By Sharon Brown

The poet turns her head

to the muttering addict

on the street corner,

the girl behind the dirty window

her hands against the glass,

the woman in the head scarf

hurrying past masked agents

poised maliciously

outside the factory door.

The poet heeds

all things wanting and broken

in shadowed alleyways

or open streets

where others look away.

By Craig Kirchner

I arch my back into the ell of the bar stool.

The world, this is my world again, a gross

viewing station, of the two-dimensional

Breaking News, brought to me every evening

with Jameson neat, sticks in my chest,

makes the pressure rise and the AFib flutter.

Tonight’s blood, Ukrainian children’s blood,

bombed in a school, bodies, large eyes,

hair mottled with blood, become furniture,

not moving, like the bottles framing them,

stared at by classmates, journalists, and now

Mayfield’s patrons - fortunately an ocean away.

By Becca Lavin

Dancing Up The Storm

That has (had)            no

CLAIM

To OUR GRAND-SAFE

UNTOUCHABLE

ISLAND

Of LAWS

Now A-BREAK

CRUMBLING Before us

As BRITTLE as CHALK

Only DUST

In Its WAKE