Rescuing Bare Twigs

Small twigs—finger-like
on a thin maple branch
poke out
beckoning me
from the snowbank
I made by
shoveling our sidewalk
this morning.
 
What tree spirit
have I consigned
to that cold, cold place?
The twigs seem to move
plead for help.
 
I extricate
these fragile bits
of tree blown down
by the snowstorm’s wind,
then buried by me.
 
Once inside, I arrange
these two slim, elegant pieces,
in a vase on a sunny 
windowsill. It’s not likely
even sun and warmth will
be enough to sprout the leaf
buds lines I spot along
the twigs, but at least 
they know I appreciate
all their beauty --
bent bare branch and 
its fine, elegant twig fingers.
 
Joan Leotta

Joan Leotta plays with words on page and stage. She’s been published as essayist, poet, short story writer, novelist, and is a nominee for Pushcart and Best of the Net. Her poetry, essays, and stories have appeared in many journals in the US and abroad, including Lothlorien, One Art, Gargoyle, Verse Virtual, and Storyteller Poetry. She performs folktale programs most often highlighting her heritage, food, family, and strong women, and offers the one-woman show, “Meet Louisa May Alcott, Author, Nurse and Writer.” 

Spirit of God  
 
Voices awaken, gathering 
from spaces of expanding light.
 
Morning light washes over the air 
and sunrays enter through furls of white fabric. 
 
A quiet wind cools the room. 
 
Particles of light sketch shapes in the air,
fine threads of radiance weave your figure.
 
Your eyelids half-open, half-closed,
pupils gleaming like glass eyes in a doll, 
 
Creases in the corner of your eyes,
wrinkles at the edges of your mouth.
 
Your face is complete, nothing is missing.
 
Shadows of gray leaves cast on bright drapes
in hues of fine cream hiding from the harsh sun.
 
Mom, you lie on the carpet in your room.  
Your body wrapped in the thin purple Nightgown
you so loved to wear. 
 
Your hands rest on your belly. 
Your long fingers reveal the aristocratic origins that denied your existence.   
Fingers faintly swollen, always swollen, ruddy, wide and strong,  
the hands of a hardworking labourer. 
You spread them out before me,
proof of your existence.  
 
They will move no more.
They will no more take pride in their work.
 
Your mouth is slightly open
as if halted mid-motion - 
Perhaps you had something more to say.
 
Your lips are blue cracked and dry -
Perhaps you got out of bed to moisten them 
In the middle of the night.
 
You’re beautiful, Mom. You’re beautiful.   
I hold your cold hands, I stroke your long fingers,
thick and weary, your gleaming forehead,
your fine hair pulled back.
 
And once more the leaves whisper:
 
This is the spirit of God blowing  
This is the spirit of God hovering
Over the face of the deep.
 
Michal Perry

Translated by Joanna Chen.
 
Artist's note: I began painting the portrait, Mother Sitting on the Green Sofa, while my mother was still alive; she passed away in late 2019. The painting, as a testament to her presence, set against the poem in which she surfaces in memory—alive/dead—creates a link between memory, form, and words.

​Michal Perry is a poet, writer, painter, and multidisciplinary artist, born in Jerusalem.  Michal was awarded an Honorable Mention in the prestigious Haaretz Newspaper's Short Story Competition 2025 (Israel). Her poems have appeared in leading journals and she has three poetry collections in Hebrew: Like Waking up From A Dream to A Dream (Emeda Publishing House), Lost Space of Time (Ktav Publishing House), and Between Light and Light (Argaman-Meitav). Michal Perry was manager and curator of the Klarfeld Perry Gallery. In addition, she presented solo exhibitions and participated in international group exhibitions in the US and Europe. www.michalperry.com

​
Twin Blossoms

The last sunset bleeds gold through the paper skin of our lanterns,

and we stand in the overgrown cathedral of our garden,

built from childish giggles and floating pollen,
​
hiding ankle-deep in the tide of shadows, lighting our small,

                fragile souls aflame.
 

The strike of a match blossoms in our cupped hands,

our world enveloped in this hushed ceremony, the name of every flower

               carnation, lily, lily, rose

a prayer we whisper to make the moment real. 

 
We are architects of a forever that is already slipping through our fingers 

like the last page of a story we swore

with blood-pacts and crossed hearts, we would never finish.

                lily, lily, rose.

the white of my dress a flag of surrender to the encroaching dark, 

its fabric a ghost of daylight that escapes my childish feet. 

 
Our faces, twin blossoms, 

                lily rose,

turn towards a moon that will not remember our names.

The distant world that waits beyond haven of blossoms and will soon, 

too soon call us away to separate roads. 

 
The garden exhales, a slow release of petals and memory,

leaving behind the ghost-smell of matches, the fragile skull of a lantern,

a scorched blueprint of a kingdom we built that night.

But this ash will scatter,                       

these flowers will forget our names, 

and so I wave goodbye to my childhood and the

                 rose.

Yixuan Zhao

Yixuan (Sunny) Zhao is a high school Junior living in North Carolina who enjoys writing poetry and short stories. Outside of writing, she enjoys playing violin, soccer, and going out to eat with friends! 

Magnolia 
 
Water her and she will bloom. Swirls 
of white chocolate petals unfold
from green caps resting on leaves shadowed
by light and darkness.
 
Caramel edges indicate time
passing. Fragile evolution soft spoken
strength. She celebrates this moment
embraces circumstance and cheers
 
on tiny buds that surround her waiting
for their turn, waiting for renewal
rebirth.

Leslie Archibald

Leslie Archibald, a graduate of the University of Houston, writes poetry, flash fiction, and nonfiction in a tiny home office in Houston, Texas. When she is not writing, she is likely roaming the city photographing Houston’s unique character, dabbling in watercolours, and exploring multimedia literature. She was the board treasurer for Writespace, a Houston literary arts centre, and currently works at a full-time office position while writing and editing part time. Leslie is a slush reader and nonfiction writer for Interstellar Flight Press. Her work appears in The Best of Tales of Texas Vol 2 and Synkroniciti Magazine Vol 5 No.4 and Vol 6 No.4.

The Anatomy Lesson, by Manuel Machado (Spain, 1874-1947)

Light’s enemies -- reclusive indentations
and entrails -- take the stage for their premiere,
in lurid, horrible hallucinations
of dreadful truth and bonfire-flaring fear.

Candescent ochres; carmines, hot as flame;
soft ivory- and rose-tinged subtleties:
these left the gold-rich chapels, and became
death-pallor, blood, and pustulent disease.

Rembrandt it was, whose name earned worldwide kudos --
that awesome, venerated artist -- he
was paintbrush-poniard of these sinews’ luster…

Rembrandt. Conqueror of light and shadows.
Thus, pain had its first portrait, misery
its painter worthy of the title master.

Manuel Machado, translated by Julie Steiner

**

La Lección de anatomía

Los enemigos de la luz -- rincones
y entrañas -- surgen por la vez primera,
en tremendas y fúlgidas visiones,
de atroz verdad, y resplandor de hoguera.

Lumineos ocres, cálidos carmines,
ebúrneas y rosadas morbideces,
dejaron los dorados camarines,
para ser sangre, podre y livideces.

Fué Rembrandt, cuyo nombre al mundo asombra,
artista poderoso é insensato,
pincel-puñal de palpitante nervio…

Fué Rembrandt, vencedor de luz y sombra.
Y el dolor tuvo su primer retrato,
y la miseria su pintor soberbio.

Manuel Machado

Author's Note: Manuel Machado (1874-1947) and his brother Antonio (1875-1939) were leading figures in the Spanish literary movement known as the Generation of ’98. Manuel published this poem in his 1911 ekphrastic collection Apolo, teatro pictórico (Apollo, Pictorial Drama). For a high-resolution version of “The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicholaes Tulp,” the 1632 oil painting by Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) whose tiny areas of intense colour inspired this poem, visit:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Rembrandt_-_The_Anatomy_Lesson_of_Dr_Nicolaes_Tulp.jpg

Julie Steiner is a pseudonym in San Diego, California. Her poetry has appeared in Literary Matters, The New Verse News, Light, and Snakeskin, among other venues. She has been an active participant in the Eratosphere online poetry workshop (www.ablemuse.com/erato) for more than twenty years.

Close to Us

I always focused on the clouds, the way they part in places across the canvas, as if to prove they hold back the sky. I often thought that if I stared at the scene long enough, I would become part of the scene—a fifth figure—and watch over the four as if to protect them from the sun. But they all wear hats, I’d remind myself, and by now must be inured to the tilt of the catboat. I sometimes forget that my father loved this painting, and that for many years a copy of it hung above the couch in our living room. After work, he’d lie down, read the afternoon paper, and fall asleep. Across the room, I would watch as he slept and imagine that the space between us was the dark water in the painting. If I had to, I knew I could swim across, and he’d wake. Mostly, I would search for him in the painting, thinking about how at one time he was a boy. Not the oldest one in red whose grip on the mainsheet creates a perfect angle from stern to sail, nor the one steering, but one of the younger ones, maybe the boy stretched across the bow, or, as I wanted my father to be, the one sitting starboard, back turned to the horizon, longing for home.

Cynthia Kolanowski

Cynthia Kolanowski is a poet, educator, and wishful gardener, who for many years called Colorado home. She received an MFA from the University of Michigan and has had work published in the Portland Review and Broad Street. Riding the parabola of midlife, Cynthia returned to her native Pennsylvania in 2021 and now lives in Scranton, where she serves as production advisor for River & South Review and co-directs Electric City Writers. ​

The Obituaries 

after the AIDS Memorial Quilt, National AIDS Memorial, San Francisco (USA) 1987 
​
From afar, the panels seem to blend into a cacophony of pixilated stories, the static on a television screen that fills the empty space between programs. They remain a collective, forever frozen through fabric and thread, their patchwork stories now united through art. The weight of their lives are translated through fifty-two tons and thousands of three-by-six panels. Each one provides enough space to fill a grave, to lay down on the homely quilt and fill the space once occupied by another. It's space enough to be seen but not heard. We have room for a name, year, perhaps a quote or two; we know these people through footnotes, through brief three-by-six windows into their lives. One panel, a vibrant, silky teal, consists only of a couple hand-stitched hearts and hand-written messages from family members. One note reads, I love you Daddy, with a little girl’s self-portrait drawn beside it. She is not alone; another panel, simple, sees a silver star on a light-blue background. One word is meticulously stitched above it: friend. Panels over we find a wall made from the same message, repeated eleven times—each meant for a friend, comrade, a previous teammate. They end with hope; until our journeys bring us together again. We only know these people as a moment, a fleeting burst of light, a match struck in the dark in an attempt to illuminate an ever-darkening world. They are held together not by suffering, but by an understanding.Their stories persist, though, the burn-marks on the pristine facade of the world. The discordant static blends together to create a chorus of fifty-thousand voices, all singing the same song: remember. 

Ainsley Hlady 
​
Ainsley Hlady is an emerging writer attending Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida. She is majoring in English, with a minor in creative writing. She is currently the president of Flagler’s Sigma Tau Delta chapter and the current treasurer for the Flagler College Creative Writing Club. She enjoys writing poetry, as well as worldbuilding and Table-Top Roleplaying game design. When she isn’t conjuring new fantasy worlds to explore, she can be found lounging at home with her Chihuahua, May.

Saskia in The Night Watch

The master of light and dark
Mourned her as he mulled
His pigments, and wept
As he dead-coloured the canvas,
As vast as the gap she’d left in him.

But now, leaning on his mahl stick,
He lets the light in his brush catch her
And places her, in miniature,
Right in the middle of a militia,
Her golden gaze drifting out and away.

In chiaroscuro, he colours the dead.
Her face catches the light
Bringing into the night the brightness of dawn.

Ella Leith

This poem was highly commended in the Pen Nib International Competition 2021. 
​
Ella Leith (she/her) is a writer of fiction, creative nonfiction, and occasional poetry. Her work tends to draw on her background in folklore and oral histories, exploring how the past, the imagined and the uncanny exist in the present and the mundane. Her work has been published in The Kitchen Table Quarterly, The Icarus Collective, and Gramarye, and she is currently querying her first novel. Originally from the Midlands of England, she now lives in Malta with her partner, a haunted terracotta bust, and several hundred notebooks. Find links to her work at www.ellaleith.com

Jolly Hour
 
It wasn’t, after all, a second-line jazz band from Preservation Hall 
that I heard behind me on my way back toward the Fens on foot
in a state of arrested attention that left me open to such possibilities 
after sketching, in a museum hallway, a marble statue of Aphrodite
in the process of emerging from the foam of the Aegean Sea,
chiseled by some Hellenistic sculptor on the Isle of Rhodes
in 43 B.C.E.—Athenodore, Polydorus, or Agesander, maybe--
minus her noble head, her raised arms, and her legs below the thighs.
 
Bells clanging and horns tooting, iron wheels clicking off the iambs 
at well-measured intervals across the frets of the railroad ties 
on the parallel iron rails, it was the sound of the outbound trolley 
clattering up Huntington Ave., not a brass band like the one I heard 
in Tremé, the first Black neighborhood in the nation, a few years before
on my only visit to New Orleans, after visiting the Blues Trail, 
Yoknapatawpha County, and the battlefield in Vicksburg.
 
It wasn’t a parade of pallbearers leading friends of the deceased
behind the black hearse and its flower-bedecked casket
in that funeral march I witnessed through a graveyard’s open gate
from the sidewalk on Esplanade, across from a Catholic church,
as I walked toward the French Quarter, by way of Congo Square--
not a joyful dirge for a teenaged boy who died in a hail of gunfire
in a neighborhood still traumatized from Hurricane Katrina,
or a send-off for a beloved octogenarian mother of four children
and grandmother of ten, some classy old gal whose gumbo and greens 
brought water to the mouth, whose ancestors worked for free
on sugar and cotton plantations in Haiti and the Deep South.
 
It was the sound of the outbound trolley clattering up Huntington Ave.,
but Judy Garland wasn’t aboard, singing her way up the aisle 
in her high starched collar, perky and cute in that sharp little suit
in bright red lipstick and high-top shoes, her auburn tresses piled 
high on her head, lamenting aloud, as if no one else were around, 
in her trademark velvety contralto, at the World’s Fair of 1904,
depicted, forty years later, in the Meet Me in St. Louis movie,
that she’d jumped aboard on an impulse, “to lose a jolly hour,”
but had found herself distracted by a fellow passenger on that loud
and cheerful trolley, instead of relief from the surging crowd.
 
And he was “quite the handsomest of men” at that, so tall and dapper,
a dashing stranger indeed, in a bright green tie and shiny shoes
popping into the scene now, tipping his light brown derby hat
to her, and apologizing if he had accidentally stepped upon her feet 
as he took a nearby seat, scaring her half to death, by golly, 
causing her heartstrings to thump and twang in her chest, and making
her lose, rather than that jolly hour, her lonely heart instead.
 
It was the sound of the outbound trolley clattering up Huntington Ave.,
and the model for Aphrodite—a young woman named Phoebe, 
Angela, or Chloé, whom he’d heard about through the grapevine--
at five-feet-six and one hundred and fifty-two or -three, fresh 
from a patio breakfast of feta, grapes, pita, and hot mint tea, 
with the archaeological discovery of her statuesque stone figure 
among the Grecian ruins still so many centuries in the future, 
wasn’t heading to work on it, her golden hair in braids, dressed
in the emerald linen jumper and rope sandals she wore all summer,
hanging onto a strap among all the students and commuters
listening to podcasts and reading their magazines and newspapers. 
 
She wasn’t humming and tapping her foot to a folk-rock, funk, 
or hip-hop tune that she heard on her headphones, either,
or looking particularly forward to resuming a difficult pose,
to lifting her arms and raising her face to the brightness of the sun,
in a diaphanous gown that looked more like a camisole, to be honest, 
with an Empire waist, with a fitted bodice provocatively reinforced, 
just below the bust, by a drawstring cord tied in a rabbit-ear bow
that clung to her solid torso, to her ribs, breasts, and hip bones, 
when the demanding, if not maniacal artist soaks her with water
to make her look even more like she’s emerging from the foam.
 
It was the sound of the outbound trolley clattering up Huntington Ave.,
and I had attempted to evoke, in soft and steady charcoal strokes,
more than two millennia later, with the help of my blending stump, 
not the winner of the wet t-shirt contest at a fraternity party,
but the complexity of that impossible bow, the folds of silken cloth 
overlapping at her cleavage, and the expression of her arms,
even in their absence, upflung to suggest those of the love goddess,
Aphrodite herself, as she sprang from the Aegean Sea, as told
in Hesiod’s Theogyny, written several hundred years before,
in the eighth century B.C.E., to describe the gods’ genealogies.
 
It was the sound of the outbound trolley clattering up Huntington Ave.
between the Mission Hill projects and the MFA of Boston, 
toward the VA Hospital at Heath Street in Jamaica Plain, 
near Olmsted’s Emerald Necklace —the E train of the Green Line 
traveling between the poverty of Roxbury and the prosperity 
of the Fens, as if to draw attention to the best and worst of Boston.
 
That, and the upward thrust of her right hip in its subtle contrapposto.
 
Scott Ruescher

Scott Ruescher is the author of two full-length poetry collections--Waiting for the Light to Change (Prolific Press, 2017) and Above the Fold (Finishing Line Press, 2025)-- and of two earlier chapbooks, Sidewalk Tectonics and Perfect Memory. He has won Able Muse’s Write Prize, Poetry Quarterly‘s Rebecca Lard Award, and, twice, the New England Poetry Club‘s Erika Mumford Prize for poetry about travel and international culture. His poems have appeared in About Place, AGNI, Common Ground Review, Negative Capability, Nine Mile, Pangyrus, Ploughshares,  Solstice, and many other publications. Retired from administering the Arts in Education program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and teaching English in the Boston University Prison Education Program, he writes publicity for The Neighborhood Developers in Chelsea, Mass., and works in ESOL and citizenship classes at the Immigrant Learning Center in Malden.