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A big bumbling bee / hovers like a chopper near your head / and you were going to swat him / but instead you laugh and wave / like a nut because you’re not / at your job and at times / it can be nice to be regarded.
By Jeff TigchelaarMarch 2025Dad was happiest in early spring, / when the lake thawed and the fish stirred. / When bluegills rose to snowflakes. / When the whole world got hungry.
By Andrea L. FryMarch 2025I hate it / when they do that. Like I’m easy / to love. Like love is a heart / he can sit behind / the wheel of, drive / through town, windows / down, dog and girl along / for the ride, as if he’ll never / ever change his mind.
By Laura DidykMarch 2025I try to feed the chicks mealworms from my hands, / crouching there sometimes for hours. // I can’t remember how / to make them believe in kindness.
By Chera HammonsFebruary 2025I was a sleepwalker through most of those days. A passenger in / my own life. I couldn’t look / to my family and see myself reflected there. I was / born to no one. I was wild.
By Didi JacksonFebruary 2025We exist on the cusp of light and ruin. / Some nights I pray for time // to fold into itself, then spit us out / small and smooth like tumbled rocks, // alloys of past and present.
By Reese MenefeeJanuary 2025The day I waded out of the lake with a stand-up / paddleboard and a split tooth was four days after I knew / I would leave you and eight days before I told you / I knew.
By Angela JandaJanuary 2025As he aged, my father dwindled, / not in stature—though he grew smaller, / as elders must—but rather in estate. / He never required much, // insisted on giving things away. / What am I going to do with all this?
By Joseph BathantiDecember 2024I learned to breathe in my grandmother’s kitchen / despite life sitting on my chest. / Scent of cast-iron skillet seasoned by sunrises / and ancestors’ touch. Gospels of sizzling grease / and bubbling greens my uncle called hallelujah and amen.
By Frederick JosephDecember 2024I watch for the fox that’s slaughtered / three Rhode Island Reds, the hens / just lumps of bloodied feathers I buried / before my son and daughter woke this morning.
By Mickie KennedyDecember 2024Personal, political, provocative writing delivered to your doorstep every month—without a single ad.
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