July 2015 | back-issues, poetry
A straightened line of cold rounded
sand still manifests itself in a
circular formation of lost
privileges and guarded chances,
falling, tumbling, surrounded in a
broken mist of past ignorance, sealed
by hot assurances of desire and want,
hidden by incremental degrees of solitude
and hope.
by Joseph Buehler
Joseph Buehler lives in northern Georgia with his wife Trish. He has published three short stories in the “Kansas Magazine” and a short story in the “Canadian Forum” long ago and three poems in “Bumble Jacket Miscellany” and a poem in “Defenestration” in December 2011 and have an upcoming poem in the spring/summer 2012 “Common Ground Review” and poems in “Theodate”, “Mad Swirl”, “Indiana Voice Journal” and other places.
July 2015 | back-issues, poetry
and green and fresh as a cucumber pickle,
sharp in the mouth, and soft green too,
soft and new as the sweater you bought me,
holding me young.
As young as love, a humble sip,
the smallest sip of warm green tea,
grounded like gymnasts learning to stick
fast to the landing.
As young as a flock of parakeets,
chattering green, holding us up
to the air, clumsy blunders of green,
dashed into shivers.
As young as green in the eyes of a cat,
the eyes of a cat eternity’s green,
what we take with us after we’ve shed
what’s left of our thunder.
by Gwen Jensen
Birthright, Gwendolyn Jensen’s first book of poems, was published in 2011. Her second book, As If Toward Beauty, was released in 2014. The print and online journals where her poems and translations have appeared include The Comstock Review, Harvard Review, Salamander, and Stickman Review.
July 2015 | back-issues, poetry
This blood is a waltz at dawn.
A soul splinters on the ground,
a thousand red vessels smashing
to pieces. The doctors take pictures
instead of putting it back together.
A human soul—the honeysuckle
leaking out. The janitor comes
instead, leaking capillaries brushed
away beneath a Bauhaus mop.
by Ruohan Miao
Ruohan Miao lives in Arizona. Her work can be found in Cicada, Aerie International, Cargoes, and Navigating the Maze. When not writing, she can be found marveling at the vastness of space.
