All Souls

By Richard Hedderman

The moon had us hoodwinked,
escaping through the branches,

Oaks Invite Analogies

By Sylvia Byrne Pollack

to sprout take root
grow through many seasons

like a human learning how to be –
the many blows absorbed
the reaching for the sky

Home Invasion

Just like a prologue to a novel or the calm before the crisis in a movie, my disaster began. A kind, able, purposeful man, Darren turned eighty-two this year. All the concerns voiced about aging political candidates applied, mental acuity, balance issues, fitness.

Pink Night Sky

By Jane-Rebecca Cannarella

Fights in multiples a month, the consistency of the painful words almost felt like a friend — a relief when the flood finally occurred.

Anger grows when fed, so I sat in silence. You’re so manipulative. I’m not falling for this act. The words flowed over me, but I thought, we can still salvage the evening.

Standing at the Edge

By Carol Raitt

My heart feels too large inside me. It is burning. Constricted. I want to rip it out, exorcise the pain. Slam it down on the ground. Kick it away from me. Run from it. Leave it behind to disappear into the detritus beneath my feet and be covered by threads of mycorrhizal fungi and tree roots below the soil of these wise and ancient monarchs.

A Letter to Henry

By Marco Etheridge

Now Dane McClaire had vanished, leaving Della alone. And in that moment, alone at her desk, she saw the answer. It was as if her alter ego had dropped a parting gift from the heavens.

Write your own story. You can do it. You don’t need me anymore.

A Cameo Apple

By Soman Qadeer Khan

A cameo apple lived a prosperous life on a farm called Ocean Farm. He grew on a tree which was the pride of the farm, as it was the most magnificent and oldest tree.

The owner’s child named the apple Meo, and loved him mightily.