TWO POEMS FROM STEPHANIE NOBLE UMBILICUS Umbilicus, long since buttoned, now invisible, a tightrope I walk, no safety net one misstep a fall from grace. COURTSIDE Perched on bleachers we watch our grandson, Number 22, and…
Browsing: Poetry
Devon Balwit MENTATION On the bus, I talk to myself, reviewing the day’s tragedies. For each humiliation, I shake my head like a dog clearing mites or like a person battling Parkinson’s. The oddness intensifies as I throw up…
Karen Rile RUNNING ALONG THE SCHUYLKILL My daughter skates faster than I will ever run. I struggle to keep her in my line of sight as she strokes past the boathouses. Men my own age follow her with their…
Theresa Senato Edwards Excerpt from “Wing Bones” Explaining Heredity to the Youngest Sister Theresa Senato Edwards has published two full-length poetry books and two chapbooks. Poems from her newest manuscript, “Wing Bones,” can be found in Stirring,…
Jenna Lê DOPPELGANGERS 1. Mother made a doll, a shrill squealer, two feet tall, saliva-dribbling, shivering as if in nicotine withdrawal. Now the doll and her sisters high-step around the amphitheater. In thickening suspense they tiptoe along the bleachers.…
Sonia Greenfield GHOST BABY Sprung from a dream, a clot, a stolen heartbeat, and she settles into the arms of a stranger, but when I look again, it is only the face of a stranger’s baby. The ghost baby…
Rachel Barton EVERY DAY THE SAME WISH —after Elizabeth McLagan Let this worn down sadness escape like the milk moons in his near-empty glasses from various ledges, I rinse and drain at the end of the day, the week, repopulating…
Anastacia-Reneé Mommy, Mommy, Mommy the airport kid has beautiful droopy eyes because he is sleepy & cold & at a weird place when he’s usually in his safe small car bed. the mom looks absolutely worn out & the…
J. Nicole Hill Thanks to him There are those sleepless nights The long sometimes ten hour days Always racing against time Until we meet soon again Picking my baby boy up from the babysitter Exhausted but somehow energized hearing…
For women body image can be fraught with conflict and cognitive dissonance. We are inundated with body images from the advertising and media world that are not representative of the full spectrum of womanhood … that don’t reflect the changes…