Amethyst Review

Busrider

My father took me to the bus station in Albuquerque
for the start of a student tour of Europe.
I was first on the bus
and stayed,
in my seat until the bus was under way.
I didn’t get on and off excitedly
like the other kids.  My father said later
he didn’t realize until then 
I didn’t think I’d actually get to go,
that my alcoholic, schizophrenic mother would do something
that would scuttle the trip.   

Just graduated from high school,
I was the second- or third-oldest kid on the bus.
The tour organizers had given every kid on the bus a New Testament,
every kid except the Jewish kid, who along the way
crawled up into a luggage rack, fell asleep and slept through 
the bus getting washed in St. Louis. I was the only kid
who actually read the little black tome,
not being exposed to it at home or in a church.
The other kids just accepted them, 
part of the background of their lives,
grounded in a faith I didn’t know.

I read that New Testament and discussed it
with another older boy.  I was especially struck by
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love,
I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal, and all the rest of Corinthians 13.
The chaperones overheard us.  
In Austria I bought a large, black hat
which I wore with my sport coat because it brought better service in restaurants.
The chaperones dubbed me Preacher,
they prevailed upon me to lead reading and prayers on the bus
when we traveled on Sundays.

The hat was stolen out of my old car,
a 1947 Plymouth painted gray with a brush,
my first year of college. 

Bruce Parker is the author of the chapbooks Ramadan in Summer, (Finishing Line Press, 2022) and Tears for Things (Plan B Press, 2024), and Marriage: A History (Finishing Line Press, 2026). He holds an MA in Secondary Education from the University of New Mexico. His work appears in Triggerfish Critical Review, Blue Unicorn, Cerasus, Prairie Schooner. Connecticut River Review (which nominated his poem “Grief Makes the Heart Apparent” for a Pushcart Award), and elsewhere. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

Meditation

The rain has stopped, and the half moon is suspended between two fir trunks, Orion’s belt glimmering not far away. In South America, they call this constellation “The Three Maries”.  I still like the idea of the eternal hunter. Seeing the dim light pour in through the window I feel strangely reassured: all is as it should be. I can safely go back to sleep. 

After this shift in the weather, I shouldn’t be surprised when I come down to the water’s edge to watch the sunrise: smooth as a sheet of rosy silk, the ocean stretches out before me, no sign of last night’s furious wave-lashing. The tide is very low, and the hues of pink and gold are reflected in the little rivulets of water carving patterns into the sand. The geese have come and gone. Only the heron, looking like a wise old professor with his wisp of feathers extending from the nape of his neck, has taken possession of his favourite boulder a little to my left. Is he, like me, out to greet the new day? More likely he is looking for breakfast.

I decide to forego mine in favour of a walk along the deserted beach. So rarely have I the opportunity to add my tracks in the sand to the big three-toed footprints of the geese and the funny little tire-tread marks of the crab. I enjoy the feel of softness under my feet, stand for a moment where the small waves are finally spent and feel the water pull the slick sand from under my feet. A faint splash makes me turn my head just in time to see a group of small diving birds disappear. A few moments later they pop up, one by one, at a totally different spot, but all close together. They repeat this exercise a few times, then must have decided to check out a different part of the beach: as if following a secret command they start scooting across the glossy water, gaining speed, wingtips touching, denting, but not breaking the surface tension. 

After the storm
the beach a blank slate.
Who will write on it now?

A long-time farmer and gardener, Susanne von Rennenkampff often takes her inspiration from the natural world and her travels. Her poems have appeared in a number of literary magazines in Canada and the US, including Room, The Antigonish Review, Prairie Fire, Grain, The Banyan Review, Evening Street Review, Cirque and, most recently and upcoming, St. Katherine Review. A chapbook of her poetry, In the Shelter of the Poplar Grove, was published by The Alfred Gustav Press. She lives in rural Alberta, Canada.

Always with my Father
after reading S.Y. Agnon's story "Twofold"

A man in a story dreams
he never finds the temple
where his father worships,
I do not have to find the shul
where my father prays.
It is always there rising on a hill.
In the man's dream
a tallis with three fringes
means death.
My father's prayer shawl
shimmers in its fullness
as I run my fingers through
the silken threads
none missing 
as the cantor sings
and my father chants
and shows me
in the small, glossy, white
prayer book my mother
gave my father
as an engagement gift,
shows me the place
to follow, my voice 
blending with his.
No blur of boundaries or space
the seeker in the tale suffers from,
no fear of loss.
I am always with my father.
His now worn prayer book rests
in my bookcase.
I know where to find it.

Janet Krauss enjoyed teaching English at St. Basil Seminary for 29 years and Fairfield University for 39 years. She continues to mentor students. lead a poetry discussion at the Wilton Library, participate in the CT. Poetry Society Workshop and other poetry groups. She is the Poetry Program Director of the Black Rock Guild. She has 2 books of poetry: Borrowed Scenery (Yuganta Press) and Through the Trees of Autumn (Spartina Press). She is a widely published poet and many of her poems have been published in Amethyst Review and her haiku in Cold Moon Journal.

The Memory of Glitter

I wasn’t thinking about the glitter when things began to fall apart.

Years earlier, it started with a speck. I assumed it was something I touched.

But then I saw more—on my wrists, my forearms, the backs of my hands. Not just a trace. It was everywhere.

I told my wife. She thought I was joking—until she saw it herself.

She was sitting on the bed, ready to go to sleep. I sat beside her and held out my arm. She moved her fingers along it carefully, as if afraid of breaking a spell.

That’s when I started trying to explain it. I checked the soap, the towels, the gifts my in-laws had brought back. I even looked at their luggage.

Our kids—who’d been hugged and held by my in-laws—had no shimmer. No one else in the house did. Just me.

My in-laws had just returned from a pilgrimage near Cleveland, where the Virgin Mary had reportedly appeared. Over dinner, they spoke about what they’d experienced—subtle lights, an overwhelming sense of calm, and, they said, sudden flecks of light appearing on their own hands.

I couldn’t dismiss their experience, but I didn’t share their certainty either.

What stayed with me was this: I—the most doubtful one in the house—was the only person glittering.

I never did figure out what caused it. I kept turning it over in my mind. And then, when I couldn’t make sense of it, I let it go.

Or at least, I thought I had.

The kids grew. Work kept me busy. There were plans to make, routines to follow, things to be grateful for. 

And then, much later, everything unraveled.

The company I’d given nearly thirty years to collapsed overnight.

Our savings, tied to the company, disappeared with it. We left the home that had held our lives and moved into a small apartment that felt strangely temporary.

I began the long, uncertain process of looking for work—sending applications, taking interviews, and waiting for replies that came back as rejections—or nothing at all.

And one day I sat frozen at my computer, with the sinking feeling that no matter what I did next, it didn’t seem to make a difference.

What do I do now? 

What am I worth without the work?

There was no answer. Just silence and the sound of the fridge humming.

I kept waking in the middle of the night, heart racing, replaying the past—going over what I could have done differently.

The quiet confidence we’d built our lives around—work hard, stay loyal, things will turn out—was gone.

In its place was a question we couldn’t answer.

Before, I would’ve prayed.

I grew up Catholic. I learned to turn to God when life went wrong—and to say thank you when it didn’t. Prayer was a reflex. A way to ask for protection, for relief, for things to be set right.

Over time, I began to question the version of God I’d always trusted. Why would God answer my prayers—for a clean result, a successful meeting, or simply a calmer day—when so many others were living through things I couldn’t imagine?

A God who steps in for some and stays silent for others—it just didn’t add up.

So I prayed less. Or not at all.

And for a while, there was nothing to replace it. Just life.

And I stayed there.

But beneath it all—the fear and uncertainty—something in me began to shift.

One morning, I sat on the balcony of our apartment with my coffee and watched the sky lighten with the sunrise. The sound of the fountain filled the courtyard, steady—like a river. A car passed in the distance. The air was cool and clean—fresh in a way that made me pause.

What if we weren’t seeing this clearly? What if the labels we’d trusted—success, failure, good, bad—had never been the only way to look at it?

Maybe this life—the one that felt like it had gone wrong—wasn’t broken after all.

It just wasn’t the one we thought we deserved.

The thought felt radical. But with it came a kind of stillness—just enough to breathe again.

Then, before long, the familiar voice returned—pushing back: This isn’t helping. You’re giving up. Keep moving, or everything will slip away.

I didn’t know which voice was telling the truth: was I getting closer to something real—or was I drifting away from something I couldn’t afford to lose?

Part of me wanted to let go. Another part refused.

And then—suddenly—the memory returned.

The glitter.

I found myself going over it again—just as I had all those years ago—trying to piece together what might have caused it, expecting it to finally make sense.

But nothing came.

This time, I didn’t push it any further. 

That’s what struck me: how quickly we try to explain things away—how uncomfortable we become when something sits unresolved.

I let it be what it was: strange, fleeting, out of place.

The panicked voice rose again: You can’t think like this. You need to pull yourself together.

The memory quieted the voice—not with an answer, but with a calm certainty. I didn’t fight the fear. I watched it pass.

I’d always imagined peace would come after the crisis—when things were fixed, or made sense.

But nothing was fixed. Still, something was different.

Not because I understood—but because I wasn’t reaching. I wasn’t resisting.

I was just here.

Like the glitter: it didn’t explain a thing. It was just there.

I still don’t have a job. I still don’t understand why this happened.

But I can see it now.

That’s enough.

Luis Chamorro is a writer from Nicaragua, now living in Miami. His work explores memory, identity, and the search for meaning in ordinary life, often blending emotional realism with philosophical inquiry. He holds degrees in Engineering and Business Administration from the University of Texas at Austin and Carnegie Mellon University. Before turning to writing, he led international operations in the coffee industry. 

Prayer

A list of names sellotaped
inside a bible;
particular people remembered
on particular days.
A quiet place, a mindful space,
attention paid to moments,
feelings, objects, people.
A conversation threaded
through the minutes
of each day, who, what,
when and where, and why.
Reflection on a passage,
tasting and savouring words,
images and meanings.
Words to comfort,
challenge or inspire;
words to shape our being 
and doing in conversation
using improvisation.
A listening time,
in quiet, hearing
the sounds only
revealed in silence.

Jonathan Evens is Team Rector for Wickford and Runwell and Area Dean of Basildon. Previously Associate Vicar for HeartEdge at St Martin-in-the-Fields, he was involved in developing HeartEdge as an international and ecumenical network of churches engaging congregations with culture, compassion and commerce. He is co-author of The Secret Chord, an impassioned study of the role of music in cultural life written through the prism of Christian belief, and writes regularly on the visual arts and The Arts more generally for national arts and church media including Artlyst, ArtWay and Church Times. He blogs at joninbetween.blogspot.com.

Good Things that Fall from the Sky

 
Surely there’s the weather, altogether an airshow 
with beams of sun in free fall, a blizzard’s 
daredeviling, even the soundtrack of rain,
 
and there are the space gems and aerial debris, 
all those tokens that fall through the atmosphere, 
landing with clues to new cosmologies,
 
and there’s manna, from ages past, 
its descent day after day after day as steady 
and mysterious as scripture,
 
and then there’s you, brother, glint-eyed master 
of rivers and engines, of wings and gray weather, 
now soaring higher than you did before,
 
and there’s my own skyfall, a shadow inside 
that loops and spins over and over, gifting me 
flashes of the tilted grin that lit a sky— 
that way you had of just wanting to assure 
and be reassured: everything will be all right. 

Carrie Awbrey’s poetry has appeared in The Formalist, Sequoia: Stanford Literary Magazine, The Sunlight Press, and Lakeside Magazine. She received a BA in English with Creative Writing/Poetry focus from Stanford, where she was awarded the Dorrit Sibley Writing Prize in Poetry. Originally from Washington state, she now lives with her husband in Northern California.

All Day Long I Feel Created


1.
As the deer pantenth after
the Honda struck at 65 
and pulled over with a steaming 
clunka-clunka, radiator 
bent and bloodied as a broken nose, 
driver distraught and uninsured 
but unfazed by the life-clinging doe 
halfway in the ditch, so my soul 
panteth after you.

2.
Every day I’m rescued,
each and every day I’m saved.


3.
My forklift chirps reversal,
schlepping stainless steel pipe, 
popping over puckered pavement.
A ladybug lands on the wheel knob.
A ladybug lifts its elytra. 
The wings beneath are mirrors.
Pipe finds dunnage with hydraulic 
lurch. A ladybug lifts off,
	lifts away. 

4. 
Kiss my face off! Kiss 
me right into oblivion!

5.
Last night I line-danced to Lizzo’s “Juice” 
with Jean Valentine’s daughter
and understood miaphysitism
for the first time, so forgive me for asking,
but when I unzip my skin from crown 
to crotch and my so-far self heaps 
sloppy at my feet, please, 
Jesus God, let it be you at last in the 
mirror I see. 

Riley Richards received an MFA in Poetry from Fairleigh-Dickinson University, taught Creative Writing and Political Writing at Uzhhorod National University in Uzhhorod, Ukraine, and is currently a PhD student at Florida State University. Riley’s writing has been published or is forthcoming in Fugue, After Happy Hour Review, Barrelhouse, and elsewhere.

The life of the spirit is the life of the body, twice removed

On the dark glass of the river,
the reflection of church steeple–

its white point rippling now
and then as the ducks pass about.

Between the dark hardwood pews
inside, the parishioners exchange

“Peace be with you”– some looking
out the windows to the still stream,

where the reflection points outward–
some engaging their shyer neighbors–

one craning yet again to the stained 
glass gothic representation of Moses 

in the rushes, being offered tenderly 
skyward by an enslaved washerwoman.

Michael J. Galko is a scientist and poet who lives and works in Houston, TX. He was a finalist in the 2020 Naugatuck River Review and the 2022 Bellevue Literary Review poetry contests. Recent poems have appeared or will appear in Spillway Magazine, Atlanta Review, Silk Road, and Plainsongs.

The Cosmic Law of Intention

Everywhere and everything is brimming with intention. 
The hammer intends to hit. 
The nail intends to penetrate. 
The mosquito intends to live, and bite. 
The wasp intends to live, and sting. 
The pebble intended to be part of the mountain 
   but failed, so intended to be a boulder, 
      but failed, so intended to be a stone, 
         but failed, and became a pebble,
            but now intends to be a jewel on my table. 
Nothing is pointless, though we may not see the point. 
Nothing disobeys the law of intention. 
Life intends to live 
and the stars to shine.

Edward Alport is a retired teacher and proud Essex Boy. He occupies his time as a poet, gardener and writer for children. He has had poetry, articles and stories published in various webzines and magazines and performed on BBC Radio and Edinburgh Fringe. He sometimes posts snarky micropoems on Twitter as @cross_mouse.

The Big Bang

I lean back in my upholstered seat, 
eyes scanning the orchestra program
while strings, brass and winds tune to A.
Suddenly, the house lights dim and 
pre-concert chatter ceases; everyone can hear
the conductor as he strides onto the stage, 
his leather soles slapping the polished 
wood floor. Concert-goers, warm and
comfortable in their plush seats, break 
into applause; with just a curt nod
of his head, the conductor steps 
onto the podium, raises his baton, 
then brings it down sharply. 
The earlier silence is shattered 
like a crystal ball by shiny, 
explosive brass; it is fireworks; 
it is shooting stars, and I think, 

This is how the Big Bang 
must have sounded; 
the Creator would not 
have chosen anything less 
splendid to announce 
her most glorious design. 
No matter that French horns, 
trumpets, and trombones did not yet exist.
Nor, for that matter, did France.

Mary Ellen Shaughan lives and writes in Western Massachusetts. Her poetry has appeared in Gyroscope Review, Amethyst Review, Skipjack Review, a&u: American’s AIDS Magazine, Red Rover, and several anthologies. A Pushcart Prize nominee, she hones her craft writing 30 poems each November in support of new Americans. Her 1st book of poetry, Home Grown, can be found on Amazon and elsewhere.