Fishing Boat in the Eye of a Hurricane by Jason Ryberg

          with apologies to Billy Collins

How, exactly, do
     we know that there’s no bills or
mortgages in the
     afterlife? How can we be
so sure there will be
     no need for door jams or poop-
shovels or window
     wipers, no more subways, no
more traffic tickets
     or jacket pockets to for-
get them in (only
     to find them there, years later),
no more slithery
     snakes chasing us, nakedly,
through the lush garden
     of earthly delights (no more
chasing your hat through
     the windy woods), no more bright
moon in the horse trough.
     No, it’s more like being a
fishing boat in the
     calm eye of a hurricane
of multi-colored
     butterflies, like being the
     water or the wind, itself.



Jason Ryberg lives part-time in Kansas City, MO with a rooster named Little Red and a Billy-goat named Giuseppe, and part-time somewhere in the Ozarks, near the Gasconade River, where there are also many strange and wonderful woodland critters.

Circle of Light by Carrie Farrar

The eucalyptus outside the apartment
keeps shedding strips of bark
the color of wet paper bags.
At midnight, the hallway light
buzzes softly through the screen door,
a yellow hum over the shoes
kicked sideways near the mat.
Somewhere down the block,
someone drags a trash bin to the curb,
the wheels catching in broken places
along the pavement.
The phone rests facedown
beside a glass of water gone warm
hours ago.
A moth keeps striking
the porch bulb,
powder gathering slowly
along the white rim.
The room smells faintly
of detergent and eucalyptus oil,
the blanket bunched heavy
around my knees.
Outside, the branches move
without pattern.
A car passes.
Then another.
The moth disappears
for several minutes
before returning again
to the same circle of light.



Carrie Farrar is a Southern California poet whose work has appeared in numerous literary journals and online publications. Her poetry often explores memory, domestic atmosphere, perception, and emotional recurrence through image-driven free verse.

As It Is by Andrew Ray Williams

I woke from a nap
I hadn’t known
I was taking,

alone with
green leaves
on the sill,

white curtains, sun
bleeding through
onto a tufted chair—

old warm leather
worn by daily work.

Then slept again.



Andrew Ray Williams is a poet from Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. His recent poems have appeared in Bramble, Ink in Thirds, and Trampoline. He is the author of A Weathered Ship: Poems.

What Comes After Certainty by Spencer K.M. Brown

See—it’s like that trash on the highway,
Wind-tossed wrinkled this way and that,
Ready to be ravaged under wheels
Or lifted.
Resting on the dead coyote
With the bumper-cracked bloody jaw.
And when you go to dinner tonight
You won’t think of it at all.
Not a moment.
And when you go to sleep tonight
You’ll recall its every wrinkled edge
And how it floated, weightless, for that split second
As you passed.
And you’ll think of it for a long time,
Years—especially when nothing makes a sound.



Spencer K.M. Brown is an award-winning poet and novelist from the foothills of North Carolina where he lives with his wife and three sons. His work has appeared in numerous journals and magazines. His debut collection of poems, The Salvation of Me, will be published by Press 53 in Fall 2026.

Cats and Satellites by Heidi Slettedahl

Today my father told me
about a cat that lives in the ceiling
and the time a satellite fell to earth in El Paso, right at his feet.

The cat, I know, is fiction,
but the satellite could be true.
Or partially true, a newspaper article mistaken for biography.

I could solve mystery with a little effort,
but the conversation was effort enough.

He mistook me for my sister, then told me stories about myself.
I was tense, unwilling to hear what he said about me behind my back.
But he told me things I already knew,
that I let the little things bother me,
that I could have been a little more easygoing in this life.

We circled back to his time working in the gravel pit,
the way he bossed his boss around,
the smart things his smart mouth said
that got him into or out of trouble.

At the end of the call, he said
You’ve always been the easiest one to talk to
and I didn’t know if he meant me or someone else.



Heidi Slettedahl is a poet and novelist, in that order, and a wife, dog mom and academic, also in that order.

Union Station by Frank C. Modica

My wife and I sit on a wooden bench
in the Great Hall, waiting with friends.
A vast vaulted ceiling opens up above us:
newly scoured limestone walls,
granite and marble statues, stained glass windows;
so different from the dark shadows and grimy surfaces
I saw during my last passage through this transportation temple.
A giggle of children run through the aisles,
playing hide and seek under the tall benches,
drowning out announcements of train arrivals
and departures with their high-pitched laughter.
When I return from the food hall with a burger and fries,
I notice a newly arrived flock of plainly dressed young men,
bonneted women, and tow-headed children
sitting across from our little group.
Ten feet separate us across the terrazzo floor,
but it could have been centuries—drownings,
beheadings, deportations harried them
out of Europe, onto the great plains.
I want to chat with them about their history,
where they came from, how long is their layover.
One of the young men smiles at me, I smile back.
He asks, “Where are you going?”
“Boston,” I say. “We’re going to Boston.”



Frank C. Modica taught children with special needs for 34 years. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Packingtown Review, Cold Mountain Review, and Monterey Poetry Review. Frank's first chapbook, What We Harvest, nominated for an Eric Hoffer book award, was published in 2021 by Kelsay Books.

Sedated by Martha Christina

Almost as light
as she was
as a kitten,
my old and
dying cat
lies quiet
in my arms,
something
she would
never have
done, alert.
The clock ticks,
the final hypodermic
waits while we wait
a little longer. Released
from pain, if she could,
would she thank me?



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.

In the Spare Room by Martha Christina

The spare room’s door
had no lock, so my older
sisters often spent time
with our widowed landlady’s
things, as though they were
meant especially to entertain
them. Her husband had been
our small town’s doctor,
and when she moved out
to her married daughter’s farm,
she left behind his three-dimensional
headless and sexless model,
a human torso with removable
organs, which my sisters
removed and laughed over.

There was also a playable
organ, and once they let me
(their annoying little sister)
join them, let me have
a turn pulling out its stops
and pumping. Although I
knew no songs, I played
enthusiastically, until our
angry mother climbed the
stairs to tell us, again, we
were not allowed in that room.



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.

The Chosen People by Howie Good

My dad squandered the money I received
in bar mitzvah gifts on a series of bad bets.

Then my mom lost a breast to cancer. I was
the oldest child still at home. Debt collectors

phoned the house at all hours, sent threatening
letters, pounded on the door. My mom went

into hospice care. I circled the girls at school
like a bee circling a pot of early spring flowers –

frosty pansies. The ending was inevitable.
“Yes,” someone said, “but is it good for the Jews?”

I’ve lived my whole life with strands of barbed wire
wrapped like strangling vines around my heart.



Howie Good's latest poetry collection, True Crime, was published by Sacred Parasite in early 2026.

The Archive by Janette Schafer

He rifles through his dead mother’s papers—

A passport he had colored on in Crayola,
which made her shriek as she chased him
with a wooden hairbrush, his blood
streaking his polyester knit shirt.

Her first marriage license to his father
written in Spanish and registered in Caracas
before the New Tribes missionaries were
kicked out of the jungle and sent back
to their homes in America.

A birth certificate, a rite of baptism
on delicate paper, two divorce decrees—
a sullen vellum assemblage
of a woman’s life.

Mother—
his first undocumented country.



Janette Schafer is a realtor, poet, photographer, and singer living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her writing and photographs have appeared in numerous journals, newspapers, and websites. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Chatham University. She is the author of three poetry collections.

Keep Calm and Carry On by Carolynn Kingyens

          "Maybe that's enlightenment enough; to know that there is no final
          resting place of the mind; no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom...
          is realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go."
          — Anthony Bourdain

The saddest part of this story 

is you never see it coming—not really;

missing the divine irony 

like a widower 

missing the 5 p.m. train 

at Penn Station

for the suburban outskirts 

of Manhattan,

where a faithful glass tumbler 

filled with maple syrup-colored spirits

awaits him at the end of a Mad Men day 

in a dank house located on a formidable  

street with an empty fridge 

and a mailbox jammed with coupon flyers 

and Chinese take-out menus—

the non-stop plaintive wail of paper noise

and electronic spam 

but never a meaningful phone call;

never just a simple, meaningful phone call

from someone he once knew,

way back when, who'd recognize

his hearty laugh in a crowded room, 

back when he used to laugh.

It's no wonder Anthony Bourdain 

spiraled into despair for days

at a time after eating a bland burger 

patty and semi-thawed languid fries 

inside of a Matrix-white colored

Johnny Rockets in a deserted airport, 

encompassed by the lackluster enthusiasm 

of twenty-something staff

and the abject passivity passing 

for good food. 

Charles Bukowski describes 

the existential ache 

in his famous poem "The Crunch,"

where there is a loneliness in this world

so great that you could see it 

in the slow movement

of the hands of a clock,

or the terror of one person 

aching in one place, alone,

untouched 

unspoken to 

watering a plant. 

I, too, have felt the ache 

inside those cavernous places 

like the hollow bowl-shape

my armpit made

while reaching my hand,

palm up,

across the half-empty

California King bed

before his vacancy 

was taken over by a sweet menagerie 

of rescued pets—

curled into random balls;

curled like cinnamon buns.

I envy those who have legit fun

at Dave & Buster's, and who watch 

Dancing with the Stars

and America's Got Talent,

hanging on every nuanced word 

of Simon Cowell like some 

kind of talent prophet.

Or those people who make 

yearly pilgrimages to Disney World, 

Graceland—Las Vegas,

and the week-long, all inclusive 

Caribbean cruises, eating all you can eat 

Crème Brulé and yogurt parfaits

sprinkled with edible flower petals;

and non-alcoholic drinks

served inside hairy coconut shells,

adorned with turquoise 

and pink paper umbrellas.

And those bevy of seniors 

with the stiff salon-curled hair,

who play weekly Bingo 

and who line dance 

for charity

every Friday evening 

at their local Shriners Club.

Maybe they've found the secret

to life in their gift shop wooden plaques 

hung over windows and entryways:

Live, Love, Laugh.

Life is tough my darling, but so are you.

Keep Calm and Carry On. 

Carolynn Kingyens is the author of the poetry collections Before the Big Bang Makes a Sound (2020) and Coupling (2021). Her latest, and most existential book, Lost in the Bardo, was released on Amazon in April 2026. Lost in the Bardo is also available at Magers & Quinn Booksellers, Barnes & Noble, and Indigo-Chapters. In addition to poetry, Kingyens writes essays, book & film reviews, and short fiction. She has been married to her best friend for almost 27 years, and they share two amazing children. When time permits, she loves to read, watch good documentaries, and belly laugh.

Late Love by Penelope Moffet

Late in life they fell in love,
Tom and Roger.

Battle-scarred Tom yowled,
hissed, slashed at everyone.

Roger hobbled on wounded feet,
threw acid words at kindness.

Every night they slept entwined,
woke up happy, one purring,

one wearing fresh scratches
like new-minted medals.



Penelope Moffet is the author of the chapbooks Cauldron of Hisses (Arroyo Seco Press, 2022), It Isn’t That They Mean to Kill You (Arroyo Seco Press, 2018) and Keeping Still (Dorland Mountain Arts, 1995). Her poems appear in many journals, including Calyx, Eclectica, ONE ART and Vox Populi. A full-length collection of her poetry will be published by Sheila-Na-Gig Editions this Fall.