8 o’clock, Thursday evening. From that first tentative ripple of applause through spatulas on frying pans to a smattering of fireworks, the inhabitants of our locked down microcosmic Wonderland can be heard looking out. For each other.

blood
and guts
those still working

Helen Buckingham

I believe that if we were to remove one element of this poem—–whether the rainwater, chickens, or wheelbarrow—-all of us would die. The universe would be all wrong.

a matter of where you are a rainbow

Joseph Salvatore Aversano

The grandpa’s cuckoo clock here in Rzeszów could strike 1:00 a.m. sharp.
A random clock there in Buffalo might be exactly six hours behind.
Just one cup of espresso could give a decent caffeine kick.
A big mug of sencha green tea might cool down almost unnoticeably.
The very first ‘ma-ma’ could fill two loving hearts with sheer delight.
A shooting star might namelessly fade away in the dark and cloudy sky.
A few slow steps to the top of Mount Everest could be taken.
One careless move might cause a rapid fall towards the terminal station.
A question about the sense of this while could finally grow up.
One of the possible answers might be given so as to spell it out.

the time
to read this
was to read this

Rafał Zabratyński

A battered, straggle-haired man, blazoned blue with tatts, boards our free city-loop bus. Eyes on high beam, facing the long, rubbered aisle, he searches for an empty seat. Feet stutter up the centre. A forefinger touches, wraps hard about a post, keeping his body still against the vehicle’s jerking. He holds for a while. Sinks into the fabric. Pokers to attention. Zeroes in on the bus’s monitor in a glass-glaze stare. Three stops later, he unwinds his whippet-thin body, trudges to the bus door. I imagine him shuffling to a shadowed space beside an illuminated shopfront.

weeds gone to seed
over the garden path—
broken journey

Tony Steven Williams