Kendra Nuttall
Where We’re Going

American is not a religion, but bible
verses are written on our soda cups.

God is In-N-Out / is Forever 21 / is a roadside
billboard somewhere south of Normal,

Illinois. Where are you going?
Heaven or Hell? The anti-masker says

I’m going to hell. Politics are not a sport,
but team spirit is what keeps us alive.

My cousin, #blessherheart, wrote:
#coronavirusruinslives in response to:

“My fav all u can eat place
isn’t doing all u can eat anymore.”

I want to tell her what it’s like to lose
someone you love. It’s like a buffet

shutting down, but forever.
It’s like a pandemic, but permanent.

It’s like the suffocating heat of a mask,
but you can never get rid of the sweat.

I want to tell her #coronaviruskills
but the message will never make it through

our socially distanced feeds.
American is a religion and politics are sport

and we’re on opposite teams.
Where are you going?

—Submitted on 06/19/2020

Kendra Nuttall‘s work has appeared in Spectrum Literary Journal, Capsule Stories, Califragile, Chiron Review, Maudlin House, and other journals, as well as in the anthology Poetry in the Time of Coronavirus Volume Two edited by G.A. Cuddy and Liz Kobak as a benefit for Doctors Without Borders and Partners In Health. Nuttall lives in Utah with her husband and poodle.

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Hope Andersen
Chalk Messages

The children leave bright chalk messages
on sidewalks that spread out like a fork’s prongs
in our neighborhood,
little, eclectic messages of Hope:
faith not fear,
don’t worry, be happy,
we are all in this together,
decorated with rainbows and big flowers,
birds, sunbeams and smiles.
A child’s way of dealing with covid-19.
They bounce on their trampoline,
ride bikes wearing halter tops and shorts,
missing friends but not school,
the makings of a happy memory,
a time when summer came in March,
and let them laugh, play, gaze at stars.
These are their independence days
of bottle rockets and sparklers, bonfires
long before the 4th of July.
I’d like to be a part of their Bliss
but I am too close to 65.
It isn’t Wisdom that keeps me wary,
or knowing the Facts, because no one really does,
but feeling the Wolf’s breath hot on my neck,
my dead mother reaching out across my dreams.

—Submitted on 04/26/2020

Hope Andersen is the author of Taking In Air (Kelsay Books, 2018). Her poems have appeared in Ink&Nebula, The Awakenings Review, The Pangolin Review, The Literary Yard, and Time of Singing. Andersen lives in North Carolina with her husband of 30 years. They have three grown children, two dogs, and a cat.

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Nichole Acosta
Daily Video Calls With My Grandmother

1.
She speaks in broken English.
To me
These are full poems.

Today she warns,
“Don’t stay outside
too long
Last night I see the fire
on T.V.
You know?”

I reassure her I will be safe
I try to reassure myself.

2.
I make the mistake
of telling her I have a headache
one that is so painful
I have to call her in the dark.
The flood of text messages
from other relatives
fill my inbox.
She doesn’t sleep all night.
I call her in the morning.
She is relieved the virus didn’t take me
Like it took 5 of her best friends.
She doesn’t know I know.
I call her twice that day.

3.
She says my grandpa sleeps
most of the day,
imitates his loud snoring
We laugh the purest laugh
we’ve heard in months.

4.
At dinner time we do show and tell
of what we are cooking
evidence we love the one we are with
and they love us back

5.
On Mother’s Day
I tell her happy mother’s day
She’s shocked that no one has called her but me
I don’t spoil the surprise
that her daughters will drive-by visit.

6.
The day when things shut down officially
my grandfather asks why no one comes over
for family dinner anymore.
I write in big letters because he cannot hear very well,
“There is a virus outside,
making people sick
so they have to stay home.
Turn on the news.”
He journals every day.

7.
The nation is erupting.
The white protestors
are voluntarily becoming human shields
for black protestors.
The police are herding the masses
with force.
I saw one protestor nearly be pulled apart
Police at the foot of him
Protestors at the arms
Tug of war with a human body
The stretched man got away
ran off screen with his fellow protestors.
This happened in Chicago
on CNN
My wife just got home from a protest in Brooklyn
says, “cops are crazy,”
too much to explain now
She needs to go out again.
I call my grandma
She says,
“Too many people outside
I don’t know what happen”
I want to say,
“There are two viruses
making people sick,
hate and COVID”
Instead I say,
“It’s crazy. It’s all crazy.”

—Submitted on 06/20/2020

Nichole Acosta is a Brooklyn-based poet, performer, and carb counter. She enjoys bridging the gaps, between page and stage, identity and perception. She is the author of Throat on Fire (The Soap Box Press, 2020). Her work appears in The Americas Poetry Festival of New York 2018 anthology, the Diabetics Doing Things podcast series, the This Is Not What I Ordered podcast series, the Connect. Politic. Ditto youth poetry anthology from Urban Word, among others.

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Margo Berdeshevsky
Wolf Watching Us in Hiding

Locked in singing
softly to ourselves if not to one another—

daylight stills
for mass graves or one
lily cupping rain

The hummingbird
is thirsty,     and you,     and so am I

There is dawn,
candle-silence-lit with waiting

Blackbirds darker than dogwood buds
Blue heartbeats as determined
for spring to survive as our sang-froid

Our rooms, and the river, and the river-child
waiting for its waters to turn to milk

We whisper we
noticed you, worm moon,
Lenten moon, setting.

Listen,
listen,
we will—survive

—Submitted on 04/26/2020

Margo Berdeshevsky is the author of Before the Drought (Glass Lyre Press, 2017), Between Soul and Stone (Sheep Meadow Press, 2011), and But a Passage in Wilderness (Sheep Meadow Press, 2007). Her work has appeared in Kenyon Review, Mom Egg Review, Prairie Schooner, Southern Review, Tupelo Quarterly, and other journals, as well as in numerous anthologies. Among her prizes is the Robert H. Winner Award from the Poetry Society of America. Born in New York, Berdeshevsky lives and writes in Paris.

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Chad W. Lutz
Two Poems

House of Cards

embers burn
in a desert
hot
while a country
cold
to the cries
of the snuffed
stuffs their pockets
& plans to go to war

what was it
but another
assassination?

perhaps another
blind attempt
at control
at power
at the expense
of the world

a single bomb
costs the equivalent
of a nice house
in the suburbs

that’s exactly
what’s at risk
for either side

Dower in a Dry Land

a fragrance
I’ve known forever
now my only
place of refuge

cool rain
& oak pollen
little bits of industry

the sky lights
up electric
as the west wind
meets the north

I hear thunder
and wonder
if it’s
clapping
for me

who else would it be?

can’t pay the rent
can’t insure myself

the sky lights
up electric
& a criminal
gets his wings

jail for a quarter of a gram of marijuana
jail for the man wearing peace signs

one application becomes
two applications becomes
three applications…

the screen
on my lap
keeps telling me
sorry
we’re just
not moving
forward
with your
candidacy
at this time

that’s my favorite rhyme

… becomes
seven applications
becomes eight…

the position
has been filled
or some bullshit

…becomes eleven applications
becomes twelve…

I get it

the treble
of the thunder
its baritone pop &
cantankerous mount
& pout
conjure images
of a wrong turn
I made down
a one-way street
when I was eighteen

a one-way street
that changed everything

on a night
pretty similar to this

—Submitted on 06/18/2020

Chad W. Lutz is the author of the novel For the Time Being (J. New Books, 2020). A non-binary writer born in Akron, Lutz holds a BA from Kent State University and an MFA in creative writing from Mills College in Oakland.

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Kirsten Jones Neff
Two Poems

In Search of Eggs

I leave my suburban home
and drive west
toward farmland
in search of eggs.

The road stretches
ahead, adorned with
wings of silver grass
shimmering,

infinite as ocean,
and my mind jumps,
skittish as a bird,
back and forth,

from this pure
certainty of spring,
to the grocer’s
metal shelves, barren

under hard fluorescent light,
tags and prices
dangling, aimlessly,
signage posted,

day after day:
NO EGGS.
But foothills rise,
as always,

as if in relief,
a majesty above meadows,
asking for trust
in my approach.

Just this week
the dishwasher broke
and then the microwave,
then the vacuum clogged,

and everyone in my home
was crying,
or angry.
The world is breaking.

The contagious frailty
I suspected
inside my self
is leaking out
through cracks,
and the imperfection
of living
is growing

louder and louder
as nurses and doctors plead,
begging us to listen.
They stand inside

moments of silence,
accompanying the dead
left so alone.

I focus on the line
in the road ahead.
All I want is an egg,
pale brown and smooth,

born of this silver land,
perfect and unbroken.

Coronavirus Diary: Days 1-31

On the 1st day,
I rushed to the store,
bought potatoes and leeks.
I made soup
and cried
fat salty tears,
right into the broth.

On the 4th day,
I washed the linens,
even the rags.
I tried to make them
bright and clean.
I ironed everything,
every last wrinkle,
and felt calm.
But when I lay down to sleep
I felt wrinkled
and uncomfortable.

On the 9th day,
I dug up weeds in my garden.
Angrily.
I killed the weeds
with my hand trowel,
stabbing them
over and over,
until I hurt my wrist.

On the 13th day,
I cleaned the oven.
It had never been cleaned.
I put my head in
to remind myself,
I am not
living alone
in a dark oven.

On the 18th day,
I looked up at the skylights.
They were dirty
and I couldn’t see out.
I got up on the roof
to clean them.
It felt important
to see clouds moving,
to know that orbit
is still a thing.

On the 23rd day,
I wrote a book.
It was a historical novel
about a person
who lived
without feelings,
no memory
of the past,
nor vision
for the future.
She had no desire.
There was no plot.

On the 31st day
I sat outside
on my front stoop
with my dog.
I caressed him
all day long.
Nothing else,
only touching his fur,
the softness of his fur,
feeling nothing,
nothing but love.

—Submitted on 04/26/2020

Kirsten Jones Neff is the author of When The House Is Quiet (Finishing Line Press, 2009). Her work has appeared in Believer Magazine, Stanford Magazine, Ms Magazine, Literary Mama, Spillway, and other magazines and journals. She sits on the board of the Marin Poetry Center.

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Jane Ellen Glasser
Smithfield Workers’ Testimonial

Shoulder to shoulder in a mechanical line,
we butcher 1,100 pigs an hour into cuts:
loin, chops, ribs, belly, for your dinner.

When the governor of Missouri declared
a state of emergency, our lines shrunk:
8 became 10 became 20 workers

sent home sick. When the company closed
plants in 3 other cities, we worried:
Should we stay home? But in Milan,

a small town of few jobs, losing even
a day’s wages robs food from our tables.
Until they tear, we wear the same gloves,

the same masks. With 15 minutes for break
and 30 for lunch, who among us has time
to wash hands? The plant advertised

a “responsibility bonus” of $500.00
for not missing a shift April 1–May 1,
a sum that would not even cover a funeral.

Now we are told if we stay home
to keep ourselves and our families safe,
we will be fired. We must work to make

a living, but no job is worth a life.

—Submitted on 06/19/2020

Jane Ellen Glasser is the author of Selected Poems (FutureCycle Press, 2019). Her other books on FutureCycle include In the Shadow of Paradise (2017), Cracks (2015), and The Red Coat (2013). Her poems have appeared in Hudson Review, Southern Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, and Georgia Review, among other journals. She co-founded the New Virginia Review. Online at janeellenglasser.com.

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Victor Basta
Quarantine Street

The unarmed chairs in front
of the Reunion Cafe still
congregate under the afternoon sun,
as if nothing has happened.
Their wooden crowd backs
against the scrawled window sign:
“Take Out And Delivery
Only, Until Further Notice.”

Behind the sunlit window,
on a black marble shelf,
lurks a beige whirlpool
of family hummus,
a round, smooth genocide
of ravaged chickpeas.

On either side spread cribs
of squared-off offspring.
Each newborn tub cups a solitary
allotment, birth-marked
“Single Portions Only,”
confined since birth
behind odorless glass.

Across the road, the Muchmore
hasn’t been either all week.
Its metal chairs lounge outside,
happily respecting a distant silence,
around a solitary, dinged metal table
that bows to its heavy history
of cocktails.

On its rusted window hangs
its own hurried sign, terse
and cursive. Tucked in front
of a makeshift prison of tablecloths,
handcuffed to wood tables,
its missing owner has etched “Closed.”

Meanwhile perched on top
of Mt Carmel’s brick face,
the milk-white Jesus has recovered,
from ordering supplicants home.
He raises his golden arms
higher each day, issuing silent
instructions to the reverential
still left outside.

Today he is cleaning the sky.
Tomorrow he will admonish
his new flock of gnarled trees
to take better care,
of their thickening skin.

—Submitted on 04/26/2020

Victor Basta‘s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Poet Speak Magazine, Grub Street Review, and Pisgah Review. He holds BA, MA, and MBA degrees from Columbia University. Born in Cairo, Basta is an investment banker who focuses on the tech sector.

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Jeanne Wagner
It’s spring and our lives are closed

until further notice,
camellia trees dropping their blossoms
like sepia ghosts on the stairs,
not just the gardener
but everyone wearing a mask,
now that the air’s an invisible regatta of spores,
every space crammed with cross-pollination,
seeds splitting with desire,
haploids searching for their other half,
desperate for completion
microbes sailing up the bloodstream,
breaking and entering the cloistered cells
like any horde eager to conquer for love
or loot or Lebensraum.
Because we’re all seeds, all seekers, all swarm
and flock and herd.
I’m asking, can’t we just stay indoors
a while longer, turn up the music, let the world,
so worn out from our needs,
restore itself,
let the sky shine like blue glass over the cities,
let seaweed be seen, swaying,
in the bottom of some Venetian canal?

—Submitted on 06/18/2020

Jeanne Wagner is the author of Everything Turns Into Something Else (Grayson Books, 2020), In the Body of Our Lives (Sixteen Rivers Press, 2011), and The Zen Piano Mover (NFSPS Press, 2004), as well as of four chapbooks. Her poems have appeared in Cincinnati Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Florida Review, North American Review, and Southern Review., among other journals, as well as in anthologies including The Familiar Wild: On Dogs & Poetry (Sundress Press, 2020), edited by Ruth Awad and Rachel Mennies.

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M.P. Armstrong
sixteen pages of obituaries in the boston globe

and we still have no idea what we would write in ours,
or where we’ll publish when the local paper is listed
among the dead. we have read books where obituaries
disappear, replaced by a list of names on the radio, the
dead reduced to two words and we are never sure if that
is just for sheer numbers’ sake or because anyone who
could have given more detail—their job, their hobbies,
their favorite band—is also dead. where headstones
are replaced by carvings in airplane trays that have
shed euphemisms—joined her lord and savior, fought
a valiant fight, passed away suddenly or quietly at home
or both—in favor of the shorter, simpler “died,” and nothing
matters, not the place you were born or the headstone
you were planning to buy, just the date that you died.
we want more than that. maybe we will start up a nightly
howl of grief, of names released into the night to mourn.
maybe we will sew our eulogies into masks with enough
thread to describe that day at the beach, where she was
more alive than the waves, or the gift he bought you for
your birthday and you suspected he could read your mind.
and for the newspaper, we might carry old editions to
the steps of the statehouse, brandish them like shields
among the protestors, or hang them in the window
next to the american flag in the hopes that someone
driving by will notice the irony. that is, if anyone is still
driving. that is, if anyone is still fighting the valiant
fight, not yet absorbed into the closest sixteen pages.

—Submitted on 04/25/2020

M.P. Armstrong‘s work has appeared in Traveling Stanzas, The Mass, The Cabinet of Heed, Silver Birch Press, Social Distanzine, and other journals. A student at Kent State University, they are managing editor and reporter for Curtain Call and Fusion magazines. Online at mpawrites at on Twitter @mpawrites.

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