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The Dead by Maura O’Connor
one by one, they were all becoming shades… —James Joyce I fled your deaths. They happened anyway. Me, the missing witness. Michael, I will miss you most. The roses you gave me the night you told me you hated me. The song you wrote comparing my eyes to ocean my dreams to rainbow. It wasn’t…
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Two Poems
by Margarita Serafimova The Grave If my father is in it,the whole world is also there,headed by me – a fanfare. Along Athinas I was leading my heartby my hand.It was walking slowlyas it was growing wings. Margarita Serafimova Margarita Serafimova was shortlisted for the Montreal International Poetry Prize 2017, Summer Literary Seminars Poetry Contest…
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Two Poems
by Heidi Slettedahl LonelinessLonelinessa white sheetdrawn over me at night,my naked body unaccustomed to the weight. River’s EdgeI’ve never swum in a riverfor fear of tidesand my dead uncle. My father made us learn to swim in poolseven as he stood on the edge, himself unable. Vacations, my mother left with her sister, shopping, whilemy…
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The Carpenter’s Son
by Katie Pukash mine is nothing but stain-each carving a little less.can’t say too much about the carpenterwhen the carpenter holds the only chisel.pliers for eyes-he will call you Floorboard andClaw hammer and Screwdriver and Sin-will knock at your throatuntil there is nothing but screws.stained and sealed-Mouth Wide and Shut.he won’t come back to search-not…
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Emily
By Howie Good Sailors just grabbed what they could — a Mickey Mouse teddy bear my sister had since she was little — before the ship broke apart in nightmarish purple seas, the wind wailing as if the wails might actually be expressing something, anguish or fear or fratricidal rage, while back on shore, graves vomited up the dead,…
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Two Poems
by Rita Mookerjee NemesisPeople admire a sense of industry / a spirited sort of communism / how the labyrinth tenants toil away over early blooms / tufted legs weighted with sun dust / convening in their planet in service of the one true queen / everyone admires their golden down / but wasps are paper…
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Cafone
by Salvatore Difalco When my father was in the late stages of terminal lung cancer — chemo and two operations had not slowed it down — a group of his friends came to our house to visit him. They had been drinking. Giacchino Palmieri, his godson, the loudest among them, slurred and slobbered greetings to my father, who was…