The Petsitter's Love Song / Michelle Frost
I have found the thing I love to do
to stay and sit with pets
homes strewn with toys
A note, "help yourself to anything"
My overnight tote in the guestroom
My home away from home
In the future I will travel only by car
Arrive to greet pets curious wagging
My bag of pens & poems & books stacked
beside me in a plush reading chair
All the comforts with each new stay
cozy sofas and grassy yards for zoomies
My people with pets will understand
"Oh, she's always been nuts for critters"
Fur babies Man's best friend
Binge-watching BritBox mysteries
dogs and cats snoozing in my lap
Writing my poem for tomorrow
Frank's American Childhood / David Hadbawnik
The image of Frank’s American Childhood spiraling into the waiting arms of its mother. Her hands fully flexed, accepting the flying body with soft, fanned-out fingers, its oval form nestling perfectly in her extended forearms, which cradle it tightly to her side and breast, so that Frank’s American Childhood seems to disappear into a self-sealing aperture, snug and secure
*
The first Halloween. Trying on different wigs and hats – a red and yellow wig with devil’s horns, an old-man wig with a bald patch and a wispy gray comb-over, a cowboy hat a million times too large – everyone laughing hysterically as they take pictures of Frank’s American Childhood
*
With all the anticipation of the sudden jolt of a ski lift swinging harshly around and then scooping Frank’s American Childhood up, up
untitled / Alexander Shalom Joseph
in the morning
I wake and say thanks
to as much as I can think
to say thanks to
mostly the earth
is what I give gratitude to
for everything that is here
is hers from her of her
the drywall the carpet
the glass the house plants
my skin the mirror in the bathroom
the trees out the window
the news on the radio
and the radio itself
all its little gears and wires
it’s all from the earth
I wake and say thanks
and can barely believe
all we have made
from all we’ve torn up
out of the earth
we’ve made so much
been given so much in fact
that we sometimes forget
there is an earth beneath our feet
an earth from which all comes
I can’t forget this
we can’t forget this
we need to remember
and it is so easy
step outside
into the air the earth made
through her lungs, the trees
take in that freshness
for breath is another gift
so is everything else
oh that we can
sometimes remember
where it all is from
oh that we can sometimes
say thanks
Meaning, Frost / Sally Kuzma
A search for meaning in the poems
of Robert Frost:
‘It’s as you throw a picture on a screen:
‘The meaning of it all is out of you;
‘The voices give you what you wish to hear.’
– so says one of his neighbors recalling
‘the roar a brook makes as it cascades,
‘ north of Boston.
West of Boston
mid-November 2026,
the iron gray arms of oaks
‘shrug against a zinc-white sky–
whatever they had to say
‘is drowned out by the man
‘ with the leaf-blower
‘ roaring through my neighbor’s yard.
we Gonna Be Alright / Rachel Lee
Baby we gonna be alright
Baby will we ever be alright
Baby has it ever been alright
Maybe we’ll collapse from venomous darts
Bullets to our hearts
Serve a shot of whiskey froze
Clip a set of angel wings
We kiss each other to avoid saying hateful things
The Big Light / Lincoln McElwee
I never turn the big light on.
But what is a chandelier without purpose?
A statement piece? Furniture? A ghostly fixture?
Once, at a friend’s new home,
the dining room chandelier fell and broke
into diamonds in the rough, sharp slick ice chips
immune to melting, and we called the new place haunted.
Perhaps the chandelier without purpose
is a source of luck for some.
Perhaps it’s a lone lighthouse for the liminal,
a silent, unassuming sentinel in the fight for good.
Like the mask to ward off evil purchased in Tibet,
packed still in a smashed moving box
in the bedroom closet.
It’s supposed to be hung above the front door
to ward off spirits.
One day, I’ll hang it up. I’ll join the fight.
I’ll turn the big light on.
I was a child when I witnessed my first miracle / Michelle Stoll
slipping out the patio door
haint blue bowl in hand
anticipating blackberries
I prepare for inevitable thorn pricks
reach into the bush
for the juiciest berries
startle a cardinal from her nest
the empty container
the spilled berries
the wild wings
the thorns, the eggs
in the nest
