Amethyst Review

Rooted in Grace

I’ve forgiven my neighbor who honky-tonked
his house with neon lights that shine in my 
bedroom window. I smile and mean it at 
the other neighbor who, each day,  waylays
me at my mailbox and details her latest ailment. 

I’ve forgiven my mother for the pills
and razor blades, for my love not being enough
to make her want to stay. I’m even learning 
to forgive myself for needing more than
she could ever give. 

I’m grateful for the rude man in line at the
pharmacy who showed me how not to be
and for the neighbor boy who showed me how
by digging five holes in my garden for
new azaleas and only accepting a brownie in return.

I planted a tree, then two, then three in
hopes of learning the wisdom of bending
in storms, accepting loss, and standing brave
before winter’s damp chill.

Dianne Mason is a college English teacher who lives in Matthews, NC. Her poems have appeared in Broad River Review, The Main Street Rag, County Lines: A Literary Journal among others. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and was a finalist in the 2024 and 2025 Ron Rash Poetry Award Contest.

Soft Portals in the Oncology Ward

there is a door 
into the lion’s den
where Daniel lolls with the tamed beast
rests his head on the heart

               of a king and hears 
               the beat, beat, beat of other tomorrows

there is a candle in a prison cell
that lights itself when the guards have passed
making theater on the wall 
the prisoners watch the shadows

               the outline of someone’s mother, stirring soup
               someone’s lover, dancing

there is a hammock in the whale’s belly
strung between two ribs 
Jonah and Pinocchio rest and sway 
with the ocean’s rhythm, swapping tales 

               that time my nose grew,  just from telling a few fibs
               the day God gave me an ultimatum

there is a fig tree growing in Gaza
sweet orbs of nourishment  
hang from tender branches 
as hellfire falls from the sky

               hope seeps from root to root
               tree to tree: this too shall pass

there is a pillar of salt with my name on it
looking back never served a wife
crossing the desert of her life
better to stumble forward 

               weave myself a life-size basket 
               and slip into the river

Joanell Serra is a bicoastal writer with work published in numerous journals and anthologies. Her books include the novel The Vines We Planted and (Her)oics Anthology, a collection of women’s essays. (Regal House Publishing.) She is also the interview editor at River Heron Review. Serra received her MFA from Randolph College in 2025.

Undoer of Knots
 
Late afternoon, a seethe of thundercloud
voids out the ridge. He thumbs his rosary.
He used to yearn for how four drinks allowed
a now without a past: no weight, no shroud.
 
They seemed to solve the ancient mystery
of time most sorrowful. But four drinks bleed
to more. The storm winds bend the backyard tree.
The first thick raindrops fall. Dark glass indeed.
His prayer searches out the deepest need.
Lady, undo the knot of history.

Steven Knepper edits New Verse Review: A Journal of Lyric and Narrative Poetry. His poems have appeared recently in 32 Poems, THINK, Pulsebeat, Talk to Me in Long Lines, The Brazen Head, and elsewhere.

Some Other Ways to Live

Live like your mother didn’t die young and as if your father
bought you a horse when you were ten. Leave a little sadness
in your pocket so you can feel the sorrow of others and lean in
to help, if help is possible. Live with infinite bursts of gratitude
for the bees in the sage bush, the spider web glittering silver
between tree branches, the gleam on the body of the horse in the field,
the bean soup bubbling into fragrant steam, the dog asleep on the rug
Live as if the country is not at war with itself, as if balance is not far off.
Live knowing that, right now, people all over the world are helping each other—
to plow a field, catch a calf, fix a roof, bury a child, bake the bread,
learn the music, sing the harmony. How they light many lamps
at nightfall, how they stoke the fires of justice, of dedication,
of courage, and persistence, the fires of hope and guidance,
the fires we can almost see from here. 

Lisa Zimmerman’s poetry collections include How the Garden Looks from Here (Violet Reed Haas Poetry Award) The Light at the Edge of Everything (Anhinga Press) and Sainted (Main Street Rag). Her poetry and fiction have appeared in SWWIM Every Day, Apple Valley Review, Cave Wall, Poet Lore, Vox Populi, Ghost Parachute, and many other journals. Her poems have been nominated for Best of the Net, five times for the Pushcart Prize, and included in the 2020 Best Small Fictions anthology. She is a Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Northern Colorado.

The Telescope

Bethany J. Riddle is a writer, poet, and educator living in the Pacific Northwest. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals including Amethyst Review, Macrame Literary Journal, Four Tulips, Sublimation and is upcoming at The Prose Poem where two of her poems were shortlisted for the 2025 Spring Short Competition. She has an educational background in Journalism and Teaching, spending 10+ years in the classroom as an English and History teacher. You can find her at https://substack.com/@bethanyjriddle and Instagram@bethanyjriddle.

The Blue Thread

Blue is a primary color,
it is the root of all the others.

It is the blue thread apart from the others
on the tallit, the shawl, the string

amidst the fringes, the string
that bestows nobility on the Jew.

Entranced as he chants, the Jew
feels the blessing of his tradition,

The Book, the language, a tradition
that teaches Tikun Olam--to repair

the world, to reach out, heal, repair
whatever it means to help others.

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.

Hide and Seek

When you go searching for your soul you might find it
Tangled in blankets that hold in morning warmth
Discarded in a basket of dirty clothes on the washer 
Stirred into oatmeal and berries heating on the stove
Washed down the drain during a steamy shower
Posing as an hour-long exercise routine on YouTube
Cawing from the rooftops when you walk the dog
Peeking from behind the images of a Zoom meeting
Sprawled out in pencil across a sheet of lined paper
Masquerading as the sandwich or yogurt for lunch
Hiding under eyelids closed for a postprandial nap
Wandering through paperwork that needs to be filed
Shaking its head over the long list of things to do
Buried under the mulch in the sleeping flowerbeds
Waiting in the mailbox with catalogs and the bills
Thawing with the chicken you took out for dinner
Scampering away from trash cans hauled to the curb
Tucked behind my back as I watch the nightly news
It beats me up the stairs when it’s time to go to bed

After forty years in California, Trina Gaynon moved to Oregon. She graduated from the University of San Francisco’s Masters Program in Creative Writing and volunteered for literacy programs in libraries and WriteGirl in Los Angeles. She currently leads a poetry reading group and writing salon at Senior Studies Institute in Portland. Poems recently appeared in Poetry East and Presence. More can be found in The Grace of Oregon Rain, Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry of California, other anthologies, and numerous journals. Published volumes include An Alphabet of Romance from Finishing Line and Quince, Rose, Grace of God from Fernwood Press.

theophany

it is hard to find God under all this snow
ground of our being  frozen under 18 inches

I can feel  almost   the pulse in my hand still
warm and the flush on cheeks of passing people

this   is  a kind of God   the spark  the lighting from 
another place  the mind   a candle far away in a forest

even stars hide behind clouds and new moon dark
still there   but God is always in the past or the future

now   the salt crunches under my boots and I am
the only one awake here trudging dutifully to work

at 5:30  underneath it all  in the seams of nothingness
like quarters left behind couch cushions  God speaks

mumbles really  and you can make nothing out
of something in the cold going on of days  of my heart

of and of and of  the of   of everything  simple as it seems
being is one of the names of God  just being here without

David Banach is a philosopher and a poet, though often not in that order. He lives in Goffstown, NH, where he tends chickens, keeps bees, and watches for lessons in the sky. He likes to think about Dostoevsky, Levinas, and Simone Weil and the way form emerges in nature and how the human heart responds to it. He has published over 70 poems in journals, and is editor of Touchstone, the journal of the Poetry Society of New Hampshire. He is a Pushcart, Best of the Net, and Forward Prize nominee, and is the author of How to be Good (2025 Bee Monk Press).

Sometimes, this is Enough
 
Will I ever be the kind of person
who learns each bird’s call,
the trill, the chirp, the warble?
 
Will I ever be someone who knows
the constellations, those warriors,
women and men of the skies?
 
I can trace their silver light
as it beckons, my eyes,
the wide night above me, 
 
but I stop,
not needing more,
than standing here
on wet grass,
stark branches
hidden by night,
quiet and whole.

Rebecca Watkins holds an MFA in poetry and an MSed from the City University of New York. Her poems have appeared in The Banyan Review, Sin Fronteras, and The Roanoke Review among other literary journals. Her creative nonfiction has been shortlisted for The Malahat Review’s Open Season Awards. She is the author of Field Guide to Forgiveness (Finishing Line Press 2023) and Sometimes, in These Places (Unsolicited Press 2017). She lives in Hudson Valley with her husband and two dogs. More of her work can be found at rebeccawatkinswriter.com.