By: Jeff Watkins “You have a beautiful baby boy, Miss Selnick. You can hold him for a while, and then we’ll get him all cleaned up.” “No. I don’t want to hold him. He’s so icky! His ears—he has black…

By Mark Kodama (Inspired by “A Taste of Friendship” by Shawn KlimekAnd used with his permission.) I.          The Condo             It was the greatest birthday party ever: raucous singing, lunatic dancing, and heavy drinking. Hermann, the neighbor below me, repeatedly…

By: Alan Berger A lot can happen overnightContinue again and make it right I could come over thereYou could come over hereWill not be meeting in the middleThe middle disappeared You may go to bed a loserDreaming of gone loversThe…

By: Alan Ford A hotel lobbyinhabited by solitudeimpersonal arrivals, nameless departuresa clock stops as time passes no one communicatesjust unsigned promises,broken words no one speaksonly spirits listen woman in a windowroom unfurnished by loveunrequited and unrestoredas blinds of life unroll…

By Rehema Kasanga Today we celebrate woman and freedoms she currently has.As she’s free to be her true self in this day and age. the self we recognize.the self we have shaped and forced her to become over decades of…

By: Ruth Z. Deming My word! How could we have gotten so old? Most of us are eighty years old. Yet we have our annual trip to Marlene’s cabin in the deep woods of New Jersey. I woke up early….

By: Ali Grimshaw Course of Action In the next week of tomorrowsthree months planned processthird Wednesday penned. Your proposal for this daythe one you think is comingneatly folded, in its unopened box. Morning coffee in hand whenthe unimaginable drops. Limbs…

By Chinese Poet Hongri YuanTranslated by Yuanbing zhang An Illusion in The Bright Mirror of Eternity Every day is an illusion in the bright mirror of eternity. You see yourself from teenager to white hair, as if you are a…

By: Abasiama Udom TO THEM Bring the gin and beer,let us call again to themwho even before us have gone.Let us bring our problems and a sacrifice,lifting the shouting hen.Let us again remember our lineage and fathers,in memory of them…

By: James Croal Jackson Aeromexico I sit alone in this two-seat rowand the cabin lights are off. I cannot locate the clouds beneaththe wing’s intermittent flashing– my only light its metronome.It’s my fault I don’t know Spanish and understood so…