelsay Books.

Paid Obituaries by Fran Schumer

No one will pause at the headline

to the obituary I won’t have,
the kind you don’t have to buy,
written before you die.
Reporters actually interview you for those,
bury them later in a place called,
believe it or not, the morgue.
But I prefer the tiny agate notices,
whole novels reduced to a one-inch note,
written about people no one knows,
paid for by loved ones who want
the world to know he loved Mozart,
she bred collies, his roses won a prize.
The same impulse that causes us
to paint, to plant trees,
splash graffiti on buildings,
trash cans, subway cars
rusting in old train yards –
To say: we were here
and we wanted someone to know.



Fran Schumer’s work has appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, The North American Review, and elsewhere. She won a Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing poetry fellowship. Her chapbook, Weight, was published in 2022. She studied political theory at college but wished she spent more time reading Keats.

Why? by Martha Christina

wasn’t a question
asked in my family,
and so remained
unanswered.

Adults avoided
emotional outbursts;
salt tossed over a shoulder
took care of misfortune.

Still, grief arrived
like a poor relation
come for dinner, not
invited, but fed. No one
questioned that presence;
no one answered for it.



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.