by Claire Kroening

Today, burnt coffee clung 
to the back of 
my throat. A bitter 
epilogue of your 
sweetness.
Today, tears patter 
into empty china 
cups; moon-drenched 
lyrics shakily 
forgotten. Today is a 
reminder of our last.

* * *

CLAIRE KROENING is an award-winning writer and freelance editor/proofreader residing along the great lakes. Connect with them on Instagram @clairerosek. 

by Leonard St-Aubin

Beloved of the sky,
said Emily Carr,
these tall pines against blue sky
​—that will never be timber--
trunks slender, twisted 
where they bent to find the sun
through the shade of hardwood trees,
and dropped low branches
'til only their tops,
feathery, exposed, catch light.
Now, like northern palms,
they rise up above
the bare winter canopy,
only they are green,
illuminated 
by afternoon sun,
each cluster of fine needles 
a starburst, lit or backlit,
vibrates, imperceptibly
a hymn to the sky.

* * *

LEONARD ST-AUBIN divides his time between Ottawa and a summer home in PEI. His poems have been published in RED: The Island Story Book (November 2025), in Bywords.ca and in the Pownal Street Press collection FIONA.

by Suzie Pearson

Emptied.
Standing as a monument to
      every discount,
      every sale,
      every closing down event,
      “everything must go”.
Packets, unopened, aged with neglect.
Boxes remain sealed.
A forgotten moment of need.
Duplicates waiting in the depths of shelves.
A reminder of what was lost.

* * *

SUZIE PEARSON’s poetry has been published in Whispered Words (Writer Shed Press, 2024), as well various online magazines. She's also received a highly commended in Wolverhampton Literary Festival Poetry competition and appeared at WoLF 2025, and participated in both Ironbridge & Shrewsbury Poetry Slams 2025. Find her at @wordsfromanotebook  and www.wordsfromanotebook.com 

by Shama

Water chalked out marks on the apartment walls,
roping me in; the macaque screeched--
its toy lungs failing.

The rising brine strengthened
its noose. I swatted flies circling
the swollen coffee table.

The carpet's frayed hands
released their hold of Lego bricks,
from which you once made a house.

Mothballs rolled down and rattled
in the drain filter as I pulled the plug
and scavenged my leftover pieces

from your jetsam.

* * *

Shama has work featured in Gyroscope Review, ONE ART, The Pierian, and elsewhere. She writes from an old dusty corner of the earth and can sometimes be found on Bluesky @entangledrhyme.bsky.social and IG @entangledrhyme.

by Barbara Brooks

It tumbles like a torrent from the sky
soaking the ground. Drowns the newly
planted grass in a cloudburst.
 
I focus a prism on sorrow to see
if hope can be found.
 
But I can see none, only forests
razed to the ground, mountains
stripped of their tops. I notice
only the world being torn down,
dug up, burned.
 
Sorrow covers me with smog
and disease.  It forms its own glacier
that slides down to cover
my thoughts with soot and dust
from distant corners of the world.
 
In the lengthening days, I wait.
 
* * *

BARBARA BROOKS is a retired physical therapist and author of 3 chapbooks, The Catbird Sang, A Shell to Return to the Sea, Watercolors.  She is a member of PoetFools writing group. She lives in Hillsborough, NC with her dog.

by John Grey

As I nod off,
a white egret
occupies the edge of my eye— 
no sound, 
only the peace
of being stone-like
in the shade,
a body open to breeze,
but forgotten by daylight.
 
The bird moves
surreptitiously--
a flash of wing,
a flick of beak,
that tuning fork
for the hidden pulse
of fish and frog.
 
I’m busy with memory
so I miss the kill,
the sudden lunge,
the silver writhing
swallowed whole.
 
The egret pauses
for a moment to digest
then resumes its ritual
of stillness and motion.
 
What’s instinct for a bird
is my way of thinking.

* * *

JOHN GREY is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Shift, River And South and Flights. Latest books, “Bittersweet”, “Subject Matters” and “Between Two Fires” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Rush, White Wall Review and Trampoline.

by Bart Edelman

Hadn’t walked the plank
In a number of years.
Never planned on it again.
But when you showed up,
I dispensed with my shoes,
Feeling the smooth wood,
Cold beneath my feet,
Familiar step by step.
I was halfway across,
Before you called out--
Told me to abandon fate.
And I wavered, of course.
Didn’t know how to retreat.
Couldn’t envision the course.
Unsteady each moment.
Then I paced my way back,
Where you stood, open-handed,
Offering what still remained--
One pirate heart to another.

* * *

BART EDELMAN’s poetry collections include Crossing the Hackensack, The Alphabet of Love, The Gentle Man, The Last Mojito, The Geographer’s Wife, Whistling to Trick the Wind, and This Body Is Never at Rest: New and Selected Poems 1993 – 2023. 

by Jennifer Griffin Gaul

The blue dots scatter across my chest like a constellation. These stars have lit my life before. They burned on my husband before they burned on me. In less than four months his were gone, their promise unfulfilled. Mine have remained. So like a ship from days of old I will use them to navigate my way.

* * *

JENNIFER GRIFFIN GAUL is a pianist and music educator who writes in the moments of silence when not making music. 

by Israel Allen

Wind whistles Scottish hymns,
air forced through small gaps,
fragments of autumn
littering Carolina.
 
Trees scratch a serenade,
friction-shaped notes,
bark on bark, bending
branches too bare to rustle.
 
Leaves brave blacktop,
crackling like a gray choir,
odes of October
breaking in their throats.
 
My stride falls in rhythm,
sole-stepping the tune.
Arrogant, I imagine
the song is for me.

* * *

ISRAEL ALLEN writes and teaches fiction and drama. His work includes the plays Ask Me Anything and The Emerald Heist and the novels Ian Baker’s .45 and Bibles and Ball Bats (writing as Chris Allen).

by Patricia Russo

The old man is weaving a net out of ashes
in which to catch a name.
She can tell his eyes are burning
but he won’t stop to wipe them.
She’d like to stroke his head 
as she passes behind him
but he’d only shrug her off.
She has names in every pocket
tucked inside twists of pretty paper
but he wouldn’t thank her
for any of them
so she keeps them for the children
who visit her shyly
on certain afternoons
when a quarter moon
is visible in the sky.

* * *

PATRICIA RUSSO's work has appeared in One Art, The Sunlight Press, Vagabond City, A Sufferer's Digest, Hex Literary, Eulogy Press, Revolution John, and Crow and Cross Keys.

by Andrea Tillmanns

Don’t worry, my dear:
The herbs in my garden
are harmless, old and tame
is the raven on my shoulder,
the words in my books
sing of no evil.
And when we go dancing
in the evening,
we park our brooms
neatly in a row.

* * *

ANDREA TILLMANNS lives in Germany and works full-time as a university lecturer. She has been writing poetry, short stories and novels in various genres for many years. Her poems and stories have been published in diverse journals and anthologies.

by Angela Zimmerling

that was us

          spiked hair and black eye-liner
          plaid and chains
          our faces
          made pale with talc 

          no nukes
                     in acid rain                 
                     we raised the black flag 

         no future
         in the shadow
         of the bomb

         david bowie was our god

         we posed like dolls
         on street corners and on benches 

         searched
         for holes in the layers 
         of our sky
         while the rain-forests burned 

         wore our rage
         like broken hearts
         and cut ourselves
         on the shards
         of the earth
                             
​                      we lived
                      for the drums’ beat
                      a moment’s breath in the light
                     
         we lived to dance

* * *

ANGELA ZIMMERLING is a former journalist who works in poetry, fiction and illustration as well as in non-fiction.  She lives on a small subsistence farm with her husband and their beloved animals.

by Sara Etgen-Baker

* * *

​SARA ETGEN-BAKER has written a collection of memoir vignettes and narrative essays (Shoebox Stories), collection of poems (Kaleidoscopic Verses), and a novel (Secrets at Dillehay Crossing).  Her work has been published in numerous anthologies and magazines including Guideposts and Chicken Soup for the Soul.