INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Alan Britt
Shutta Crum
Jumoke Verissimo
Las Slomovits
Richard Kurtz
Lyn Lifshin
Duane Locke
Serena Wilcox
Jerry Blanton
Dami Ajayi
Odimegwu Onwumere
Joanie Freeman
Dike Okoro
Amit Parmessur
Paul B. Roth
Divya Rajan
Kim Keith
Fred Wolven
C. Derick Vann
Al Ortolani
Steve Barfield
Jim Davis
Chris Lord
Jennifer Burd
Will Swanson
Isabel Kestner
Lisa Schmidt
Running Cub
Tolu Ogunlesi
Owasco
how your waters
swarm
mirages of moonlight
through oak leaves
where I stand
tonight
How
this same light
breaking
my own body
into pieces
heals it
seamlessly
below
your overlapping
waves
How the Iroquois
named you
Owasco: Passage
long before
Christian missionaries
sipped
your ripples' edge
running cold
against their bleeding
blue lips
and with their rough
burlap sleeves
wiped their mouths
dry of you
BEFORE FALLING ASLEEP
What little
light of the moon
spruce pines
allow
through my window
taking the shape
of a colorless
butterfly's wingbeats
vanishes
then reappears
in the shape
of a much later hour
or a rain
wrapped sundrop
hanging
from the edge
of a yellow
strawflower's
stiff petal
cuddled
by a honeybee
LOOK NO FURTHER
Hands rub
gravel filled
mud
from a stone
until the glimmer
from a shine
off its wet skin
reveals
another light
living just inside
this stone
and which
to my surprise
turns out to be
my own eyes
which
when forced
to close
forgot
there was ever
the slightest
chance
they could ever
be one
and the same
as this stone
and open
THIRST
I cup
night
in my hands
sipping
from every
wrinkle and crack
between
its wobbly planets
a deep
blend of darkness
mixed
with just a sound
of water
where endless
reflections
of stars
are kept intact
and whose light
has never
been so quenching
as right now
Paul B. Roth, Fayetteville, New York