April - Poem 24

untitled / Maureen Alsop

My First Great Grandchild  / Bob Bradshaw

   “Granddad you look so young!"
    Ashlyn, six years old, says,  
    gazing at my photo.

    I wasn’t much taller
  than a bonsai, I say, spreading
    my dusk like canopy.

    “How’d you get so old?”
    I shrug.  “Granddad, 
    I love that bird’s nest 
    atop your head.
    
    You look cool! None 
    of my friends’ grandparents
    are as cool as you!”

    Could you and your daddy
    build a bird feeder,
    and hang it on me?

    “YES!” and Ashlyn sprints inside  
    —but when she comes out
    she’s a teenager, 
    wearing a spring dress
    and sandals, 

   and carrying an obsidian 
   bird feeder. A translucent 
   water bottle hangs 
   on one side.

    
    “You look handsome,
    Granddad!” 

    As I’m about to offer her
    my last yellow blooms,
    her mama calls her in.

    Red hummingbird sage
    is spiking the air 
    when Ashlyn returns—
    in her twenties,
    carrying her first
    baby.

    They gaze 
    at our famous 
    bird feeder—Ashlyn 
    as optimistic as spring
    about their future.

    —While winter  
    slips onto me a soft 
    white robe
   
    from inside the house
    Ashlyn lifts her baby  
    to the window. 
    “Look, sweetheart,
    snow!”

Day 1,154 / Stan Galloway

Beauty makes no sense in a world / where friends die*

To wake in the night to the shaking of the bed-
room from a new crater in the parking lot
should not be normal
should not be ignored by a compassionate world.
Power out on a sub-freezing night
should be an emergency
not an irrelevant circumstance.
No one talks of Mariupol or Bucha anymore
but bodies still decay there.
Coffee at dawn and roses replaced in the broken window
do not erase the morning’s obituaries.

“Elegy” by Josh Schneyer [Eunoia Revew, 8 Apr. 2026]

Prediction / Ava Hu

*

My pencil drawing 

of a small house 

built with soft talismans 

to bring in the light.

The author writes us 

in black and white 

lines across rivers 

and fields.

Pink sakura blossoms 

sweep across the page.

What do we hold 

onto from this life to the next?

Does hunger mean

taking everything at once?

The way you let go, 

I let go too.

*

BiPoLaR RoCkEt ShIpS  / Sergiy Pustogarov

i DoN’t WaNt tO hUrT yOu,
So LeAvE mE a SiGn In ThE sTaRs.

i’Ll SeE iT aS i’M fLyInG bY. 
A rOcKeT sHiP iN tHe NiGhT,

tRyInG tO fInD mY rOaDmAp 
ThRoUgH cOnStElLaTiOnS,

uNtIl ThEsE rOcKeTs BuRsT aLl ApArT
AnD sUdDeNlY i FaLl DoWn

tO tHe EaRtH.
FoRmInG nEw CaNyOnS

wItH tHe DeBrIs FrOm My CoLlApSe.
I kEeP gOiNg On ThEsE jOuRnEyS,

a NeW oNe EvErY qUaRtEr.
NeW sTaRs I’vE fOuNd,

aNd NaMeD aFtEr ThE sOuLs 
WhO i LeAvE bEhInD.

i WiSh I KnEw HoW tO sTaY pLaNtEd;
FuLlY gRoUnD iN eArThS mAgNiFiCeNt CoRe.

bUt DaIlY,
NeW cAlLiNgS.

nEw AdVeNtUrE,
My SoUl WaS nEvEr MeAnT fOr.

oNe DaY iT wIlL aLl SeTtLe DoWn,
ThE eArThS gReEn PaStUrEs 

sOoTh My WoRn OuT sOuL.

BuT i HaVeN’t FoUnD tHe RiGhT mEdIcAtIoN fOr ThIs YeT. 

self-portrait as a citadel / nat raum

all slabs of formstone and stacked-up
barricades, there is nothing this body

can’t weather. who needs a tower
when you were at once built and taught
to repel the forces of evil? everything

is supposed to be black and white
like this—you’re good or you’re bad.

when you don’t tell the truth, that’s a lie
by omission. there’s a reason no one talks 
about what lurks within the city’s walls;

they still want to sleep soundly and say
there’s only splendor here. they don’t tell you

this, but when you build your walls this
high, you’re stuck with what’s inside them.

I Blanked and Forgot the Meaning of Life in the Back Pocket of My Jeans Before Putting Them in the Wash. / Daniel Avery Weiss

O, the glorious Point of it rests in the Hands of
someone I knew for a bit in college, who
teased the absurd wit from the hands of a situation
like a thread from a threadbare
comforter, thereby exposing something abysmal
and, like spilled milk, hilarious.
How very public.
Let’s be frogs, you and I.

on people-pleasing / MK Zariel

the text chain glows like an unwanted spiral, the mood lighting
of your house equally piercing, illuminating a bunch of trash
that you pretend not to see. i try to set a boundary like a human
and i see the no-compute flare behind your eyes
and it is a brick wall. it is a loud obtrusive walk that kicks up dust

and envelops all. it is a buffering window. it is a rerun—
the television flickers in and out in your room, the sound
like a white noise if it were overwhelming. you talk over it,
but pause it when anyone else talks. you get upset
when people anticipate your needs and when they don't.

you write a letter—and i've done this a thousand time over—
and my exhaustion cuts like a blade. it is the specific pallor
of someone who's pulled an all-nighter in the airport
and been yelled at the whole time. it is anarchist infighting.
it is a conversation with a void. it is an attempt to reason with one's cat.
i don't know why you claim to be emotionally intelligent

citing the two theorists you've read, only to develop
a mysterious amnesia for boundaries. you perform an idiocy
that lingers as long as you need it to—and it is the cloying
smirk of a politician. it is a soundbite. it is a problem player
at the d&d table. it is ad copy for nobody. it is the refusal to hear

anything you didn't optimize. you talk about your diet.
i begin thinking that if i dematerialized out of sheer disgust,
i'd lose weight (all of it), and you'd be proud. you talk about
your opinions of people you don't know. i wish i never knew you
never came into your sphere of influence, not close enough
to gossip about. you talk. i break.