Unhurried by Steve Deutsch

Snow this morning.
Flakes as big
as oak leaves flutter
in the eddying air,
as if their appointment
with the ground
might wait.

I watch them
from a window
that overlooks
a small porch
heavy with
garden tools—
artifacts

from a forgotten season.
I sip a third cup,
warm in the warm house
and curl up
in my easy chair—
looking no farther ahead
than lunch.



Steve Deutsch is the poetry editor of Centered Magazine and was the first poet in residence at the Bellefonte Art Museum. He has been nominated for the Pushcart and Best of the Net Prizes multiple times. Steve is the author of six volumes of poetry. One of those collections, Brooklyn, won the Sinclair Poetry Prize.

The Pusher by Ace Boggess

The neighbor with dementia wants what she wants.
I go to five or six shops to find it,
even then a close approximation: Slim-
Fast milkshakes—wrong flavor,
but will do—I come to learn her family rations
like a week’s supply of oxycodone tablets.
When she asks, I have no idea she overdoes it,
overdoses in greedy abandon,
a delight without the rapture.

One junkie recognizes another. We do
what we can to help as long as it doesn’t rob us,
leave us short. I’ve been out of the scoring game
for years, didn’t expect to become
my neighbor’s SlimFast connection, diet-drink hustler.

The next day, her granddaughter
comes knocking, lets me in on the situation.
We share a laugh about it, but I can’t help
looking back at my addiction &
how far I was willing to go the one time
someone stood between me & my drug.



Ace Boggess is author of seven books of poetry, most recently Tell Us How to Live (Fernwood Press, 2025) and My Pandemic / Gratitude List (Mōtus Audāx Press, 2025). His writing has appeared in Indiana Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Hanging Loose, and other journals. An ex-con, he lives in Charleston, West Virginia, where he writes, watches Criterion films, and tries to stay out of trouble. His first short-story collection, Always One Mistake, is forthcoming from Running Wild Press.

Surgeon General Warns of Epidemic of Loneliness by Ace Boggess

We wade through shallow ends
of empty pools & crowded rooms.
Our heads drip onto our phones.

Who are you? says the stranger,
a lusty god on his lips.

What are we to each other?
says the lover
as she turns away
the first of many times.

Our partners move to another town,
parents fade in twilight,
children were never born
to play the blues on a red guitar.



Ace Boggess is author of seven books of poetry, most recently Tell Us How to Live (Fernwood Press, 2025) and My Pandemic / Gratitude List (Mōtus Audāx Press, 2025). His writing has appeared in Indiana Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Hanging Loose, and other journals. An ex-con, he lives in Charleston, West Virginia, where he writes, watches Criterion films, and tries to stay out of trouble. His first short-story collection, Always One Mistake, is forthcoming from Running Wild Press.

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.