Somehow by Michael Estabrook

I recall the first time I read
Dante’s Divine Comedy
all the way through
as a medical sales rep
carrying it with me faithfully
as I trudged through airport lounges and hotel hallways
diners, company lobbies, doctors' waiting rooms . . .

Not because I was trying to show off
traipsing around with such an important
work of literature
but instead because reading it lifted me up and out
of my humdrum existence
into a world I scarcely could’ve imagined
with demons and torture, angels and sunlight
and everything in between.

Expecting that the mere reading of every word
would save my soul somehow.



Michael Estabrook is retired. He is now writing more poems and working more outside. Michael just noticed two Cooper’s hawks staked out in his yard or rather above it, which explains the nerve-wracked chipmunks. The Poet’s Curse: A Miscellany (The Poetry Box, 2019) is a recent collection.

Haiku by George Held

Basho, asked to be
Superintendent of Poetry,
answered, softly, “no”



Winner of the blue ribbon for haiku at the 2019 Long Island NY State Fair, George Held has received eleven Pushcart Prize nominations. His most recent poetry collection is the chapbook Second Sight (2019), and his forthcoming book, The Lucky Boy, collects some of his short stories.

Haiku by George Held

A young buck, six points
glinting in November sun,
ready to rut



Winner of the blue ribbon for haiku at the 2019 Long Island NY State Fair, George Held has received eleven Pushcart Prize nominations. His most recent poetry collection is the chapbook Second Sight (2019), and his forthcoming book, The Lucky Boy, collects some of his short stories.

Evening by Howie Good

The sky shifted
from light to dark,
back and forth,
like a crime
gorgeously lit
by big arched windows.

There were
no cops around.
I could have
stayed a long time,
looking.



Howie Good's newest full-length poetry collection, Gun Metal Sky, is due in early 2021 from Thirty West Publishing.

Shoes by James Mulhern

Too old to put her shoes on,
she watched me place her feet
into her favorite pair of Doctor Scholl’s.

“My toes are crooked. They must look funny to you.”
I smiled, trying to ease her embarrassment.

“My mother cleaned houses for the rich,” she said.
“We had to wear the shoes she brought home.
They were often small.
That’s why they look that way.
The toes, I mean.” She laughed.

“I know.” I pulled the second shoe over her heel.
She looked out the window and sighed.

Did she see her mother walking down the street,
a bag of used shoes in her arms, shoulders curled in the wind?

My great-grandmother, moving slowly,
her own shoes worn and broken
like the skin on her red, cracked hands.

She would be teary but faintly smiling,
relieved she had something more to give.



James Mulhern’s writing has appeared in journals over one hundred and thirty times. In 2015, Mr. Mulhern was awarded a fellowship to Oxford University. One of his stories was longlisted for the Fish Short Story Prize. In 2017, he was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His novel, Give Them Unquiet Dreams, was a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2019.

Special by Joe Cottonwood

You can’t help but
watch them quarrel
about their ‘relationship’
as she calls it
while your coffee steams.
She finally says
Can you tell me I’m special in any way?
and he says
I’ll think about it
and you and everybody
at all the tables are silently urging
Leave now, sweetie
but she keeps badgering
Tell me one way I’m special
and he says
I’m still thinking
and she says
Tell me!
while his cheeks are slick with tears
Tell me!
until she rises from her chair
leans across the tiny table
kissing,
solemnly, deeply, slowly
and you have to look away.
Your coffee, everybody’s coffee
needs warming.



Joe Cottonwood has built or repaired hundreds of houses to support his writing habit in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California. His latest book is Random Saints. joecottonwood.com

Translation by Jimmy Pappas

The spring
rain

continues to
tap

with nervous
fingers

an urgent
message

of gradual
decay.



Jimmy Pappas, a finalist in the 2017 Rattle Poetry Contest, won the 2018 Readers Choice Award. His book Scream Wounds contains poems based on veterans' stories. He won the 2019 Rattle chapbook contest for Falling Off the Empire State Building. His interview with Tim Green is on Rattlecast #34.

Releasing a Monarch by Jimmy Pappas

To my
surprise

it flies
up

above a
pine,

searching for
something

in the
sky

I cannot
find.



Jimmy Pappas, a finalist in the 2017 Rattle Poetry Contest, won the 2018 Readers Choice Award. His book Scream Wounds contains poems based on veterans' stories. He won the 2019 Rattle chapbook contest for Falling Off the Empire State Building. His interview with Tim Green is on Rattlecast #34.

The Robin's Nest by Jason Fisk

          -for Jim Harrison

The nest was mud-wedged
into the crotch of the tree
and for weeks my family
watched the process
standing on tippy toes
peering from the edge
of our deck

We watched as beaks opened
to receive food from mama bird
and we saw them grow
crowded in the nest
and they stood on the edge

flapping

their

wings

testing their new equipment

And then one morning
I came out with my coffee
and the nest that had once
been the center
of so much activity
and attention
was now empty

I thought about going over
to the base of the tree
to make sure that they all
made it out, but I didn’t
have the heart especially
after reading that half
of new birds don’t live
through their first year

Up to one billion birds die every year
Where do all the bird bodies go?
Do they just disappear to heaven?
Are they really angels?



Jason Fisk lives and writes in the suburbs of Chicago. He has worked in a psychiatric unit, labored in a cabinet factory, and mixed cement for a bricklayer. He was born in Ohio, raised in Minnesota, and has spent the last 25 years in the Chicago area. https://jasonfisk.blogspot.com/

Hourglass by John Valentine

Black Widows surging on the shed door.

New-born

But already deadly, the mother sending them

To warn

The world. So many coded messages:

The final fall

Of azaleas, a rigid deer by the road, darkness

In a dying face.

Living life in the sun, you forget

The shadows. The years.

Inexorability of the clock. There,

In the grass, time

Moving. The scatter, relentless.

The very hourglass

Itself.



John Valentine lives and works in Savannah, GA.

Today You Are Four Months Old by Emily Patterson

and I am existentially / tired. It is early / November
in a church basement where I voted for our next
President. I have new / glasses; I can see the teeth
on the Japanese maple leaves, red against / blue
sky. Motherhood has me / constantly searching
for firsts: / laugh, tooth, stretch / of sleep
long enough to hold uncharted / dreams.



Emily Patterson earned her B.A. in English from Ohio Wesleyan University--where she received the Marie Drennan Prize for Poetry--and M.A. in Education from Ohio State University. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Spry Literary Journal, Better Than Starbucks, Apeiron Review, Mothers Always Write, and elsewhere.

Cages by Lorette C. Luzajic

“I’m very powerful,” a friend told me once, and her silver tumble of curls as she cocked her head left a poem forever in my mind. I stirred my tea, waiting patiently for revelation. “I can feel the vibrations, the energy deep in the earth,” she said. I hated to kill the mood, but I had to. “I think we all can,” I said gently. “This café is right on top of the subway.” I pictured her in a velvet gown the colour of dried blood, wading in the sea, the picture of who she wanted to be. Her hands and face were moon pale. She was carrying a birdcage like a lantern.



Lorette C. Luzajic is an award-winning visual artist and widely published creative writer, living in Toronto, Canada. Her most recent book, Pretty Time Machine, is a collection of ekphrastic prose poems. She recently won the MacQueen's Quinterly flash fiction contest, and has been nominated for three Pushcarts and two Best of the Nets. Lorette is the editor of The Ekphrastic Review, a five year old journal of writing inspired by art. Visit her at www.mixedupmedia.ca.

What Am I Saving? by M.J. Iuppa

I stir the pan, watching plum
                                        tomatoes melt into a pottage

that bubbles & pops, sending
                                        its hot splash onto the stove top.

I am staring, I know, without
                                        seeing what’s happening

before me. I smell the burn of
                                        splotch simmering to carbon.

Elements smoke. I accidentally
                                        touch the heat with my fingertips

as I take a swipe with my sponge,
                                        but I don’t feel a thing.

I keep stirring, locked in position, like
                                        a woman spellbound—an ineffable

moment, if anyone were to watch me
                                        going through the motions

of putting by.



M.J. Iuppa’s fourth poetry collection is This Thirst (Kelsay Books, 2017). For the past 32 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.

The Gravity of Rain by M.J. Iuppa

In restless sleep, a murky storm
swarms, making it impossible
to hold a pose in bed

Toss then turn, it repeats
as lightning flares in
the mouth of clouds

and thunder worries, back
and forth, with heavy
footfalls

Why am I hiding?

Looking down upon
my body’s spread
like a distant star, I

know I am no longer
here or there—
a pinprick of light

a small comfort, maybe . . .
Electricity distills the air, leaving
a thick sour smell

then rain, un-
ribbons, tumbling
down



M.J. Iuppa’s fourth poetry collection is This Thirst (Kelsay Books, 2017). For the past 32 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.

With Love, Your Mother by Darrell Petska

What could she do
when her legs ignored her commands
to walk the rooms she’d groomed
like the children she’d raised through the years?
She wheeled through time and thus carried on.
What could she do
those days she could scarcely drag from her bed
to glimpse her yard’s lush handiwork,
the rampant daisies, nodding hollyhocks, spireas and mums
she once prodded and pushed like unwilling children
toward the fullness of their bloom?
She sorted old photos of her children
swinging, playing ball, singing and dancing,
then tucked them in folders labeled Marie, Jason, and Stu.
When her breath grew too frail to savor her kitchen,
her living room steeped with family auras,
or her nursery drapes bearing baby-fresh
scents of grandchildren bathed and bundled,
she drew life from a cold green tube and prayed her rosary.
And what could she do
when her children gathered to say, “Mom...”
then moved her to a room that smelled of antiseptic,
with a bed that possessed no memories, or at least not her own,
and a window whose view seemed painted on?
That no guilt could dilute her loving family’s loss,
she fought, fought long enough,
then in the peace of night let go.



Darrell Petska is a writer from Madison, Wisconsin. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Buddhist Poetry Review, Nixes Mate Review, Right Hand Pointing, Boston Literary Magazine, Verse-Virtual and Loch Raven Review. See his published work at conservancies.wordpress.com.