by Emma Wells

“Here, stillness reigns. / Irritation stops.”

by Steven M. Smith

“They had to accelerate after work . . . away / from their frowning houses, where their spouses / perspired and sighed into pots of soup and laundry bins.”

by henry 7. reneau, jr.

“a euphor/oxia of osmotic diss- / combobulation   it can happen / now !! to you / is only amerikkka as usual   (hear no/ speak no /   see no evil) / a racial diss- / equilibrium of gunshot / splayed”

by Sharon Weightman Hoffman

“like many people, I have hated mimes / with their white faces and quizzical eyebrows, / leaning into the wind or trapped / in invisible boxes.”

by Sumayya Arshed

“the car hums like a throat clearing before confession, / fear sits beside her, always by her side, / palpable as sweat sinking into vinyl seats…”

by Len Kuntz

“…when it hugs you    pats your back    says Son you’re a tall bastard now   that laugh again    his new set of eyes     nearly as black as     the ants that danced    throughout our home   the ones that still come looking.”

by a.d.

“Having sated his calling, the prostitute / returns under the first blush / of dawn, & in the vestry smothers / his hard-earned holiness.”

by Clay Waters

“How do we do it / messing up our very first garden, / embarrassments / buried in squared-off corners, / forebears crucified on palm frond, / thorny warnings…”

by Mykyta Ryzhykh

“When I buried you the oceans didn't move however / When I buried you it didn't rain and nothing changed / When I buried you I realized that you still hear and even breathe”

by Nick Power

“Pascal’s death was a cliffhanger / merciful and swift like the maintenance train / the Kinsellas got him – / one in the ear one in the eye, like Morningstar / he lay there outside The Blood Tub / beneath flashing Bass / a contented Sealion…” 

by Robert Sheppard

“…nature’s resonating chamber / perfectly formed and moulding pure / breath / into a song that will never die – / honed by judgement / of restraint / and extension, phrasing / speech into song / Stardust!”

by Mark McConville

“The glow / The gleam / The light that cuts through the darkness…”

by Geoffrey Aitken

“it was said his hat rested / on the hook by the door. / convenience, / might have been why.”

by Emma Johnson-Rivard

“We were abandoned to our mantras. / You know, like a bomb.”

by Tempest Miller

“Soho shakes as he walks through / combat boots, Carnaby street, leather jacket / his collar turned up leaning on the black bollard…”

by Francesca Leader

“…it sounds like you, sliding / into my dark bed, matching your/soft metal to my / tender ore, the safety of a door *clicking* shut—fit / tight, world contained.”

by William Teets

“Some wayward detachment tries to change his providence by texting with Satan. Seeks true love—the kind you find spray-painted on overpasses, carved into bark—to modify his heart, heal his Lonely Avenue blues.”

by Noah Berlatsky

“The potato chip does not have dominion over me. / I have dominion over the potato chip!”