Brendan Constantine
Three Poems

poem, December 31st 2020

the year hangs on the back of a door
moves a little when we speak       is also a pair of shoes
a bowl of blue apples       the cord to some electric
thing coiled in a drawer

is a lampshade turned yellow       turned to burn
a muddy turtle whose shell is God’s hand
cupped to one ear       the year is finally quiet
finally melted at the bottom

of its pretty glass
of all the times to ask a question like this
is twelve buttons down the front coming
undone       coming to bed

yes to everything       whatever way you like
to be carried       a handful of sugar or black ants
which are the same thing
has stopped moving to watch me work

watch me push the boat away from the jetty
and sit back with you       already shipwrecked
already drowned       still talking about the year
is a conversation for later

when the chairs are put back       the orderlies huddled
in a driveway       lifting their masks to smoke and
the smoke not fading       not going anywhere
you can’t make me       no one makes anyone

it’s all over but the overing
is tire tracks in snow       a little bread left
not much       is paralyzed from the waist up
one bell       now two bells       now three

is outside naked again and half awake
has learned to keep clothes in the car

Brink

Let it be the print of my pillow
on my cheek, a weight of leaves.
Let it be easy to pronounce. I go
from window to window, look
for hints in the sky or the birds,
the play of light. When a lull falls
over the street, I think, Let it be
this. Or rather, If this is it, I’m ready.
I’ve gotten good at savoring: salty
peanuts, the colors of night, how,
when I let my arms hang loose,
I can’t feel my fingers, can’t tell
how many there are. I know
a blind woman who says it isn’t
like closing your eyes, but like
closing only one. That absence.
That particular nothing. Let it be
glitter on my sleeve, or pollen,
a little alphabet soup. Linguists
say the only word common to every
language is Huh. And it always
means the same thing, a quandary,
means Who knew and I’ll be damned.
Let it be no bigger than that sound,
a mere breath of epiphany. One
you can utter in a cup, or cover
with another mouth. Let it prompt
kisses, missed buttons on a shirt,
a spider brought home on my shoe.

Captain Blood

This morning I woke without
my left arm. Somehow, I just
went with it and calmly searched
the blankets. I got on my knees,
dragged the bed from the wall,
then went through my clothes.
I must’ve had it last night;
I’d worn a shirt with buttons.
For some reason, I thought about
Prokofiev’s Cortege of the Sun
which ends with a musical
picture of dawn. It’s astounding
and always makes me cry or,
at least close my eyes. I had
a vision of my arm shining
like that, maybe floating. It was
cold so I threw on a coat, half
expecting to find it in the sleeve,
and went outside. Nothing there,
not in the garden or under
the cars. As I straightened,
I saw the woman from next
door, walking up my driveway.
She held out something long
and crooked. “Is this yours?”
she asked. I was embarrassed
and had formed the first word
of an excuse when I saw
she was holding a snake.
“No,” I answered, my face
suddenly warm. “No?”,
she pressed, “You’re sure?
But aren’t you a writer?”
“I try,” I said, “I’m just not
at that level.” I have no idea
what I meant by that. She
lifted the snake higher
and tried to meet eyes
with it. “Someone’s looking
for you, Satan. Yes, they
are! Yes, they are!” We
parted after this and I sat
at my computer, trying
to think of her name. Barbara
something. Something hard,
like a bookcase full of battles
at sea.

—Submitted on 01/04/2021

Brendan Constantine is the author of Bouncy Bounce (Blue Horse Press, 2018), Dementia, My Darling (Red Hen Press, 2016), and nine other books. His work has appeared in Poetry, Best American Poetry, Tin House, Poem-A-Day, Prairie Schooner, and other journals and anthologies. Constantine has received support and commissions from MOCA, the Getty Museum, James Irvine Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He teaches creative writing at the Windward School in Los Angeles and develops poetry workshops for people with aphasia.

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Subhaga Crystal Bacon
Praise Song

In the dark times, will there also be singing?
               Yes, there will be singing.
               About the dark times.
                              —Bertolt Brecht

I want to sing about these dark times, call them fulsome—
	dark being all colors—the wood of the ebony tree, 
piano keys, children’s eyes. I want to sing a borrowed
Praise Song for those who sang the Middle Passage
who sang in Hush Harbors, who sang in message.
	My arms ropy and long want to 
	lift the shades on shuttered hearts.

Oh, great loss. Oh, deep fear; let your waters flow. 
I want to hold your beating, your beaten
hearts, your grieving and wronged hearts.
Come on down, let’s go down, down to the river to pray.
Let’s wash ourselves: no more of the good old way.
	I want to sing with the river the way
	rocks make sound from motion.

I want blood to run freely, new blood from old, 
	dark and rich with ancestors, world’s
	first people, the minerals, the star-gold
and soil; the clear, the raging, salt or sweet waters 
before they rose up in wood and canvas and bullets
	before they carried those lives away
	to all the ways of dying.

I want to sing about these dark times, call it fulsome—
	my song, a kind of crying—
	I want to weave a kind of Praise Song:
Oh, my kindred, oh, my brethren, all the old ways
to say beloved, family, familiar. I want to appease
	the killed and the killer. I want to redeem
	the bent knee, release the choke hold.

—Submitted on 01/01/2021

Subhaga Crystal Bacon is the author Blue Hunger (Methow Press, 2020) and Elegy with a Glass of Whisky (BOA Editions, 2004). Her poems have appeared in Bombay Review, River Heron Review, Lavender Review, Humana Obscura, Plum Recruit, and other journals, A cis-gender, queer-identified woman, Bacon lives in Twisp, Wash.

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Srinivas Mandavilli
Winter 2020

The mandevillas clutter
the porch, awkwardly
stand supported by a trellis,
waiting for history to happen.
They rest in pots of peat moss,
need shade like us, get burned
easily by harsh summer news.

We will bring them indoors this winter.
For now, they are happy making
dramatic gestures to the air outside,
waving glossy leaves, and ice pink
flowers announce with their trumpets,
proud of their blooming
in some high desert.

—Submitted on 12/31/2020

Srinivas Mandavilli is the author of Gods in the Foyer (Antrim House, 2016). His poems have appeared in Connecticut River Review, Caduceus, Long River Run, Drunken Boat, SNReview, and other journals. Mandavilli attended medical school in India and trained in oncologic pathology in the US. He is chief of pathology and laboratory medicine at Hartford Hospital, and lives in West Hartford with his wife and two daughters.

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Daniel Romo
Conceding

The day after the election votes are still being counted,
and the man walking ten feet to my right whose shoes
look like they’ve seen better decades
has a conversation with himself and with those
who appear to be all the men
he used to be.

Pundits are counting the sums of red and blue states
trying to cast a light the color of layman’s terms,
so we can be at ease with at least
accepting the fate
of our next four years.

The mumbling man says, Gotta’ do better,
and for a moment I wonder if he is speaking of himself
or the nation, and when he yells, To hell with it!
I know our country
is in danger.

There is talk the president won’t vacate his position if
defeated,
and sometimes force is the only way we learn
the control we think we have is a fleeting term
modeled by the manner in which we acquire
loss.

I’m drawn back to the man to my right,
the independent thinker with the size 11 soiled shoes
because our souls, too, bear the filth
of so much tread and mudslinging,
and I wonder if either candidate
will be able to help
any of us at all.

—Submitted on 12/29/2020

Daniel Romo is the author of Apologies in Reverse (FutureCycle Press, 2019), When Kerosene’s Involved (Mojave River Press, 2014), and Romancing Gravity (Silver Birch Press 2013). His poetry and photography can be found in The Los Angeles Review, PANK, Gargoyle, Yemassee, and other journals. He holds an MFA in creative writing from Queens University of Charlotte, and he lives and teaches in Long Beach, Calif. More at danielromo.wordpress.com.

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Evan Stephens
Three Poems

Carrying On

Soon, the bars will all close.
Soon, the restaurants will empty.

Yet this wild archery lawn,
these elephant bones,

this wild strawberry tree,
these rose benches where

we ate our bread and wine—
they will carry on.

Ten days green
in the quarantine,

as the numbers
combed upwards,

always upwards,
enough to make one

invoke Jeffers.
Sitting beside you

at spring tide
at Sandymount—

the sea will carry on.
The canal face,

blushed with swan,
it, too, will carry on.

And now you and I,
on the sunken patio,

in ruined deck chairs
sitting and watching

the sun splash in—
carrying on.

A Low

Things between us
have reached such a low
that I’m drunk at noon
on a Wednesday in October.

But what if I grabbed the sun
for you, shaking it free
from lacy palms of cloud,
and gave it to your greenness?

Would it be enough to fix it?
Or are all these drams
of Scotch just turning out
dreams in the early afternoon?

Little Rainings

The broken symmetries
of the night…
you move,
I move.

You were in the green hill,
chatting with clouds;
I kept a bar open,
wrote you a ditty.

There are little rainings
everywhere tonight.
They slip down into the graves
across the street. It sets the mood.

But I need to get out,
walk the block,
shake this umbilical glass,
join a blind fog.

The moon threatens
to escape its sweater
of noctilucent cloud,
but we’re not looking.

—Submitted on 12/29/2020

Evan Stephens holds a BA from the University of Maryland College Park, and a JD from the Columbus School of Law. An attorney, he splits his time between Washington, DC, and Dublin.

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Steve Wilson
Two Poems

On Uncertainty

Everywhere the weave
between us loosens,
weakens. Threads fray. This

morning, before light,
old fears, familiars—
windows rattled by

sudden thunder, sounds
shaped within darkness—
brought an odd comfort.

Who knows what, in doubt,
may carry us through?</p

Safety

After months of isolation
and fear, I have begun to

shy, instinctively, from friends,
people on the sidewalks,
from my own grown children

no longer welcome inside
the home where they were raised.

I have come to reckon my backyard
is a compound, my chain-link fence
protection from whatever menace

threatens invisible beyond. You
have to wonder, I muse

during another scant afternoon
with the lawn and the birds,
how long will you seek security

in such otherless, darkening,
echoes of space and silence.

—Submitted on 12/25/2020

Steve Wilson is the author of Lose to Find (Finishing Line Press, 2018), The Reaches (Finishing Line Press, 2019), and three other collections. His poems have appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Commonweal, Georgetown Quarterly, Midwest Quarterly, New American Writing, and other journals, as well as in anthologies including O Taste and See: Food Poems (Bottom Dog Press, 2003), Visiting Frost: Poems Inspired by Robert Frost (University of Iowa, 2005), Is This Forever or What?: Poems and Paintings from Texas, (Greenwillow Books, 2004), and others. Wilson holds a BA from the University of Oklahoma, and an MFA in creative writing from Wichita State. He lives in San Marcos, Tex., where he is a professor of English at Texas State University.

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Jihyuk Han
Three Poems

The Peach Tree

Pandemic—my favorite season
The holidays pass and I am
A young woman again. Only one
Trick-or-treater in 34 years
On Gnarled Hollow
Road. And it was my angry
Neighbor Kal, dressed as
The Angel of
Death. Better to
Think of my first
Love, L and write him
A poem or letter
In the shape of a
Peach, only who knows
How the Old Stump
Would respond?
L, who climbed
The roof of his mail
Truck, for the
Highest peaches—he
Fell 3 months
Ago. But I can still
See him on his tippy-toes.
Reaching up…
Only, no more peaches
And his bag stained with
Blood and dried leaves.

Crushed By This Beauty

6 Feet to the left, the grunts and screams of the Russian tennis player
crack the flat screen. I absorb the insatiable gaze
of the masked passengers waiting
to board the train. Everything moans and churns
Even the creepy bearded guy with his thumb twitch.
Happy but waiting. One could
Murder us all: the high school boy
Texting on his cell phone. Furrowed and grimacing
A small girl punching the air while her mother
Reads the news. All the headlines are uncomfortable, naïve or
Misdirected. Nothing pacifies the girl named Judie
The announcer says he doesn’t love us
Not this moment
Or the next. I was wrong to leave you.
I won’t allow myself the pleasure.
The train of Not Thinking of You never arrives
I am never leaving this station.

Neighbors

The masked, pantless father is standing on the front walk
The leaves of the Japanese maple—flaming
And the days like drugged up
Passengers nodding off to sleep
While the children are molested by bees

What good is apology?
When it’s gone too far
And the listener’s ears are filled
Not with remorse

No faith in the endless thrown shade. The trees look as if women are hanging
Themselves between the branches. You could be strangled here
You are strangled
Still early summer. Yet to give up
It’s obscene moons, its rope burns and slow willful
Dismantling.

—Submitted on 10/28/2020 to the erstwhile What Rough Beast series. 

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Margo Taft Stever
Immigration Policy

—Submitted on 10/27/2020 to the erstwhile What Rough Beast series

Margo Taft Stever is the author of Cracked Piano (CavanKerry Press, 2019), Ghost Moose (Kattywompus Press, 2019), The Lunatic Ball (Kattywompus Press, 2015), The Hudson Line (Main Street Rag, 2012), Frozen Spring (Mid-List Press, 2002) and Reading the Night Sky (Riverstone Press, 1996). Her work has appeared in Verse Daily, Prairie Schooner, Connecticut Review, Cincinnati Review, Plume, and other journals. Stever is founder of the Hudson Valley Writers Center and founding and current co-editor of Slapering Hol Press. She lives in Sleepy Hollow, NY.

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Liz Ahl
Conjunctions, 2020

We had to drive elsewhere,
out past the snowy screen of pines,
to find enough empty horizon

to have a chance at spotting
Saturn and Jupiter in conjunction—
a meeting both etymology and metaphor

might call conjugal—closer together
than we’d ever seen
or would ever see again, joining

their two lights nearly into one
during the dark year’s deepest darkness.
Before sunset sent us seeking,

two blue jays knocked for several minutes
at the front door with their beaks—
we leaned and listened, unseeing, until

you crept out the basement exit
to see what was tapping, because
we couldn’t from inside and didn’t want

to just open the door in case
whatever waited there was braver
than we were and just came inside,

assuming that a door unlocked
in response to knocking
is an open mouth saying come in.

But they beat it for the tree line as you
approached. A pair of jays, skittish
on one side of the door and us,

a skittish pair on the other, imagining
ridiculous possibilities—rabid
squirrel, miniature Jehovah’s witness.

Of course it was overcast later
when we sought out the shortest day’s
third hidden duo, added that conjunction

to the growing list of things unseen
by our naked eyes in 2020 but still
believed in. We knew they were up there

beyond this cloudy night’s closed door
not because of Christmas or wishing it so,
but because of mathematics

and maybe also because in all that dark
we stared at before driving home
from the edge of the snowy rural airstrip,

we could make out one region of clouds
where a faint smudge betrayed
the lurking, flirting half-moon.

No star or planet strong enough to burn
through that blanket, but the lunar
smudge maybe offered consolation—

even in its blue-black bruising—
the dimmest evidence of light
on the other side.

—Submitted on 12/22/2020

Liz Ahl is the author of Beating the Bounds (Hobblebush Books, 2017), Home Economics (Seven Kitchens Press, 2016), Talking About the Weather (Seven Kitchens Press, 2012), Luck (Pecan Grove, 2010), and A Thirst That’s Partly Mine winner the 2008 Slapering Hol Press chapbook contest. A new chapbook, Song and Scar, is forthcoming in 2021 from No Chair Press. Her poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Court Green, Crab Orchard Review, Measure, Cutthroat, and other journals. Ahl lives in New Hampshire.

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