Poetry Summer 2020 fiction all issues
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Cover Vecteezy
Rodrigo Dela Peña
If a Wound is an Entrance for Light
& other poems
Shellie Harwood
Early Evening, Late September
& other poems
William A. Greenfield
The Deacon’s Lament
& other poems
J. H. Hall
Immersion
& other poems
Kimberly Sailor
Two Aphids
& other poems
Sugar le Fae
Bagging
& other poems
Lauren Sartor
Shopping Cart Woman
& other poems
Nathaniel Cairney
Mushroom Hunting, Jackson County, Kansas
& other poems
Elisa Carlsen
Cormorant
& other poems
Daniel Gorman
The Boy Achilles
& other poems
Samara Hill
I Look for Her Mostly Everywhere
& other poems
Nicole Justine Reid
Returning to Sensual
& other poems
David Ginsberg
Butterfly Wings
& other poems
Katherine B. Arthaud
Café Sant Ambroeus
& other poems
George R. Kramer
Young Odysseus
& other poems
Amy Swain
In Praise of Trees
& other poems
Frederick Shiels
Bad October: 2016
& other poems
Matthew A. Hamilton
Summer of '89
& other poems
Chris Kleinfelter
Getting from There to Here
& other poems
Martin Conte
Ghazal for the Shipwrecked
& other poems
Natalie LaFrance-Slack
I Do Not Owe You My Beauty
& other poems
Susan Marie Powers
Dark Water
& other poems
David Ginsberg
Butterfly Wings
If reality is perception
therapy is time travel.
Reflection is like stepping
on butterfly wings.
So . . . how have you been?
Every question is a cliché.
Any thoughts of suicide?
Every answer is a diversion.
Pins and Needles
Nail-biting
is a hunger, not a habit.
A destructive comfort.
An out-of-office reply
from which stress is the sender.
Cuticle picking, grazing
for a loose end to peel
down like chipped paint.
Rip into the flesh.
Self-inflicted cannibalism.
Lunula infections.
The insatiable urge to redirect
the flow of endorphins.
Open a trench at the root.
Flood the streets
under the crescent moon.
Twist the tip
tightly with a shirt.
Search for an unused needle.
Hammer the spike deep
into the tracks.
Listen to the screech as an
engineer grips the brakes
of a mid-century locomotive.
The Moment
For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
—Ernest Hemingway
The doctor will be with you
in just a moment.
But a moment is more than a moment
when you have nothing to do.
The chair is cold, the room
is dark with a soft red glow.
As if we are waiting for a print to dry.
A print to keep in my wallet.
She turns to me and sends a smile
with her lips, but not her eyes.
She is here, living in the moment.
I am lost among the clouds.
Typical.
We brought our passion
but not for waiting.
The clock is just a still frame.
Still waiting.
The doctor enters.
For her, not for me.
I am just a watcher
lost among the clouds.
We shift our gaze and smile, together.
It is our turn for our moment
but the frame remains still.
I stay confused, for the moment.
Not her, she understands.
I still remain
lost among the clouds.
She turns to me and says she’s sorry
with her lips, and her eyes.
So I come down, from the clouds
at least for the moment.
Without a print to keep in my wallet.
Colors and Shapes
All the colors and all the shapes
but all they see are black and white.
Yet we see color, we see the shape
of our tiny baby daughter’s head
developing limbs, pink transparent skin
blue veins, two eyes, a nose, a mouth
a beating heart, a flicker of hope
a second chance to complete our trio.
But that was then, and now we see
her precious flicker has gone out
and with it our hope, replaced
with only one word—why?
Cotton quicksand and saline rain
King Midas calls my name
but I refuse to accept that I will
never have the chance to hold her.
And in this moment, I open my eyes
and see every color and every shape.
Just as the folds in the drapes
allow hope to shine in, I hold her high
this child, this life, part me, part you
our sweet Persephone.
We smile and laugh, our trio complete
but only in a dream.
Dujardin Deconstructed
Van Gogh never witnessed his paintings
hanging in the halls of the Musée d’Orsay.
Otis Redding never heard the radio play
Sitting on the Dock of the Bay.
Many an ill-fate. An allegory on the transitoriness
and the brevity of life.
But Grandpa sits back in his favorite chair
dreaming of days—long lifted away.
Thoughts that drift off into a memory
of children blowing bubbles in the breeze
with smiles as wide as Grandma’s arms
when her family walks through the front door.
David Ginsberg
hails from Indianapolis, Indiana and is currently studying Informatics at IUPUI. He enjoys cookouts with family, Friday dinner date nights, and listening to punk rock with his daughter. David wants nothing more than to live a quiet, private life with his family.