by Megan McGinley Simpson
At 0830, the salty, old sailor creaks as he eases
into the exam chair. His gnarled knees crack,
knotted knuckles clutch his driftwood cane.
Under the scrolling gold of U.S.S. Ari...
by Ken Poyner
Hands that could palm a basketball.
A chest you could smash rock against.
Arms thick as bridge cables. Legs
Like the trees grandfather remembers
As bigger in his youth then ever
They could...
by Victoria Korth
I miss being able to touch strangers
without strict permission, ask them to cough,
turn over, take a deep breath,
press the liver’s rim with sensing fingers, feel
warmth above kidney an...
by Ashley Warren
I hold her by the elbow,
her small feet shuffling, angst
and fear all over her.
She grips my hand tight
and I see her fingers have turned
a new shade of purple. Her fingernails
are sti...
by Victoria Korth
So crimped skin over a breast lump looks
to the poet in me, wood-burning done by an eleven
year old in a heated basement playroom, tattooed
orange peel, acid in the eye. We learn to desc...
by Steven Gordon
You murmur my name
vibrating my drums
and little bones
stimulating my brain
with a soft sigh
as the fall of snow
kissing the ground
in nearly silent whiteness...
by Andrew Merton
You feel a pinch and away you go,
a small boy again,
whirling through that corridor you’ve read about,
all the way down to a joint called Heaven,
a worn ballroom on Seventh Avenue,
wher...
by Andrew Merton
in memory of Jane Pufky Nesbitt
In ‘65 David drove her east,
this secretary from Syracuse,
to meet his college buddies.
David in a Red Sox cap,
unveiling Jane like next year’s...
by Andrew Merton
The surgeon carves a slice from my tongue,
the bit, as it happens,
containing the letter L.
In a week, he says,
it will give us an answer.
Meanwhile,
lust disappears,
la...