January 2022 | poetry
Saturday morning to ourselves.
No husbands, no kids.
The lake house, a friend’s but ours
for a few hours. We shimmy
out of jeans into bathing suits,
one piece, thanks very much.
On the pier, I drop my cover-up,
dangle feet in cool water. You say
no one’s seen me in a suit since the
kids were born.
No judgment, I answer,
all the while thinking
why don’t we ever take it easy
on ourselves, we women? Be more like
men. Never a thought to
belly bursting its waistband,
to skin once smooth and firm, now
sagging. Eyes never darting
downward in shame for appearing
less than perfect.
The sun behind does its magic,
transforms us to long shadows
dancing, shimmering,
transports us, two young girls
laughing, carefree
on a do-nothing summer’s day.
Peggy Hammond
Peggy Hammond’s recent poems appear or are forthcoming in Pangyrus, The Comstock Review, For Women Who Roar, Fragmented Voices, The Sandy River Review, ONE ART, and elsewhere. A Best of the Net nominee, her chapbook The Fifth House Tilts is due out fall 2022 (Kelsay Books). Her full-length play A Little Bit of Destiny was produced by OdysseyStage Theatre in Durham, NC.
January 2022 | poetry
I ran
she said, you’ll fall over, stupid
I tripped
she said, one day you’ll break a leg
I sang,
she said, you’re badly out of tune
I smiled
she said, that’ll get you into trouble
I lived
without running, tripping, singing, smiling
I screamed
silenced her, claimed my stalled freedoms
Ceinwen E Cariad Haydon
Ceinwen lives near Newcastle upon Tyne, UK and writes short stories and poetry. She is widely published in online magazines and in print anthologies. Her first chapbook was published in July 2019: ‘Cerddi Bach’ [Little Poems], Hedgehog Press. She is a Pushcart Prize (2019 & 2020) and Forward Prize (2019) nominee She is developing practice as a participatory arts facilitator and believes everyone’s voice counts, even when their stories are hard to hear.
January 2022 | poetry
In the desert men
left their red hand prints
in high caves
We climbed to see them
In the arid map-drawn panhandle
men found shadowed crevices
to scratch out figures
of their prey
then self symbols
some magic to catch them?
We trudge and climb
to find them
Our thirsty days lead us
to dry lands
and hidden places searching
for the reasons that flicker
in the dark recesses of our minds
whisper welcome
to what we seek
even in the heavy silences
of these humid-breathed
and drowsy afternoons.
Carol Hamilton
Carol Hamilton has retired from teaching 2nd grade through graduate school in Connecticut, Indiana, and Oklahoma, from storytelling and volunteer medical translating. She is a former Poet Laureate of Oklahoma and has published 17 books: children’s novels, legends and poetry and has been nominated nine times for a Pushcart Prize. She has won a Southwest Book Award, Oklahoma Book Award, David Ray Poetry Prize, Byline Magazine literary awards in both short story and poetry, Warren Keith Poetry Award, Pegasus Award and a Chiron Review Chapbook Award.
January 2022 | poetry
The old era smelled rotten
like rancid motor oil. On the horizon,
machinations of gods
rumbled like impending darkness,
releasing missing letters
and links upon the world
to spell the message:
The world is collapsing.
What are you looking for?
In response we extracted
warped notes from musicals
like Hedwig and the Angry Inch,
injecting them into mirrors
so we could watch them transform
into red, malignant storms.
We were always singing ballads
of stolen adulthood
and curtailed childhood
until we learned how to make
enchantments from broken strands
and release songs of judgment
and decay, wearing necklaces
the wind did not finish. Underground,
skeletons of horses and dogs
pulsed like phosphorescent ghosts.
We danced with them in the basement,
tuning in to radio static that crackled
under a dangling bulb, mercury everywhere.
Strings of little lights burned all night,
coating our tongues bright gold.
Susan Michele Coronel
Susan Michele Coronel is a New York City-based poet and educator. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in publications including Spillway 29,The Inflectionist Review, Gyroscope Review, The Night Heron Barks, Prometheus Dreaming, One Art, Funicular, TAB Journal, Ekphrastic Review, and Passengers Journal. In 2020, she received a Parent Poet Fellowship from Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. This year, she received a Pushcart nomination and was a first runner-up for the Beacon Street Prize. She recently completed a manuscript of her first book.
October 2021 | poetry
When I think of heaven, I see trash:
Broken bottles, leaking Freon, used notebooks,
Thanksgiving scraps, industrial dross, ash
Of lives that rot and leach into the brooks
And streams that feed the river, then the sea.
Yet, when I conceive a perfect hell, it looks
Unpeopled, manicured, fresh, foolproof, each tree
Equal, sidewalks flat, no black oil stain
On any gray driveway. Loveless and pure.
Why, then, am I so ashamed of my pain?
I haul my grief in my sinful junk cart,
As if I could secure peace from this vain,
Broken, human life. No, I live, not apart
From death, my pardon pawned, deep of my heart.
Richard Stimac
Richard Stimac writes poetry about growing up in the Rustbelt. Richard published poetry in Faultline, Havik (2021 Best in Show for Poetry), Michigan Quarterly Review, Penumbra, Salmon Creek Journal, Wraparound South, and others, and an article on Willa Cather in The Midwest Quarterly.
October 2021 | poetry
Just ten years ago, I felt young,
before that, not old enough.
Before now, geologists say,
there was a before, a before before
when ice, white cedar trees, and dark
brown salt deposits lined the coast.
When the waves pound the shore,
I hear the churning, churning
of saltwater like the buckled inner-
workings of the mind.
The surging of desires that wash
ashore, recede, and reemerge
like a hand extending
and then retracting itself mid-air.
On the boardwalk, a couple shares
a scone. Ahead, a child carves
a moat around a sandcastle. Above,
the seagulls seem lost—
they throw their bodies into the air
any which way, skim the water’s
surface, then take flight, as if to say:
Never mind or not today. I close
my eyes: salt turns to sugar in my mouth.
The January sun stings
my eyelids amber. Beneath this layer
is another layer: of cedar, peat,
marsh. Two teenagers giggle
with lattes. One young, the other
even younger. How many mornings,
like this one, have I already forgotten?
A Labrador chases a tennis ball
into the water and flashes its teeth.
I grin back. Day, too, froths at the mouth.
Shannon K. Winston
Shannon K. Winston’s poems have appeared in Crab Creek Review, The Night Heron Barks, RHINO, Rust + Moth, and elsewhere. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and several times for the Best of the Net. Her poetry collection, The Girl Who Talked to Paintings, was published by Glass Lyre Press in 2021. She currently lives in Princeton, New Jersey. Find her at shannonkwinston.com.
