e s i A proportioned r after a d i v e re quires a bit of an an gle to get ho me James B. Nicola’s poetry has appeared internationally in...

Each Diwali, Amma would light up Small earthen lamps From a big one, And ask us to place at Everywhere we have a connection with: The...

We Swayed Furtively I You were a shadow of rhythm In the arms, song, and body Of another man. So from a distance, I became him In order...

the sweet spot she weeps & creaks into the ooze & creep & scrape & crushing crackle of whenever trim / shape / slice / sculpt to feed ...

pills got bigger: ten to twenty milligrams. now they’re horsesized. change in dosage prompted by a cry for help. by a secret told to my...

Your scuffed, unruly top hat has settled onto an adequately round head. Your body leans left, but not that smile. Small steady hands have...

I looked out at the half frozen lake. How lovely to be here without you: no stones or pinecones breaking the crust of ice and disturbing...

We choose our words with care. The garden is still and honeysuckle-sweet again, and the evening shade shadows our faces. We cradle our...

I am the rough fish that escaped the winterkill. somewhere, at the bottom of the lake the light reached me, trickling through a hole in...

He asked her out in junior high, and they were inseparable for seventy-one years—he loved her thoughtfully and sincerely. Dementia had...

His last name was Sugar. At least that’s what I thought, until he wrote the characters on a napkin, and showed me, with his grass-fluid...

How is it up there in your rectory of plated gold? Your arms—torn spaghetti strings—reach down to disturb the guts of what you’ve...

An impractical weapon: it drips, but never gore, and its birchwood hilt will hardly fill a child’s hand. I cannot eat a popsicle, though—...

whiteout near waterville on the way to work, on the way home, a tunnel the road has disappeared, the snow ruts have smoothed & cold, you...

I plod down the street to the corner a walker as my guide careful to navigate the cracks on the sidewalk, heat bouncing off the pavement....

The difference in mourning and morning is you. Dawn takes away anything “our”s, transforms it to “or,” a choice between two, as usual....

The flakes of your love keep landing on my bare skin and dissolving before I can collate them. Two clutches I’ve salvaged are already...

the sun’s a long yellow scarf pull it down to dress warm for the chill

Most Days, Dystonia is a Background Hum Most days, dystonia is a constant background hum, Others, a Beethoven symphony But episodically,...

only the finest of china for this trauma so i grab the best of my mother’s bowls wash it twice with wine & honey before chipping teeth on...