Mikvah (pantoum)

July 2022 | poetry

submerged and unseen

            in an archaic well –

                        women thought dirty

                                    by men of G-d

in an archaic well,

            with bodies purified

                        by men of G-d,

                                    ensnaring the fecund

with bodies purified,

            my sisters were bait

                        ensnaring the fecund

                                    in their water ringed curls

my sisters were bait,

            fertile and sullen –

                        in their water ringed curls

                                    hid the birth of the world

fertile and sullen,

            women thought dirty

                        hid the birth of the world –

                                    submerged and unseen

Lisa Delan

Lisa Delan is classical soprano specializing in American Art Song; performing, recording, and commissioning musical settings of an expansive range of poetry. She has recorded extensively for the Pentatone label and can be heard on Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube, and other streaming platforms. Her own poetry appears in American Writers Review (San Fedele Press 2022), Beyond Words Literary Magazine, Cathexis Northwest Press, Drunk Monkeys, Lone Mountain Literary Society, Mill Valley Literary Review, Poets Choice, The Pointed Circle, Tangled Locks, Viewless Wings, and Wingless Dreamer.

In Memory of Angela, Enslaved, Who Arrived Before the Mayflower

April 2022 | poetry

                        After Theories of Time and Space by Natasha Trethewey

The home we knew is only memory. It repeats

without variation. We are forever young—

forever children playing in the yard: giggling, kicking stones,

chasing guineafowl, taking too long to answer mother’s call.

Mother is so much older now or in her grave, though

in the home inside you, she is always young and lovely—

dark skin glistening in the midday sun as she simmers

peanut stew and the spice-heavy aroma is carried

on the wind even across the ocean. If you take a deep breath,

Angela, you can taste the meal she prepared the last day you saw her.

Ellen June Wright

Ellen June Wright was born in England of West Indian parents and immigrated to the United States as a child. She taught high-school language arts in New Jersey for three decades before retiring. She has consulted on guides for three PBS poetry series. She was a finalist in the Gulf Stream 2020 summer poetry contest. Her work was selected as The Missouri Review’s Poem of the Week in June 2021, and she received five 2021 Pushcart Prize nominations.

Don’t Be Afraid

April 2022 | poetry

Leave behind

            fugitive clothing, rags  that stink of evasion,

            irreconcilable anguish,

            unacknowledged fissures,

            time sliced by nostalgia into frames.

Be close to the edge to know your wound your love,

your end to abide, but not in complaisance.

Do not forget to leave your handprint on a wall.

These are the conditions of possibility.

Lynn Staley

Lynn Staley is a Professor of English at Colgate University, where she teaches and writes about medieval and early modern literature and culture. However, she is also a poet and has been for many years. Her poems are representative of her awareness of place (a remnant of a Kentucky upbringing), of the intersections of the ordinary and extraordinary, and of her interest in the submerged narrative. Several years ago a poetry manuscript was short-listed for the Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize given by Kent State University Press. She has published in the Seneca Review, The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, and Psaltery and Lyre.