What Your Sleep Tastes Like

By T. Dallas Saylor

On the couch you slumped over
into my shoulder, your lips parted.

When you slumped over the couch
& dropped your half-eaten scone,
your parted lips dripped crumbs into my shoulder.

Mother Milk

Sons are not often carved
in the cashmere shape of tenderness,
but still, he reaches out his arms
at least once a day—-
a long hug, sometimes longer,
as though he is quenching a thirst
for swallows of milk

Rural Electrification

By William Miller

A single naked light bulb, a single line
stretched across winter fields, brought the new century
to my grandmother’s house. For a hundred years,
fire light, oil light and candlelight
dimly lit a two-room farmhouse.

Cat at the Window

By John Delaney

The cat peeks behind the lace curtain
to get a clearer look through the glass.
For all he knows, he lives in Plato’s Cave,
and here’s an exit. But surely his life
is real: the tin foil balls, the catnip toy,
the scratching post—all the hideouts
he has found safe haven in. Surely,
they are real. And yet there, beyond the glass,
a breeze stirs, colors sparkle in the sun,
sounds rebound. A different world obtains.

In the summer, the glass becomes a screen,
and then smells are added to the tableau
spread before him. Such mysterious scents!
Now there’s even a dark creature flying
across the sky, making a raucous noise.

The cat may never go outside to test
his thesis. What would he make of it all?
Could he have lived a real life there?
He tries to see what he has sacrificed
to let a human being love him here.

Abundance

By Rose Mary Boehm

There is no sleep, just deep exhaustion.
And as I probe the mists of life I am surprised
by finding unexpected riches.
Like Pharaoh, I have been well endowed
with all the preciousness I need
for an eternal death time and beyond.

From the 49th Parallel…Bellingham, Washington

By Barbara Bloom

So far north here, sometimes
it feels like we’re teetering
on the very edge of the Earth
and into the region the ancient maps
called Terra Incognita.

What Lingers: January in Elmwood Jail

By Carol Park

The deputy in slacks and knee-high boots heaves
a weighty door—neglect, injury, violence.
They’ve come to lead a prayer service, she tells forty
females wearing thin orange uniforms. They
scatter round a large, cool room—walls empty
of all color. A resident standing in her four-bed section,