nettle patch
on a large dock leaf a stage
for shadows

Butterflies shine in transformation. As they flit between each surface sting to sting translucency grows. Mere reflections.

crack willow
leaf edges sun-silvered
Ophelia’s mirror

Diana Webb

I joke a lot about my big toes clown it up hardy har har spin my maiming into attempts at hilarity pull up the pictures to nauseate friends make light of the little piggies’ abrupt freakishness how repulsive a woman would undoubtedly find them the sheer fright they’d give a young child to behold gallows kind of stuff with emphatic bitter edge but when I scrub them in the shower at night stare down at whilst seated upon the the commode I’m not laughing if you’ve ever been permanently disfigured in some conspicuous noticeable way from an injury suffered on the worksite of a lowly minimum waged menial job during performance of routine duties in a manner which could easily have been prevented via better training, equipment, oversight, application of PPE adherence to proper OSHA regulations and furthermore to your knowledge since your wounding policies which caused it remain in place if you’ve been unable to afford even getting the most basic ‘look-see’ appraisal of the damage by a medical professional in reality it ain’t all that funny at every place I work I hear this one so very often

under an oak
counting for
the thunder

Jerome Berglund

Warm lustre, in it the hard seems softer. Blurred reflections on a matte surface, suspended by a raspberry sound. There is no wall. There are only walls. (What are walls?)

A single bird begins to sing. Is that a blackbird? How does a blackbird sound? Why am I thinking ’blackbird’? Chequers. I, 471/0 T, request data. The data is incomplete. An idea of me asks for … coffee. I get one, a cup in the niche. I haven’t asked. I have no mouth. Indeed, there is no coffee. I am not … awake. I do not sleep. Am I … was I … human?

A peony unrolls into the aether. 471/0 T is in stasis and waits.

residual sweetness
in a secondhand jacket
squadron of drones

steel neurone constructions
the last coffin
on earth

Kati Mohr

1.
Rain carves the air, slicks down the tiled roof and then my cheeks. I taste moss without seeing any. The temple is cool and wet at my back. I strain to hear the fortune teller over the staccato eating away at stone. He studies my long face, proclaims:

beware water
consumes stilled stones
the rising tide drowns.

2.
Water splits under my twin, ripples in the wake of his dive. Chlorine sags the air. Patient applause; he remains a dark smug beneath the surface. My mother’s grip stains my arm red. Water sloshes over the rim into drainage grates—a tidal pool recycling.

water stills
becomes mirror-smooth,
an azure eye.

3.
Water splits the horizon, a great blue iris. I walk with my twin to where the water licks away the sand. Our brother’s ashes stain our hands grey. We learned what to do watching our parents. We kneel, offer what we hold. The tide is always approaching.

water houses
quicksilver fish,
captured by the wave.

4.
The quarry splits down into layers of earth. Exposed granite hollowed and housing a large reservoir. My older brother fishes from the tongue of land that curls into the pond. The tide builds, licks apart the arc of his feet, pulls him beneath the mud.

water erodes,
ferries scales of light
to a distant shores.

DC Restaino

I get in line with the seabirds. They seem to be looking at their reflections in the thin film of water behind the retreating wave. So I look down. There I am. In a baggy bathing suit with a snorkel in my left hand. It’s hot, and the water smells like gasoline. A kid runs by and the birds scatter. There I am. In a baggy bathing suit – all alone.

a bald tire
on a patch of ice
the world turns

Robert Witmer

Dead people are like approaching trains— At
the most you can step aside. On another pair
of tracks. Where you were the one waited for,
and the train is always arriving. Or is there.
Already. And you are running into it.

hard left—
the slow whirls
of acceptance

Vishal Prabhu

70d4y 1 45k3d my531f c0u1d 7h353 j0k325 d3519n1n9 ch34p um8231145 23411y 83 w02k1n9 und32 7h3 455ump710n 23c1p13n75 w111 83 u51n9 7h3m 1n 2320-w1nd c0nd1710n5?! p23p057320u5 5u231y 7h3 f4c7 7h47 7h3 5119h7357 823323 w111 7u2n 7h3 7h1n95 1n51d3-0u7 1mm3d14731y w0u1d h4v3 833n 23c09n123d 7h312 unm1574k4813 f14w5 3xp053d 1n 4 m1nu73’5 f131d 73571n9 50 wh47’5 23411y 901n9 0n h323?

DIMMING VIEW

423 7h3y 5k1mp1n9 0n m47321415 70 54v3 4 8uck? 02 423 7h3y 72y1n9 70 5311 u5 4 n3w 0n3 4f732 3v32y 51n913 2u8815h u5493 wh3n 34ch c24ppy m0d31 c2ump135 p47h371c411y? 807h?

BUT FOR THE OCCASIONAL BURST

317h32 w4y 7h353 7h1n95 1n 3553nc3 423 pu231y d3c02471v3 1f 72u3 84d w347h32 c0m35 420und w111 p20v3 u77321y u531355 532v3 n0 v14813 func710n 83y0nd 831n9 p4111471v3 p20p5 4nd h4v1n9 7h3m 0n 0u2 5h31v35 837w33n 5702m5 p2353n75 f4153 53n535 0f 53cu217y 91v35 7h3 w20n9 1mp235510n 7h47 wh3n 241n5 c0m3 w3’11 83 3qu1pp3d 70 23m41n d2y 4nd p2073c73d wh3n qu173 7h3 c0n7242y 15 1n f4c7 d3732m1n3d w111 p20v3 70 83 7h3 c453 34ch 71m3 w17h c32741n7y 17’5 f2u572471n9 83c4u53 7h3y w0n’7 8u11d 4 5h31732 f02 u5 70 hudd13 und32  7h20u9h 7h353 1nc13m3n7 71m35 50 f11m5y um8231145 423 411 w3 h4v3 mu57 m4k3 d0 w17h.

OF LIGHTNING

Jerome Berglund

A dog barks scaring the finch away from the feeder just as I let the smallest hurdle keep me from seizing what I really want and limping away in another direction looking for something big and safe instead of tiny and precious but each time I go for safe my heart is chipped away just a little bit more becoming an empty space for dogs to bark or birds to feed with a lock on the gate to keep out everything else.

mulberry tree…
swimming in a pool
of dead leaves.

Lafcadio

It just keeps getting hotter. “Out of the frying pan, eh,” I say to her. “Into the fire,” she hisses. “The devil made me do it,” say I. “Snake eyes,” she replies. And so we keep rolling the dice, as we pass the fan magazine back and forth, and dream of celebrity.

moonlight
on marble nipples
the watchman fast asleep

Robert Witmer