Devon Balwit, Pulling Toward Home

Pulling Towards Home
Devon Balwit

The east wind sends my poncho swooping
overhead,

startling the dog, already jittery from the rain-streaked
headlights

and the runners, who appear and recede as from another
dimension.

A phalanx of geese wheels above, considering Continue reading “Devon Balwit, Pulling Toward Home” →

December 21, 2017 0

Mitch Goldwater, Two Poems

At the Now Vacant Lot on Bayard
Mitch Goldwater

I crouch to look at crocus blooms in random array
that trail along the sidewalk
and back across this urban square
of fresh-turned dirt and rusty debris.
A man stops his shuffle and stands above me. He has just returned
from the hospital, he says, a week after a transplant.
His skin is yellowed some.
He calls the purple heads
and golden eyes
on their stick-figure stems
Proud. Continue reading “Mitch Goldwater, Two Poems” →

December 21, 2017 0

Paula Rittenhouse, Past

Past
Paula Rittenhouse

You act like you’re so special,
So unlovable,
Because you have secrets,
Because you have a “past,”
As if I’m also supposed to find it shocking
That you have a favorite food
Or that you have feelings
Or that maybe,
Just maybe,
You let your lungs inflate and deflate
Over and over again. Continue reading “Paula Rittenhouse, Past” →

December 21, 2017 0

Abby Caplin, Two Poems

If
Abby Caplin

If, at the moment
of conception,
the matrix
of your corporeality
got plucked from the shelf
near the stove
of Consciousness,
and “you” were ladled
from the hot iron
rim of a dark-holed
kettle, lucky
if paired with soft
rolls and pats
of gold-foiled
buttery love,

while another “you,” by virtue
of spilling from the same
spoon (also into some horses, several
thousand rabbits, a trillion mosquitoes),
worked in a denim factory
in Bangladesh, your Continue reading “Abby Caplin, Two Poems” →