Issue 15

August 2024

Centerpiece

I bought a centerpiece. 
It was $24 at Home Goods.
It’s made to look vintage. 
So, you could say it’s a new-old idea. 

Thoughts about who, what, where, when and how 
it will anchor a fall evening, 
the fanning flicker of flames upon familiar faces, 
the glint of plates being passed,
these warm thoughts 
are proving to be priceless

because we 
are from different parties,
which is to say, 
we do different things 
behind closed doors
 
at polling places. 

Before we gather, 
we’ll thread texts about who’s bringing what, 
and we’ll emoji-twist-arm for pumpkin spice 
and flavorful conversations 
along lines that trace
back to a time before 

complicated feelings 
about books 
or flags 
or borders 
or beautiful people. 

The idea of us is old and new. 
Tried and true.
With broken pieces 

at the center. 

Megan Sciarrino

If I was Mary Oliver

If I was Mary Oliver 
I’d write a poem about 
cicadas. I’d turn their 
translucent, webbed wings 
into a metaphor. I’d paint 
a picture of the maple tree 
where they choose to spend 
their time above ground. I’d 
tell you all about how the 
males, of course, are the ones 
making all the racket. 

But I am not Mary. 
I can not find the beauty 
in bugs and it just sounds 
like screaming to me and there 
is no answer when I ask, 
is this a warning 
or a celebration? 

Michelle Windsor

They Say Motherhood Kills Your Creativity

But just the other day, I samba’d while rocking my daughter
to sleep. Wrote poems in the dirt with my son. 

Drew pictures of a giraffe on a lunch note napkin. 
Last week, I put on a live performance 

in the living room – called it Musical Mom.
It’s not the best thing I’ve ever written, but it’s certainly

not the worst. I have spent hours fingerpainting and sidewalk
chalking, dancing under the disco lights in Barbie’s dream house,

crooning in the kitchen while making scrambled eggs. Mothers, 
gather round — I am telling you some truths:

Creativity doesn’t sink in the mud of motherhood, 
doesn’t scuff up your Sunday shoes. It simply shifts, a subtle

trick of the light, a snake shedding its skin. 
An artist painting the great work of her life. 

Jillian Stacia

The News Is Always Breaking These Days

But not everything is urgent. 
Very few things are as dire as they seem. 
I know you believe it is your job 
to rage about all that is wrong 
with the world, but let me stop you there. 
Let me put my hands on your shoulders
and we’ll remember together 
what it is to breathe. 
Let me look you in the eyes. 
Let me show you it is not too late
to remember that you and I are mostly
the same. Please. I am pleading
with you because this is all 
we have left, now. Your eyes
and mine. The seeing, the searching. 
I am asking you because 
this is urgent. 

Krista Drechsel

Punctuation

Darkness covers day’s light.
Like a period, these 24 hours will end.

Leftover dinner is packed for lunch; water bottles washed, already full;
Like a semi-colon, they link today with tomorrow.

With the moon high and prayers whispered, your body curls around mine,
like a comma, separate yet connected.

Our hands are intertwined (our hopes and lives too)
Like a parenthesis, I hold our life, our love, our dreams. 

Alyssa Silvester

Google Search History 

After AmyKayPoetry

What is the transition to three children like? Naturopath specialising in fertility. Best ways to reduce stress. Chasteberry stockists near me. Pelvic girdle pain. Subchorionic haemorrhage. Women’s health physio near me. High risk pregnancy for Down’s Syndrome. Down’s Syndrome babies at birth. NIPT provider near me. Anaemia. Chest infection in pregnancy. Orthotics stockist near me. Pregnancy sciatica. Smallest legal booster seat for a six-year-old. Where to buy Gaviscon at night? How fast could birth go if my last was three hours? What are the chances I will have another shoulder dystocia? Caesarean recovery. Cheap 7L slow-cooker. Yin yoga classes near me. 

… What is the transition to four children like? 

Rebecca Marie

What Are the Chances

Sometimes I think about all the 
chance things that have to happen 
for so many people to choose the restaurant 
across the street from my house on a Tuesday night
For five other readers in my library system 
to request the same old book as me
I never pass up the exclamation of matching outfits 
or matching cars or even matching beach towels
because coincidences are nothing 
if not worth a little bit of celebrating

Just think of all the coincidences that caused you 
and I to find each other when we weren't even looking 
and to make a home here when there were billions of others to choose 
Just think how one tiny change could have kept it all from happening 
and maybe
maybe
we wouldn't have loved each other at all

That two willful people converged into a life of joyful yielding?
Well the chance of that
is nothing short of magic

Amy Grass

All I really want is for people to be nice to me

Please
tread softly
over my
paper-
thin heart.
Don’t stomp
the delicate
vessels 
until bruises
bloom, a spill
of ink across
the evening 
sky. I am
a humming-
bird, nearing
a gentling
hand—I am
a bud, turning
to the light.

Lorren Lemmons