Disconnect by Donna Vorreyer
Your boyfriend falling asleep while you're on the phone with him could be taken as an insult, I suppose, but when you're fifteen and in love, just the idea that he is breathing on the other end of the line is intoxicating...Mumbling Softly by Francis Eugene Masat
dried out prairie grass
wiry thin, pressed low
hard hot constant wind
stinging white hot sun
dust-devils lift and die...Mushrooms by Zinta Aistars
Like eating earth, smell of dank soil,
musty secrets and spores, rich
with the footprints of history
and its creation — mouthing the flesh...Salt Upon My Tongue by Melissa Marr
REMOVED AT THE POET'S REQUESTBeach 27th Street by Ona Gritz
Summer evenings the aging couples
left supper dishes and snowy TVs to stroll
the sweet smelling slats of the boardwalk
where the ocean swelled like an inhaling belly...Unconditional by Nanette Rayman
We choke on sky. May rain
strums over moon, recalling
a rosined scrape of bow against
inconsolable acoustics of big-
jacketed gangs, saprophytes, lounging
in front of the J train, in front
of sunsets wrung of tint...Easter by Stephen Payne
Rise early and before the day begins
go traipsing, bleary eyed, around the house,
putting aside the quarrels of last night
and remembering similar mornings...Apricots by Francis Eugene Masat
Crawling rough trunks.
Twisting off orbs of sap —
sticky, soft and chewy —
nature's own taffy...