Jennifer Houle's "The Pain of Others" & Tim Mayo's "The Ladder" The Pain of OthersJennifer Houle Hell is just another curse. It is shallow as a puddle. Old as the cosmos. Muttered and gone. Customary.Hellhole, hellbent, hellenic, to hell with the...
“now / I am the steaming lavender tea / I gift myself / when the bad news refuses to yield” — Marissa Carty
American Robin, 2020 Jennifer Markell I saw the fledgling lying on the stepby the weekly Gazette, ran insidefor a scarf or handkerchief, some soft thingto carry the bird to safety, as ifone dark eye,open still, held the world’s hope. As I kneeled at the bird’s...
“Imagine a map pinned with the locations of what you love–
people or places or animals.” — Melanie Braverman
Walking the Julius Lester Path Jane Yolen It’s been a whilesince I have walkedthe old forest paths,where tree rootscurl like traplinesand the only resting spotsare downed logs.A river ran pastfaster than I could walk.A hidden jackhammerof a bird gave usmarching...
“Full turnip moon backlighting the bar, / folks tripping across the lath of the dance floor, / not involved in the search for sequence / or god.” — Howie Faerstein
Terms of SyllogismTracy FuadI was sure that being in between meant being nowhere.Certain there were scissors that could cut me off the grid.I hoped there was a key, but was sure the void was serious,virulent and spreading. I was sure alone, most of the time.And...
7/26/2020 10:11am Alondra Bobadilla •Plymouth Rock• ocean draws back sand appearing to be the veins of the sea tracks like seal slither leading back to earth’s greatest wonder and slickest deception domestic surface becomes roaring waves in one blinkan explosion...
Moon’s Milk, Lion’s Milk by Zia Pollis I. Moon’s Milk For years I believed I was the furthest daughter from the son. An alien body, a broken orb in rotation around a more sacred center. My father, the Jupiter King, the Purple God, raised a storm of love in our shaking...
Flowers at a Funeral by Sara LetourneauI don’t want to think about the flowers.They burn my eyes, blazing like sunsagainst the white parish wallsand the casket’s dark polished wood.Acknowledging them feels like whisperingprofanities in this crowded holy room wherethe...
A Visit to the Smash Roomby Joyce PeseroffDonated TVs, microwaves,printers, trophies, vases on tables. Baseball bats and mauls ready by the wall. $50/hr to playwith your boyfriend or alonewhen it’s hard to be a goodMom during the workday, gas up the...
How to Know Hunger like the Kingfisher by Karen Elizabeth SharpeMake yourselfhigh on a perchplunge headfirstbelow muscled waves,a plummet of halcyon gashand dagger-shaped bill.30 feet or more. Pluck the silverslipper craving of fish.Fan your wings and rise.High on a...
Summer 2021 Cicadas Ellen Steinbaum They’re my last cicadas, though who can be sure, of course. Given my age and their infrequent outings,like scheduled comets and eclipses, they could be penultimate, but most likely my concluding swarm. Every seventeen...
In light of recent events, this week’s issue of The Hard Work of Hope will be a little different. We are always trying to offer poems that meet the moment, and the current crisis in Haiti—along with its long history of instability and the United States’ involvement in...
Love is a Battlefield, Literally, Because the Planet is on Fire Margot Douaihy & I’m too in love with this world & its creatures, even though it feels like I’m choking sometimes,burning in a mote of gold smoke, until I’m nothing, I’m a shadow licking the...
Refugee by Richard HoffmanA man carries his door,the door of his house,because when the war is overhe is going homewhere he will hang iton its hingesand lock it, tight,while he tries to rememberthe word for welcome.If his house is gonewhen he returns,he will raise it...
Cindy Comes To Hear Me Read by Jill McDonoughCindy: not her real name. I met herin prison, and people in prison I givethe fake names. I taught her Shakespeare, rememberher frown, wide eyes, terror of gettingthings wrong. Her clear, arguable thesison Desdemona’s...
Mad Libs by Merryn RutledgeAs fall lumbers into winter,my grandson fills more and more of the blank spacesin our mad lib tales with hibernating bears.In COVID-crazy weekly callswe two hermits try to claim as comicthe incomparably absurd:Remote first grade--an...
What Anticipated Wonders We’d Have Summed by Thomas MixonWhat tallied courtesies, hedged bits of reaffirming pushnotifications we will never eat, foreverlodged between incisors of what could have been.I’ve found warm columns of an august Aprilwe will never live, next...
The Sky's Reflection by Amy ManionWhen will I let myself outside?My back faces the window; acomputer screen faces me.Barricaded in a glass cage.And there she is: with her piercingeyes. Still through glass she sees me. Featured in the Massachusetts Coalition for...
Dreamed Weddingby Sarah Delice melts in boot treadsdrips onto the floor forming a puddle below the high table in the bar area empty, save for twograndparents, a six year-old...