In the Clouds

By Mercedes Lawry

In the murmur of midday heat, sky
scratched by splinter clouds, an hour
thin with drowse and daze,
when all might relinquish to the languid,

the boy pushes his blue SWAT truck against
the rocks, pulls stones and throws them

Outside alone at night for the first time (Seattle, 1960)

By Stephanie Barbé Hammer

The cousin has gone inside
For some reason. She is my only
Relative who is my age that
I know about and I trust her
Because she knows about grass

Ribcage

The ribcage was invented to wrap around soft organs that breathe,
To curve like elephant tusks beneath the skin,
Supported by knotted vertebrae.
The ribcage was invented to be flexible,
To bend with cartilage, to seldom break.

Losing My Eyesight

By Scott T. Starbuck

is sad
but comical.

A bench becomes
a sleeping horse,

stranger,

LIGO Detects Gravitational Waves -September 14, 2015, 5:51am EST

By Kaylie Anne Johnson

1.3 billion years ago,
two black holes kissed for the first time.
Absorbed by each other,
a mass three times our sun
shot out from their bed posts.
Ripples in their fabric reached ours
in a slight blip to the walls of our lasers

Untitled

By Thomas Fucaloro

List of possible tattoos
that are metaphors
for past/passed
lovers

1. A tornado, a hillside, the sun, paused.
2. Pictures of body parts.
3. Lots of ghosts. Ghosts and …

Elegy

By Carey Taylor

She is the absence of light
at the edge of the door
bruise of sky on the horizon

The Great Escape

By Donna Isaac

Inky! You intrepid mischievous mollusk!
You slinky, slithering cephalopod!
How you must have missed the open waters,
dreaming of crayfish and crab on sandy sea floors,
of greeny gold waters, of freedom like flying