Monthly Archives: May 2023

Moving Day 


the pickup truck rumbles away with the last few 
        moving boxes. the room is a bare island 
depleted of vegetation of memories. a freezing 
     emptiness hefts itself off its hinges and licks 
your skin. silence blends with soft sunlight easing  
     through the curtainless windows. you scan 
the room one more time, tears teetering
     on the edge of your eyelashes.  
in a forgotten corner of a windowsill, you spot 
     the tiny jar of layered sand with glimmers 
of color. it reminds you of the ocean that used to live 
      in you. its waves fizz into your fingertips and crash 
with your thumping heartbeats. you tuck the jar 
     into your canvas bag emblazoned with “courage” 
and make the last farewell, your steps 
      joining the hum of the road.

Allison Xu is a young writer from Rockville, Maryland. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Blue Marble Review, Unbroken, Paper Lanterns, The Daphne Review, Bourgeon Magazine, and elsewhere. She is currently serving as a senior editor for Polyphony Lit. When she’s not writing, she enjoys reading, baking, and playing with her beagle.  

To See the Shining Here



I see their shining auras wild
In yellow fields where snow had been,
New flower heads on tender stems,
All moving in the sun and wind
Just after rain from ground that seems 
Infertile on this rocky stretch,
The rising belly of the West.

Yet I have heard that from thin air 
The earth was formed and tilled at dawn,
Its fields sown with what beauty is;
The yield desired is not absent—
Time and wind and heaving earth
Can make deserted places bloom
That we might see the shining here.

Brian Palmer is intrigued with and often writes about the vital and undeniable intersections of our physical, mental, and spiritual lives. His poetry has appeared in various journals including Expansive Poetry Online, Bristlecone, The Society of Classical Poets, and The Lyric.

Markers on the Trees


My fingers floated just above the keyboard, ready to prove myself. Waiting with anticipation for brilliance to tumble out of my words. This is how I used to write: looking always to prove my creativity, my way-with-words, the worth of my thoughts. I wrote looking for the most impressive language, clever metaphors, hoping to stumble onto truth no one had yet uncovered—and I would be the one to gift it to the world. 

These days, writing is much simpler and somehow still just as difficult. Somehow more demanding. I’m not sure what I’m looking for when I write, most times. Now, it mostly feels like trying to remember important things and people and places and times. It feels like walking in circles around honesty and contradiction and then falling into both, tired of resisting. Sometimes I find myself writing only to savor the round-as-apples cheeks of my baby niece. The pressure to prove myself in some way—that I am a deep thinker, some mystical creative being—lurks in the background, watching.

Lately, my need to remember what is good and real has begun to outweigh my need to demonstrate the depth of my mind or how original I can be. Originality is not keeping me together. Philosophical takes don’t ground me anymore. It’s the moments with my green-eyed niece. It’s the backyard reunion with friends I’ve known since before I could walk, holding each other’s babies, sitting around a table full of crunchy fruity summer salad and grilled chicken and corn and paper bowls piled high with three kinds of ice cream. Staying up late even though we are all yawning and sleepy because we can’t get enough of each other. 

This is what I’m trying to remember, when I write. I’m still reaching. Not for brilliance or ingenuity. I no longer sit around, waiting for inspiration to sweep me off my feet. I don’t have time, in a world like ours, to wait for such lofty moments. I need what’s real; the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. I reach for the palm-full of herbs that bless my senses. The slurp of a ripe watermelon in July. I’m trying to just sit and rest awhile, inside these words. Here is renewal. 

I reach for the days I realized I was not alone—when my friend dropped everything she was doing because I wasn’t doing well, drove with me to the grocery store. She filled a cart with everything good for you and wouldn’t let me pay a cent. When I laughed so hard with my mom about something ridiculous I did at the doctor’s office that tears streamed down our faces, and the time my dad and I tried to rewire the house on our own and failed epically, but had the time of our lives. These memories are my trail through the woods, my markers on the trees—reflecting light when I can’t see my own hand in front of me because it’s so dark, reminding me where I’ve been, what is real. Here is my pathway to honesty. Here is hope for this weary imagination. 

Miriam Riad is a public school teacher, writer, and former book editor. She has been published in Ekstasis Magazine, Ruminate Magazine, and elsewhere. She is the author of 28 by 29: A Year of Writing, a short collection of essays and poetry.

The Plunge


Sink into the unsaid
Because sometimes
The words ready
On your tongue
Are too easy.

Swim through your mind
Beneath the sparkling surface—
Wade past the frothy shoreline,
That bubbling, meatless foam,
And take the plunge.

Where whale songs once echoed,
Where anchors disintegrate slowly.

The sound of nothing
Can be so full
And exquisite.

Why do we forget?

The clearest of fish glisten
Like the glass you keep your heart in,

Shielded from what’s really here,
So heavy and unknowable. 

But if you trust yourself enough
To let go
And spend time
In this deep space,
The relief comes
Like a touch of piano keys
Transmitted through 
Still ocean,

Like sunlight filtering through
Pounds and pounds of
Water turned weightless.

Find your voice
In sanctified silence
And float upwards
Towards an eggshell sky,
Breaking open
Like a poem
Falling into a wind-swept page,
Writer huddled onshore and squinting
Into ocean spray and trick of light,
A mermaid rising above the rocks.

Sam Ligeti (She/Her) has always known that she’s a writer, but is only just starting to believe it. Connect with her on Instagram: @samligeti, or at www.samligeti.com.

wanting
 
 
yeah you want calm
relax
sit still    nubbly peace encampment
‘round the campfire
contentment
       minaret and mint tea,
to heed the call,
kneel
   before   original green,
moss, fern, tree.
 
and yeah    you want
pogo stick
and downhill ski,
cowboy boot   swagger shimmy
sassafras root,
     slapdash
           and motorcycle throttle
vroom.
 
you be   the wanting?
or you be
    the field
 
where wanting
say   hello
   say goodbye
watch
the redeliver
   come    and go.

Melanie Green‘s most recent poetry collection, A Long, Wide Stretch of Calm was published by The Poetry Box of Beaverton, Oregon. The titles of her earlier collections are: Continuing Bridge and Determining Sky. She is a resident of Portland, Oregon.