January 2022 | poetry
The way clouds seep through in wings
Fringe of shadow After summer Fall camouflage
I see me
Outside a window looking in
My first baby
Sam the dog
Trusting Wandering
Snow Ice Branches littered Trees
From storms Bowed
I see snowmen and snow angels One more child
Packed in a snowsuit Dad on skates
Burning trash Sitting with a beer
On a summer night
My mother kneels
offers her flowers to bees Waits
One second
Another needy plant
Calls her eye
Small flutter Leaves
Petals rise light Hallowed breaths
I see the wooden man
Whirligig White canoe Saw cut
Feathers Slipped halo
He rides lopsided
Above my mother’s garden
Like a wing
One lone paddle
Lifts the sky
Sheryl L. White
Sheryl L. White is an artist and writer living in Boston. Her writing has been published in The Comstock Review, Solstice Literary Magazine, Poetry Quarterly, The Boston Globe, Split Rock Review, Great Lakes Review, The Woven Tale Press Journal, The Roanoke Review, among others. She was a recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council Poetry Finalist Grant and was twice selected for the Mayor of Boston Poetry Program. In 2019, she was a Pushcart nominee and in 2021, a Best of the Net Nominee. Her chapbook, Sky gone, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2020.
January 2022 | poetry
The sun had already vanished behind
the lights, while we were busy arguing over
a meal gone wrong. I turn to the sea
after the goodbyes with no handshakes or
kisses. The bins aren’t empty yet, of
the plastic bottles and spoons, paper cups,
sandwich wraps, and other unnamable
stuff. A lone seagull hovers above, but I’m
the least bit worried. An artist, with a
fast-burning cigarette in his mouth, carries
his unsold paintings – ‘Jesus and Uncle
Mephisto on a Fishing Trip’, ‘Amy
Winehouse’s Inward Gaze’, ‘Self-Portrait of
a Frog as an Artist’ and so on – back
to the store that’s going to be his studio at
night. There’s a man persuading
a reluctant dog on a leash to get back home,
to end its inane engagement with
a piece of dirtied cloth that looks like
a headscarf that must’ve flown off
too far from someone who might not have
bothered to get it back, or to cover
their head again. I let the dialogues, tones,
gestures, omission of words, choice
of food, and length of sighs from my recent
memories lap against a receding
conscience. They froth over the signs, soon
to be washed off like footprints on
the sand; the very same signs that’d pushed
me to this vast emptiness where a stale
breeze caresses me, amidst what’s lost, torn
apart, stolen, relinquished, or thrown
away for no reason, to the smug black bins.
Jose Varghese
Jose Varghese is an Indian author who has worked as an English teacher in colleges and universities in India and the Middle East. He is the author of ‘Silver Painted Gandhi and Other Poems’ and his short story manuscript ‘In/Sane’ was a finalist in the 2018 Beverly International Prize. He was a finalist twice in the London Independent Story Prize (LISP), a runner-up in the Salt Prize, and was commended in the Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Prize. His works are published in Litro, Joao Roque Literary Journal, Haunted Waters Press, Tempered Runes Press, Cathexis Northwest Press, Beyond Words Literary Magazine, The Best Asian Short Story Anthology (2019 and 2021), The Best Asian Poetry Anthology (2021), Dreich, Live Encounters, Meridian – The APWT Drunken Boat Anthology, Unthology 5, Unveiled, Reflex Fiction, Faber QuickFic, and Flash Fiction Magazine.
January 2022 | poetry
took a shortcut through Central Park, stopping briefly for brunch
at the old sheepfold aka Tavern on the Green. (Ever hard to please
New Yorkers prefer Cavern on the Green). Well pleased he was
with the new menu from which he sampled the warm squid salad,
followed by a small plate of Cremini mushrooms with Cabrales cheese
and red chili. Since he was nearby, and the museums beckoned
he returned their calling there to hang from lights and ponder
the Phillips Collection, most especially the Rothko Room. Once more
filled with awe, the bat out of Hell set sail for the Guggenheim’s
Twombly collection. His favorite palate chaser after the quiet room.
No one expects a bat, one on a day-pass from Hell, to be out
during the day, much less face to face, with canvas and frame, although
some find the orange tinted sunglasses off-putting and over the top,
even for a bat out of Hell. As a card-carrying Patron level member,
he is entitled as such to see what can be seen, and often more.
Richard Weaver
The author hopes to one day once again volunteer with the Maryland Book Bank, CityLit, the Baltimore Book Festival, and return as writer-in-residence at the James Joyce Pub. His pubs: North American Review, crazyhorse, New England Review, Southern Quarterly, Loch Raven Review, & Poetry Magazine. He’s the author of The Stars Undone (Duende Press, 1992), and provided the libretto for a symphony, Of Sea and Stars (2005), performed 4 times to date. Recently his 135th {Ir}Rational Narrative, aka prose poem, was published. He was one of the founders and PEd of the Black Warrior Review.
January 2022 | poetry
Scientists find strange black ‘superionic ice’ that could exist inside
other planets – Argonne National Laboratory, 10/28/21
Water, vapor, ice – glass
half full, steam from the kettle,
frost on the windshield
I thought I knew what
I needed to know about
water’s phases
But now scientists crush water
between two diamonds and heat it
with a laser
It makes weird, hot, black ice
they say, and there’s lots
of it in the universe
Maybe it’s how icy planets form
Maybe it shows how much
we’re still learning, how much
we still have to learn
And if there’s more to know
about water, just think of earth,
air, and fire
Sally Zakariya
Sally Zakariya’s poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Her publications include Something Like a Life, Muslim Wife, The Unknowable Mystery of Other People, Personal Astronomy, and When You Escape. She edited a poetry anthology, Joys of the Table, and blogs at www.butdoesitrhyme.com.
January 2022 | fiction
He watched his bride of fifty years as she read Science magazine while nibbling a liverwurst and onion sandwich. He carefully avoided looking at the liverwurst. He wondered how two such incompatible people could stay married for fifty years.
He peeked at the article. Something about mitochondria or whatever. She never bothered with the astronomy or quantum stuff. Who would do that? How could two such incompatible…
He should let her be, but something else was nagging at him. “How come I never make you laugh?”
Irritated, she answered without looking up. “With, or at?”
“With.”
Now she looked directly at him. “You tell everybody you don’t know how to tell a joke or even remember an entire joke, and you ask me that?”
“I can’t remember ever making you split your gut, wet your panties, fall off your chair –”
“No thank you.”
“OK, how come you never make me laugh?”
“Baby, you laugh all the time. I hear you chuckling in the shower. Sometimes I hear you giggling when you claim to be ‘working.’ You are an infinite source of self-amusement. If you could cook, you wouldn’t need me for anything.” She turned back to her article.
That made him think. His favorite long joke of all time was the “European Heaven/European Hell” joke. He loved it, but he could never get it straight (“… and the Swiss… umm…”), so he carried a crumpled copy in his billfold. Looking back, he guessed nobody would be thrilled to hear some guy say “You wanna hear a great joke?” then see him pull something out of his wallet.
Then he remembered what she’d said about his dragging that joke out of his back pocket: “You just can’t keep it in your pants.” He laughed out loud and thought, Sometimes she’s wicked funny.
She turned another page, shaking her head. There you go again.
Thomas Reed Willemain
Dr. Thomas Reed Willemain is former academic who is swapping working with numbers for playing with words. His flash fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and has appeared in Granfalloon, Burningword Literary Journal, Hobart, The Medley, and elsewhere. A native of western Massachusetts, he lives near the Mohawk River in upstate New York.
