Explore

An owl, as large
and incongruous in the night sky as a flying man.

I screamed every word and waited for the stones to answer back.

She stared back at me, a toddler almost hidden in the folds of her skirt.

Her songs, her records—I entered them. I jumped in and out of myself.

Anne Marie Rooney

I’ve made a rigorous effort. But it’s been hard, this hug embargo.

Writing at night just feels . . . sneaky. There’s an outlaw quality to it.

Through Joan’s window, my childhood. I want this view.

My brother, only his son by the way he fixes his tie, blind-fingered.

Premonitions return to me like a carrier pigeon, disaster strapped to its leg.

Everything comes down to the lightning. Nothing is ever by chance.

Now all I was, all I had ever been, when it came down to it, was a tenant.

There is the ghost of a child in me. It longs to die, so afraid of living.

forget how to count starting with your own age starting with even numbers

Nine day-care children are out for a walk on a winter morning.

You can dive still see half the Spanish castle, its stone pile a trap

The leaves repeat my fall in choruses more ancient than my own.

Janet Burroway

Buckled by time and tides, the pier fails halfway to the deeps.

By Wednesday morning I’d fallen in love with someone else.

Sue Mell

Having his ex-wife in the house was a distraction. He forgot to grieve.

What I eat, that heap has eaten. What I like, it gets, but less of.

There, in the courtyard, a man might sit and call himself your friend.

We serve them far more than they serve us. Service animals, we all are.

You’re too far from where I sit to admire your finery up close.

Less magic, less defense, more speed, more stealth.

Then bullet strikes were spiderwebbing the windshield.

There’s anger in the sound of a V-8 engine that puts me at ease.

I blush whenever that room in Ensenada comes to mind.