Poetry Summer 2022 fiction all issues
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Joanne Monte
Departure
& other poems
Holly York
Still When I Reach for the Leash
& other poems
Anne Marie Wells
Catholicism Still Lingers in a Concrete Poem
& other poems
D.T. Christensen
Coded Language
& other poems
Laura Faith
Ungodly
& other poems
Abigail F. Taylor
Winter in Choctaw
& other poems
Natalie LaFrance-Slack
Peace
& other poems
Nicole Sellino
iii. moving, an interruption
& other poems
Gilaine Fiezmont
In Memoriam / Day of the Dead
& other poems
Sheri Flowers Anderson
On Being A Widow
& other poems
RJ Gryder
Felling
& other poems
William S. Barnes
to hatch
& other poems
Suzannah Van Gelder
Idolatry
& other poems
Sam Bible-Sullivan
The Dying Worker’s Soliloquy
& other poems
Hills Snyder
Eclipse (July 4, 2020)
& other poems
Lauren Fulton
Birth Marks
& other poems
David Sloan
Prostrate
& other poems
Nancy Kangas
Dry Dock Cranes of Brooklyn Navy Yard
& other poems
Noreen Graf
In Attendance
& other poems
Jim Bohen
Nothing Tea
& other poems
Thomas Baranski
Let us name him dread and look forward
& other poems
Jim Bohen
When you leave . . .
a persona poem after Kris Bigalk
Take all your expired prescriptions,
especially those that kept you up.
Take your torn tennis shoes—the ones you
couldn’t bear to throw out. I’ll bear it. Trust me.
Take the expression you always used
whenever I “embarrassed you.”
Take what you hid under the bed—I won’t sweep
or touch or grab whatever’s lurking there.
Take the faded jacket you stitched with male
shrugs, embroidered with smirks whenever I asked
why you didn’t give it away.
Take the male pronouncements I wasn’t to have
an opinion on. (You’ll need a bag that’s very large.
Women have no clue, right?)
Take the stack of magazines—you said you only
kept the ones that were just “to die for.”
Since I won’t be dying any time soon,
get the whole stack out of here.
And be sure to take the care you sewed
into the fabric of what we had. Baby socks
that do not match are all that anyone could knit
from those pathetic shreds.
Nothing Tea
Pour nothing
into empty cups.
Drink pretend all up.
Make sure to make
a lot of noise
with mouth and spoon.
Slurping? Highly
recommended.
As are scraping and
banging your saucer
with your plastic toy cup.
Why do all this—
and even more?
For the prize you seek.
And nothing tea
is a perfect way to bring
its warmth to you.
Jim Bohen
is a poet/songwriter from St. Paul, MN. His poems have appeared in the Minnesota Daily, Big City Lit, Talking Stick and elsewhere. He’s been short-listed three times for the international erbacce prize. Unsolicited Press published his poetry collection, “I travel in rusting burned-out sedans,” in 2018 and will publish another in 2024. Jim and his wife Bonnie have two adult children and do daycare for their two granddaughters.