Stephen Cramer
Choice

Stephen Cramer - Choice

Poetry
Stephen Cramer’s first book of poems, Shiva’s Drum, was selected for the National Poetry Series and published by University of Illinois Press. Bone Music, his sixth,won the Louise Bogan Award and… Read more »
Robin Gow
Fetch

Robin Gow - Fetch

Poetry
Robin Gow is a trans and queer poet and Young Adult author from rural Pennsylvania. Robin is the author of the chapbook Honeysuckle by Finishing Line Press and the collection Our Lady of Perpetual… Read more »
Lis Sanchez
My Solitude Is Not as It Once Was

Lis Sanchez - My Solitude Is Not as It Once Was

Poetry
Lis Sanchez has poetry in Plume, The Puritan, Prairie Schooner, Cincinnati Review, Harvard Review Online, The Bark, Copper Nickel, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of a North Carolina Arts Council… Read more »
James McKean
Reasons to Plant Raspberries

James McKean - Reasons to Plant Raspberries

Poetry
James McKean writes both poetry and non-fiction. He’s published three books of poems, Headlong, Tree of Heaven, and We Are the Bus, and two books of essays, Home Stand: Growing Up in Sports, and… Read more »
Jarid McCarthy
The Maiden Speaks from a Willow Root

Jarid McCarthy - The Maiden Speaks from a Willow Root

Poetry
Jarid McCarthy is a poet and playwright residing in Southern California. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Foglifter, Night Music Journal, Surfaces, and Old Youth Magazine. He is the creator… Read more »
David Bergman
The Man Approached by Dead Lovers

David Bergman - The Man Approached by Dead Lovers

Poetry
David Bergman is Professor Emeritus of English from Towson University and the author or editor of twenty books. Next year Black Spring Press will publish his first two murder mysteries, Unassisted… Read more »

Choice

Stephen Cramer

Tonight, it looks like the stars have had a few. Orion   is skinny dipping in puddles, choreographing sweet dance moves   with a streetlamp. Actually,  everything is clearly intoxicated,    from the scent of rain  laced with pine to the grass    tilting beneath our feet.  Let’s face it: as of the most   recent assessment, the day  seems to have had a deficit   of awesome. I mean, even if  the task we’ve been given                                is to make a house  out of a hurricane, to make    walls with the whirlwind,  to board by board create    the floor we walk on, what choice do we have    but to drive lightless all night & honk at all the moths?   It’s far past time to walk  a shattered sidewalk that hasn’t    already memorized my stride, to speak with an eloquence that tends to slur   into grunt & groan, time to  all night long hook elbows with awe.
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