1-81 south, late march.

John Stevenson

blue mountain veins

jade radiating
expanse sunlight redbuds
highway gully
contrasting iridescent unbelievable
rainbow sight
pull eyes away
grey road yellow lines division
direction really leading
one way

dreamtime
John Steveston

half-lotus on scratchy blue carpet

this old house exhaling
air conditioning, baseboard heat
chatter laughter shouts
backfiring breaking glass fireworks

moments like this mind sinks,

a turtle into scummy pond

white light
white walls casting
spells throwing
shade on freshly washed sheets
wrinkled uneven
smelling mountain springs

I sit sweating
bent back-aching
over notebook trying
to capture it
like a turn-of-the century photograph
like a child trying to hold a moth
without crushing its wings.

makyo
Maya Starkey

I wish I could tell you

how fragile this thing is
say look, not pretend
to be what I’m not
what I think you want
which is not what you want
I know, it’s been proven
time and again I don’t know
what people want, let alone you,
who cares so much
that you stay, and look,
and say good, giving
what I can’t give myself
that’s love, I say
can you love yourself?
I don’t know,
to love, one must know
and who can ever know
themselves, this whirlwind
of black dust or peerless sunbeam
you think you know
but you never do
you know your worst self
and your best self,
somewhere in between,
that’s you, in the margins
in the corner, waiting
where you never thought to look.

siren song
Alex Reinholt

gift from nowhere

why tempt me
let me go
off this doomed boat
into the ocean, let me try
for your forbidden shore
I’d drown
swallow the sea
for the chance
calypso
Alex Reinholt

I’d rather stay with you

discard home and duty
for your kingdom without others
or toil where I don’t have to be
a king warrior husband
and become an animal again
your dog a pig basking in mud
for that’s what I really want
deep down to let go to fall for
you would catch me
hold me forever

oh love oh love oh love

Julia Vassar

like a star
suspended in the void
the light a memory
of a thing long gone
a photograph an echo

a seed
buried in refuse
rot blackness
the memory
remains a piece
of something greater
an elm an apple
growing like a tree
slow steady true

the moon
reminding me
of windows in the night
eyes showing glimpses
fragments of angels
other world dreams
of heaven I’ll never see

coral
Julia Vassar

I’m afraid that your light

will show my dark corners

your spark ignite

my kindling heart

those humming live wires

that lone long train whistle
this half smile stolen
draws me to you

don’t be fooled
you bring nothing but danger

I’m drowning in
your image, infuriating

this hornet nest, this slumbering

winter starved grizzly

love like a bumblebee sting

gut wrenching raindrops

pounding on plate glass

your body, your ocean