Soften

Ellen La Penna   Breathe in through the choke of age through lungs less elastic through the web of grief still residing in my chest. I’ve been trying for so long to put all the pieces back and make them stay in place, please. Then I can follow a narrow pathway to...

Queendom Come—After Roger Robinson’s poem, Portable Paradise

Mary Pecaut                                    If I speak of Paradise then I’m speaking of our grandmother who stands beside the river of time indulging in verdant views beneath a tree feasting on the whimbrel in flight,     ki-ki-ki one eve shadowed into shame...

Parfait

Kitty Jospé   No cherry on top or whipped cream can restore the once rare delicacy it was, (marinated in maraschino) now colored fake red When life             whispers this is wrong                                                 when fragile asks for real, not...

On The Other Hand

Anne Harding Woodworth   I pick up gloves lost in the street, put them in a pocket, take them home. So far, I have a dozen. Two are brown. Ten black. Eleven for the left hand. Four are made for men in overcoats, eight for women going far too fast. The one right...

Lessons from My Daily Walk—An Ode to Annie Dillard

Gina T. Ogorzaly   Cranes chortle raucously mere yards overhead startled by coyote lurking in the neighbor’s field. Cormorant whizzes rapidly straight up the acequia or sits sedately and lonely on a branch sticking up mid-stream. Geese wing south in their...

In This Season, You Already Know

Andrea Penner   You think you don’t have it in you, so you turn to some guru, someone to show you what’s new under the sun, pay them to exercise your mind or show you how to change, to grow, to do it better, to save more, buy less…. but you know already. Dig deep...