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I never sent you that letter that I told you to look out for, by David Greenspan
Our heads were full of yogurt
during those years
of rain and warm rot–
We didn’t pay much attention
to the mudbleat
hiding in our chests–
We drank grapefruit juice
and watched squirrels
chase each other–
You didn’t look at me
stuffed as I was
with glass–
When milk spoiled
and winter was bright,
we talked about
the body’s coarse leak–
O the beautiful shapes
our mouths made to speak–
Anne,
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Two Poems by Emma Hyche
Precarity
My friend saidthat adjunct teaching makes him wonderwhich character from Apocalypse Nowhe is that day-
Dennis Hopper maybe, orthat Playmate emerging from the helicopterand shimmying. The onewith the cowboy hat and the fakeguns under the swingblade. I’ma palm tree on the beach
most days, keepingthe sand anchoredto the shore.
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“Quarantine” by Rimas Uzgiris
By day we count like clocks the dust motesAnd wait for the hour of maximum sunWhen the forest folds us inLike the first morning, Eve yet to meet a snake.
The passage back is through the cemeteryHaunted by the occasional humanShuffling from grave to grave,Pottering with plants and sloughed pine.
We park ourselves before electric iridescenceTrying to feel our way towards a future:Seeing only fear and desire and no Eightfold Path, -
Light Year by Regina DiPerna
“Rat. Pearl. Onion. Honey. These colors came before the sun lifted above the ocean, bringing light alike to mortals and immortals.” – Homer, The Iliad
Under rat-colored sky,
a window swings openits sash, floods the other
side of the worldwith cold light,
the not yet of dawn;nets full of stars recede,
become bare slatsof blue between cedars,
fewer magpies than before,fewer feathers loose
in grey air. -
Two Limericks by Raquel Melody Guarino
Pot o’ Gold
America’s in a recessionWith closures in every professionThe nurses all cryAs more people dieWith 12-hundred bucks in possessionOh Jesus
The virus is getting quite badBut the president thinks it’s a fadAs the numbers still lurch“I’ll see you in church!”Says Don, a positive lad
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Raquel Melody Guarino is an aspiring expat who just left Italy due to the pandemic. -
“The Air” by Anthony Mirarcki
There are methods ofcoping, optimism in theface of uncertainty, hope.
Change can be agood thing, a chanceto reflect. But questionsinfect my outlook—
How fast can life change?What will happen next?Where do I go from here?
The answers to theseinterrogatives, liketheir cause, remain in the air.
Maybe time can healall wounds, or maybe timeis up.