By: Edith Gallagher Boyd             After my friends left, I peeked into Sophie’s room while she lay sleeping. Megan had baked chocolate cupcakes for her and I noticed a streak of chocolate on Sophie’s cheek. My heart clenched with fierce…

By: Don Tassone      Ben had fought in a “forever war” for 20 years when the US finally pulled out.  He had passed up nearly two dozen chances to end his tour and go home.  Not that he cared for…

By: John E Caulton Jed rides the bike down the hill. The breeze freshens his face. His jacket and trousers flap like bunting in the slipstream. As he speeds down the gradient his eyes moisten and small tears flick behind…

By: Sheila Henry Slavery was abolished in America almost 200 years agobut the system refuses to relinquish a sad historybinding young black men as they remain preyand are locked up in a system to perform free laborblue mood cops the…

By: Moulay Cherif CHEBIHI HASSANI It rains on the sheets of the half-opened notebookLaying there before you, now useless,When inspiration, in infertile tears,pours its solitude into your heart in winter… From the edge of the inkwell a feather fliesAnd the…

By Justin Permenter There will come a last songA requiem for the passing of an ageIts melody will echo across the great gulf of timeAnd testify to the bright beginning and wretched end of our kind There will come a…

By: Roger G. Singer THE OUTSIZE OF LIFE walkingin the skinof day,under the flightof a summer sun shoes covered witha solemn dustwhile searchingfor a balancebetween lands knowing somewherein the shapeof a city or towntraffic is moving as a crossing shadowstirs…

By: Jerry Durick Runaway Dog What do you say when she runs away?You run after her of coursecalling her name and promisesand to stop.You can see the future evolve asyou run –this will happen, then that.Everyone is a stranger at…

By: Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal Transatlantic Song Singing childvoice of airand wind. Night of starshalf-moon likea breast. Evening birdsmimic thechild’s song. Ocean breezeswirls and joinsthe birds. Takes the child’ssong acrossthe sea. ### Out of the Shadows Sleeping in shadows,rocked to sleepby…

By: The Birch Twins I watched the gnarled hand pour the wine. He licked his lips and concentrated on pouring, his brow furrowed.  My stomach heaved.  Whether it was due the ship pitching on the seas, or the smell of…