I walk in the shadows

by Patricia Roe


I walk in the shadows of others.
Perhaps born at the wrong time or in the wrong place.
Second child always following in the footsteps of the first.
Never to take the lead.

Trained well by a mother who was just that.
My worth always judged by my appearance.
Never encouraged to do more, be more.
I became what I was born to be, a shadow.

Married too young to a mistake.
Wrapping my identity into his.
Losing the relationship and my own self.
Only to repeat the mistake again.

Parenthood giving me the excuse to hide behind my children.
Pushing them to excel.
To reach for heights I only dreamed of.
I walk behind them and am proud yet still I am in their shadow.

Finding work always as the assistant.
Only able to manage my own loads yet always tasked with that of others.
Watching them move on.
Finding reward in helping them succeed.

I support, I follow.
I am the reason they shine so bright.
I am the shadow they never see.
I am woman, I walk in the shadows.


* * * * *

Patricia Roe retired a few years back from a career of helping others during which she engendered a collection of tales that she hopes to share with the world. After spending decades honing her writing skills in the business world with company newsletters and project reports, Pat is now excited to have an opportunity to explore her creative side. Currently working on multiple projects from poetry to blogging to her first novel, she feels that her life experiences give her the perfect background to tell many different stories in an assortment of genres. Hopefully, you will agree!

The Once Invisible Garden

by Laura Foley

 
How did I come to be
this particular version of me,
and not some other, this morning
of purple delphiniums
blooming like royalty,
destined to meet these three dogs
asleep at my feet, and not others—
this soft summer morning,
sitting on her screened porch
become ours, our wind chime
singing of wind and time,
yellow-white digitalis
feeding bees and filling me—
and more abundance to come:
basil, tomatoes, zucchini.
What luck or fate, instinct,
or grace brought me here—
in shade, beneath hidden stars,
a soft, summer morning,
seeing with my whole being,
love made visible.


* * * * *

Laura Foley is a bi/queer poet, author of nine poetry collections.  She has won a Narrative Magazine Poetry Prize, The Common Good Books Poetry Prize, The Poetry Box Editor's Choice Chapbook Award, the Bisexual Book Award, Atlanta Review’s Grand Prize and others. Her work has been widely published in such journals as Alaska Quarterly, Valparaiso Poetry Review, American Life in Poetry, and included in numerous anthologies such as How to Love the World and Poetry of Presence.

Not a Metaphor

by Laura Foley

 
Not the phone’s jarring interruption
in this moment of wonder—
 
not Dad’s late night news
of our sudden loss of my teenage sister, Alix,
 
not this huge, black-winged bat circling us
as I clutch our newborn daughter, I birthed alone.
 
Not a simile, this child with traces of blood
on her arms—nor these stained sheets
 
I rose from moments ago in hope
of sharing joy so pure I couldn’t feel my feet.
 
Not this bat flapping so close
to the seat of my rational sense, this shadow
 
of death that makes me duck, as I hold
my baby, still nameless, to my chest.


* * * * *

Laura Foley is a bi/queer poet, author of nine poetry collections.  She has won a Narrative Magazine Poetry Prize, The Common Good Books Poetry Prize, The Poetry Box Editor's Choice Chapbook Award, the Bisexual Book Award, Atlanta Review’s Grand Prize and others. Her work has been widely published in such journals as Alaska Quarterly, Valparaiso Poetry Review, American Life in Poetry, and included in numerous anthologies such as How to Love the World and Poetry of Presence.

RETREATING

by Caiti Quatmann


After the storm, the forest exhales;
pine needles glisten like a thousand tiny mirrors,

reflecting fragments of a sky, newly washed.
The creek, swollen with rain, carries leaves

that have seen empires rise and fall,
their veins etched with history.

Moss clings to the rocks,
a velvet embrace charting

a history in shades of green and time,
an archive of silence in the undergrowth.

A heron stands--on the water's surface, its reflection
a ghost, touched by the morning's hesitant light.

Shadows play across the bark of a birch, secrets
scripted in fleeting rays, a dialect of darkness and light.

In the meadow, wildflowers awaken;
their petals—open arms, stretching to

a sun that has watched
civilizations turn to dust.

The air vibrates
with the hum of bees.

The mountain, in its stoic grandeur,
wears scars of time like badges,

traces of earth's deep breaths.
And there, in the heart of the wilderness,

where the horizon kisses the sky,
lies the boundary of our understanding,

A frontier that retreats as we approach.


* * * * *

“Retreating” was previously published in Quatmann’s debut chapbook Yoke (MyrtleHaus 2024)

Caiti Quatmann (she/her) is a disabled poet. She is the author of the poetry chapbook Yoke (MyrtleHaus 2024) and Editor-in-Chief for HNDL Mag. Her poetry and personal essays have been published by Thread LitMag, The Closed Eye Open, and others. Caiti lives in St. Louis, Missouri, and teaches at a local Microschool. Find her on Instagram and Threads @CaitiTalks.

THE WILD

by Caiti Quatmann


In the quiet after rain, time whispers.
It's in the way the mist clings to the mountains--

a memory too heavy to lift.
The trees, old souls keeping vigil;

stoic witnesses, their roots
tangled in centuries.

There is a stillness here,
a pause between one breath

and the next--where even the river seems
to hold its tongue, bearing witness

to the slow dance of the stars.
Beneath the surface, under layers

of earth and history, secrets sleep
in their own rhythm, unhurried

by the tick of human clocks. They speak
in the language of leaves unfurling,

of silent seeds bursting into stubborn life.
Sometimes, in the half-light of dawn,

the world feels like a question left
unanswered. The vastness of the sky,

a blank page, where clouds drift, unscripted,
and the horizon blurs the line between knowing

and wondering. Here, in the endless cycle
of bloom and wither, time doesn't march;

it breathes. It's in the hawk's circling shadow,
the rustle of grass as unseen creatures pass,

and the steady gaze of the mountain,
witnessing years as moments.

And in this expanse, I am a wanderer,
footsteps echoing in the vast cathedral

of the wild, each step overshadowed
by the mysteries that outlast us;

the ones we carry
in our bones,

but never quite grasp.


* * * * *

“The Wild” was previously published in Quatmann’s debut chapbook Yoke (MyrtleHaus 2024)

Caiti Quatmann (she/her) is a disabled poet. She is the author of the poetry chapbook Yoke (MyrtleHaus 2024) and Editor-in-Chief for HNDL Mag. Her poetry and personal essays have been published by Thread LitMag, The Closed Eye Open, and others. Caiti lives in St. Louis, Missouri, and teaches at a local Microschool. Find her on Instagram and Threads @CaitiTalks.

A Night in September

by Alexandria Wyckoff


Two sturdy twins toppled by planes hell-bent on destruction. Broadcasted into school rooms and power plants, the moment of silence stretched across the world like the first rumbles of an earthquake. Young lovers returned home to grasp for something – someone. Two weeks earlier their first try at a family was plucked away like the tomatoes in the garden, where frost marched across supple scarlet flesh and claimed its victim. My mother became an empty earth that prepared for a new transplant. Two days after the fall, heartburn swarmed into my mother’s chest and she knew.


* * * * *

Alexandria Wyckoff has a BA in Creative Writing from SUNY Oswego. She has been previously published in Gandy Dancer, Planisphere Q, The Ana, The Pensieve, and Quillkeepers Press. Find more of her work at: https://lwyckoff2002.wixsite.com/alexandria-wyckoff

 

Let’s Dance

by Josephine Schelling


            I learned all the moves. I practiced them in the mirror. Sympathy: hugging eyebrows + little nod, Happiness is all in the eyes, I kept wearing masks long after everyone stopped. How much of the routine have I forgotten? It’ll come back quick, muscle memory, you have to practice everywhere, all the time. At a funeral I learned Grief: eyelids half-down, horizon-mouth, I Know, I Know. I can dance. Are we dancing or fighting? I’m never quite sure. In fifth grade I got in trouble for pushing a classmate, I thought we were playing a game, I thought we were just playing! My mom taught me Sorry. I tried to just say it but that wasn’t good enough. I didn’t know we were dancing. It was a heroic effort to force myself to move. Do you think Superman knows how to dance? In the movie his classroom is too loud and he hides in a closet. I know what that’s like! I Know! Am I an alien too? How long did it take him to learn? Who held a knife to his invulnerable throat and forced him? I am 22. My missteps are no longer so egregious, but my execution is, execution is to perform and to die at the same time. Having lived on the edge of incomprehensibility for so long, why haven’t I found my footing yet? I used to wonder if I might be a psychopath. I used to dance on my own. Someday I’ll write a horror movie where your skin melts off if it’s too hot out, and if you look someone in the eyes their face twists fully upside down. I know what that’s like! Have you ever wanted to take out all your bones? You wouldn’t be able to dance, like that. I don’t know how to scream, I just inhale really fast when I’m scared. I’m scared. I haven’t learned Fear yet, so no one knows. I’ve seen other people do Fear but it looks so silly, bug-eyes and flying eyebrows. I’ll just look stupid. People talk as well as dance but I’ve learned it doesn’t matter as much. Some peoples have lots of words for snow because it’s important to be able to identify it. How many words do you have for stupid? For different, for weird, for unintelligible? For people who don’t know how to dance? Oh, am I being too honest? Unloveability is a slip-spill, twisted ankle, a watching from the darkness, the spotlight is both communion and objectification, does that make sense? Tell me, do you understand metaphor or just interpret it? Under the lights, I’m so fucking sexy. Hundreds of people think I’m dancing for them alone. I’m not talking to you! I’m not talking to you! Did you know words mean nothing actually? I learned Friendly (eyes shake hands, listen when no one else does) but everyone thought it was Invitation. Eye contact feels like kissing so it wasn’t that different when I was kissed. I haven’t learned how to dance No, and it doesn’t matter if I say it. Did you know words mean nothing actually? I Know. It’s ok, we can just dance. Are we dancing or making love? I’m tired, can I take a break? I’m tired, can you put the knife down?


* * * * *

Josephine Schelling is a soon-to-be medical student from upstate New York. She completed her undergraduate degree at Case Western Reserve University, where she won the Edith Garber Krotinger Prize for Creative Writing in 2021.

Rummage Sale Rumination

by Katherine Flannery Dering


My wedding dress hung from a pipe
in the basement for forty years

while the headpiece hid, nestled
in tissues on a closet shelf.

Within the yellowed plastic bag
and dilapidated box, the two

are surprisingly well-preserved:
Dorian Gray; I am the portrait.

Chiffon and lace now a space ship through time.
Memories arrive at the speed of light:

organ music, painting a yellow kitchen, crying,
whiff of tomato plants and fresh dirt,

a car’s rear lights in the driveway.


* * * * *

Katherine Flannery Dering writes poetry and prose and lives in New York State. She has published a mixed-genre memoir, Shot in the Head, a Sister’s Memoir a Brother’s Struggle (Bridgeross). Her poetry chapbook, Aftermath, was published by Finishing Line Press. She holds an MFA from Manhattanville University.
 
Her website is www.katherineflannerydering.com, and she is on Facebook as Katherine Flannery Dering, author. 

An Ordinary Breakfast

by Louella Lester


When she tips the container and pours the blueberries over the bowl of oatmeal a lone berry escapes. Scoots to the edge of the counter. Teeters there for less than a second. Dives to the floor. Rolls away towards the refrigerator, at least she assumes it does, because she’s wearing her reading glasses, not her progressive bifocals or even the single vision ones she uses to watch television, and things are a bit of a blur. She whips off the reading glasses and squints. Nothing. Bends for a closer look. Nothing. Tries swiping her hand under the fridge, but her fingers won’t fit. Says, “Fuck!” twice. Stalks to her desk, yanks open a drawer and pulls out a ruler. While there she exchanges her reading glasses for her bifocals. On her way back Violet steps on something cold and squishy, nowhere near the fridge.


* * * * *

Louella Lester is a writer/photographer in Winnipeg, Canada, author of Glass Bricks (At Bay Press), a contributing editor at New Flash Fiction Review, and has a story included in Best Microfiction 2024. Her writing appears in a variety of journals/anthologies, including most recently: Roi Faineant, 50-Word Story, the Dribble Drabble Review, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Gooseberry Pie, Paragraph Planet, Hooghly Review, Bright Flash, Cult. Magazine, and SoFloPoJo.

Who Decides Which Are Weeds?

by Louella Lester


Seeds, girls plucked from homes or streets or social media sites. Scattered in fields or along river banks, some slipping into the muddy water. Floating. Waiting to be noticed, plucked out and tenderly replanted. Waiting for songs to be sung. Waiting to be watered by tears and warmed by the sun until they sprout and grow into circles of light.


* * * * *

Louella Lester is a writer/photographer in Winnipeg, Canada, author of Glass Bricks (At Bay Press), a contributing editor at New Flash Fiction Review, and has a story included in Best Microfiction 2024. Her writing appears in a variety of journals/anthologies, including most recently: Roi Faineant, 50-Word Story, the Dribble Drabble Review, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Gooseberry Pie, Paragraph Planet, Hooghly Review, Bright Flash, Cult. Magazine, and SoFloPoJo.

How to catch the rainbow even if you’ve failed multiple times before

by Elena Pitsilidou


Multiple times I’d failed to catch
the rainbow, it’s true. But eventually,
the sky recognised my struggle and lent
a hand to its own star-dusty child
It all starts at murky dawns
when you slip between the duvet and
the night’s dream, which pushes to be remembered and when
the rain drops smell like espresso

Nobody warned you that when you see
the rainbow after the rain, you should not
call its name out loud but you should only
go on washing the dishes or choosing your outfit for the day
Then, you should observe the colours
like you observe your cat licking her paws
Is it red, yellow and green or is it the other way around?
Is it lick and stroke or stroke and lick?

At last, you realise the illusion of
perfectly cleaned paws and perfectly arranged colours
You only know that rainbows are there to remind you of
songs you listened on Sunday evenings
Only then you can whisper to the sky and
take a ride to the stars where
the rainbow awaits; not as a rainbow but
as a lovely mesh of stardust with everyone and everything you loved inside.



* * * * *

Elena Pitsilidou is an English teacher and an emerging writer from Cyprus. Her work has appeared in print and online literary magazines such as Film Matters, We Said Go Travel and The Cabinet of Heed. One of her poems won the first prize of the poetry competition of the University of Cyprus in 2020 and another poem was included in an anthology published by Archytas publishing house in Greece in 2024.

 

Loss

by Elena Pitsilidou


Disco lights and silence
Your figure moves in chaotic intervals
I try to call you but my voice is muted
I can only hear ocean waves and I can sometimes touch
your sun-kissed skin
I can see my younger self, ignorant and innocent
unbeknownst to the fact that I would only reach you through memory
I keep you safe in dark-mattered alleys
I keep you safe in aging, videotaped films
I keep you safe in the place I saw you last.

* * * * *

Elena Pitsilidou is an English teacher and an emerging writer from Cyprus. Her work has appeared in print and online literary magazines such as Film Matters, We Said Go Travel and The Cabinet of Heed. One of her poems won the first prize of the poetry competition of the University of Cyprus in 2020 and another poem was included in an anthology published by Archytas publishing house in Greece in 2024.

Comfort Zone

by Stuti Jain


I don't ever want to leave this poem
I could live here
Eating table scraps
Drinking words like water
I could live here
Sleeping under a blanket of lies
Breathing to the beat of a song
I could live here
Never forgetting the sun
But too scared
To greet it again.

 

 

Sunset in the Autumn Forest

by Amy Soricelli
 
 
Jenny's father has a wall of paint-by-number art 
he created during his five summers at camp Wallaby 
in the Catskills. Most of it is brown angry-orange suns 
bleeding slightly over a mountain then over the floral couch. 
He doesn't say anything about them, but you can't turn away
if you're looking for scissors in the top desk drawer 
or have wandered in after a lazy afternoon in a book. 
There is one painting of a loopy road where the trees are fat 
versions of themselves, but on the other side they look like 
they're barely trying. No one can be sure why the road is so curvy, 
or if that's a dog running wild or just a smudge of paint. 
The painting by the window is a tent in the woods.  
There seems to be a campfire turning into dust, but her father 
sells insurance now so no one wants to ask.


* * * * *

"Sunset in the Autumn Forest" was first published in Glimpse, 11/2021.

Amy Soricelli has been published in numerous publications and anthologies including Remington Review, The Westchester Review, Deadbeats, Long Island Quarterly, Literati Magazine, The Muddy River Poetry Review, Pure Slush, Cider Press Review, Glimpse Poetry Magazine, and many others. That Plane is not a Star, 4/2024, Dancing Girl Press; Carmen has No Umbrella but Went for Cigarettes Anyway, Dancing Girl Press 9/2021; Sail Me Away, Dancing Girl Press, 10/2019. Nominations: Pushcart Prize, 2021, Best of the Net 2020, 2013. Nominated by Billy Collins for Aspen Words Emerging Writer's Fellowship/2019, Grace C. Croff Poetry Award, Herbert H Lehman College, 1975.

The Sad Girl from a Private School Wins a Ribbon

by Amy Soricelli


The poem of the year has four sides. 
It opens like a map
The judges were asked to watch it like
a silent movie and make notes in the margin. 
They were given red pens and tissues,
but most brought their own.

The first judge stopped at war with its 
field of ghosts and broken children.
Spirits hung around each line carrying
bullets in lunch boxes; some of the 
words were backward but no points 
were taken-off. One judge writes, 
the poet wrote from a pen full of dust.  
No one disagreed.

The flat side of the poem took small 
eyes and a wide mouth and shaped them
into flame-throwing monsters.
The poet used all the glass words in her
dictionary to describe her skinny fingers
and crooked smile.
Several judges recused, but most folded 
themselves into her broken spirit.
When she finished painting a mural
out of her shapeless head, she rhymed four
words together and sewed them shut.

Love in seven languages skated thin
ice into the third stanza. 
Unrequited and frayed at the edges,
the poet spilled her mind across
six lines of a broken soul.
The judges understood her need for
belonging and wrote chin-up comments
in the space at the bottom.
One drew a heart but then crossed it out.

The final stanza flew off the page with 
salad wings.  There were pastry sentences 
in powdered sugar and a tall glass of water 
with nothing added in.
One judge grabbed a snack bar while reading
when the strong flavor of coconut filled his
head with Haiku.
He looked around for guidance.
When the poem ended in a sizzling steak,
the judges grabbed some Macallan and 
called it a night.

* * * * *


Amy Soricelli has been published in numerous publications and anthologies including Remington Review, The Westchester Review, Deadbeats, Long Island Quarterly, Literati Magazine, The Muddy River Poetry Review, Pure Slush, Cider Press Review, Glimpse Poetry Magazine, and many others. That Plane is not a Star, 4/2024, Dancing Girl Press; Carmen has No Umbrella but Went for Cigarettes Anyway, Dancing Girl Press 9/2021; Sail Me Away, Dancing Girl Press, 10/2019. Nominations: Pushcart Prize, 2021, Best of the Net 2020, 2013. Nominated by Billy Collins for Aspen Words Emerging Writer's Fellowship/2019, Grace C. Croff Poetry Award, Herbert H Lehman College, 1975

 

Breath of Another Body

by Joan MacIntosh


A man
released from
the lockup
follows the youth
to the pier 

They’ve gone  
to stone a muskrat
swimming
in the moonlight
near the rotten
wharf posts

The man lives in a
basement apartment
since drifting
from the hospital
to half-way house
then back
to Smalls’ Cove

He gulps his pills 
sleeps all day
wanders
the soundless
outport night

The youth
are the only ones
he knows

He joins
the youth
to bloody        
the muskrat
to hear
the breath
of another body          
his name, in the night
called mildly


* * * * *

Joan MacIntosh lives in St. John's, NL and writes poetry and prose. Her poetry is currently featured in The South Shore Review as well as previously in TicleAce, Leafpress and others.