Ekphrastic Responses: Laura Mate, Curated by Kate Copeland

Coffee House Kirkgate Market, Bradford, by Laura Mate (England) 2025

Kae Bohannan
 
Kae Bohannan is a queer mixed-Indigenous fiction writer who hails from a small town just outside of Island County, Washington. Their writing focuses on out-of-genre stories that follow themes of grief and identity, often blending poetic prose with speculative fiction tones.

**

The Crime of Writing
in the Coffee House
 
The literary life rarely identifies
the unapologetic thieves
who use the plundered words
and almost forgotten meters
found in the open grave
of the unknown poet.
 
Some keep vigil outside
the unlit homes of tortured writers
or fill handy notebooks with
stories of imagined lives
that no one remembers living.
And these are claimed as true.
 
Following second or third hand
reports, words claim to be transcripts,
of the journals of a literary prisoner
in solitary confinement who moved
the words to the prison of the printed
page, the one that was never there.
 
Or the words are recited on open-mic
night in a fabled coffee house, closed
that singular night when what happened
everyone already knows, but forgot,
as the writer would rather not read their
own words, but what was said about them.
 
The poet's hope was that some reader
would carry those second-hand words up
to heaven, since we know how poetry
inflicts incredible harm — when it was done
correctly and leaves a trace of fresh blood
on our hands in midnight parking lots.
 
Royal Rhodes
 
Royal Rhodes is a poet whose writing was often conducted in a coffee house in the Village where he lives. Coffee houses in Boston, New York, London, and Vienna have given him treasured memories of finely-brewed coffee and the ensuing conversations with friends.
 
**
 
Sleeping Bruty
 
“It's just that time has made you different,” they said
Given you brutal shoulders and boxy hips
Grey rain-stained your concrete remains
Smothered the fire inside you, when the economy dipped
 
They said, “It's not because you’re unsightly
or absent of architectural flair.”
Instead, they cited the times you won awards
And entangled Andale in your fresh trimmed hair
 
Like when there were wishing wells and candy shops
Frenzied by the fashion of the day
When flat tops and coffee spots
Were exactly what we needed, all handmade
 
It's difficult now to imagine what they saw at the time
Looking through the lens of commercial stakes
We should wonder if it’s too late to revitalize
Or if this is the way of Brutalism’s' impending fate
 
The windows are now closed, unclean
Enshrined displays in metal shielded slats
Merchants voted out by the historical committee
Packed into cardboard, then cast onto house steps
 
And although you outlasted your prime
As a memorial of endurance after the war
While we once admired your stiff-lipped foreverness
We now want our beauty to be something more
 
But this seems to be our trend, how we depart with our pasts
We put to bed what strikes us as mundane
We chase tastes and blame divisions of class
 
When, in fact, it was never you, rather it was we who changed
 
Brendan Dawson
 
Brendan Dawson is an American born writer based in Italy. He writes from his observations and experiences while living, working, and traveling abroad. Currently, he is compiling a collection of poetry and short stories from his time in the military and journey as an expat.
 
**
 
Maggie’s Coffeehouse
 
As the light failed on that last trading day
for the coffeehouse at the derelict market
he stood just inside the door, keys in hand,
ready to shut down and lock up.
                                                          Something,
less than a presence, more of a luminance,
faint at that, a flicker just outside the field
of vision, a shimmer, the shadow of a flash
as though the gossamer of trade passed by,
an ectoplasmic puff of hope, the residual
trace of a chocolate éclair, its spectral 
choix pastry, collapsed the vital force
that fell from his chest and sank, never
to rise again.
                      He turned to survey the empty
chairs against the tables and the Laminex
of the service counter.
                                       In the sheen,
he remembered standing with Maggie,
hand in hand, smiling into the light
of their retirement dream, somehow
conceived in the brutal womb 
of an architectural eyesore.
 
How happy they were, before
hope soured during lockdown
when the latest book-keeping software
could not account for the loss of custom,
and his laptop’s antivirus software
proved no barrier to the pathogen
that took Maggie. 

Andrew Leggett 
 
Andrew Leggett is an Australian author of poetry, fiction, interdisciplinary academic papers, reviews and songs. His three published collections of poetry are Old Time Religion and Other Poems (Interactive Press 1998), Dark Husk of Beauty (Interactive Press 2006) and Losing Touch (Ginninderra Press 2022). His latest book In Dreams and Other Stories was published by Ginninderra Press in 2026. He is an Associate Professor with the James Cook University College of Medicine and Dentistry.
 
**
 
Haiku
 
even with good bones
it required a facelift
retirement dreams
 
Elaine Sorrentino
 
Elaine Sorrentino, author of Belly Dancing in a Brown Sweatsuit (Kelsay Books, 2025) has been published in journals such as Quartet Journal, ONE ART: a journal of poetry, Minerva Rising, Willawaw Journal, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Gyroscope Review, Sparks of Calliope, Sheila-Na-Gig, Poetry Porch, The Ekphrastic Review, and Haikuniverse.
 
**
 
Coffee House
 
After you told me
it was no longer me
and that I should
go away somewhere
 
I thought
I hope like me
you end up somewhere
alone
 
forgive me
I hate you
 
this is a photo
of me
just after I left
 
John L. Stanizzi 
 
John L. Stanizzi author of 15 collections, including Chants, POND, Feathers & Bones, Entra La Notte.His poems and CNF have appeared in Cortland, Rattle, Prairie Schooner, New York Quarterly, Paterson Literary Review, Potomac Review, Blue Mountain Review. Johnnie is a former New England Poet of the Year, Wesleyan University Etherington Scholar, and has just been inducted as Coventry Connecticut's inaugural Poet Laureate. He taught 26 years at both high school and college levels, and directed theater for 16 years. Johnnie lives with wife Carol, in Coventry, CT.
 
**

Sweet Morning Light

Sweet morning light pours in through the large windows, the upholstered interrupting its flow and causing it to pool in soft geometric shapes around the cafe. The sparkling appliances are still waking up, their metallic bodies beginning to gleam in the newly arrived light. In a few moments, when the billowy clouds change positions, the sharp wooden countertop will be seized by the sun's golden fingers. The linoleum, made dingy by years of spilled espresso, over-boiled kettles, and exploding stand mixers, is bathed in soft gray light. Splashes of sunshine bob up and down as the wind ruffles the left tree in front of the window. The thin branches gently scratch against the ribbed, almost clapboard wall at the front of the cafe. The ancient white paint has begun to peel off in the places with the most prevalent branches, falling into small clusters that stick to the bottom of shoes. Tiny clusters of shadow hide under tables, in the crevices between chair legs, in the corners between the wooden beams of the ceiling. In a few minutes, the delicate morning silence will be broken, and no one will notice the pockets of golden light or shy shadows.
 
Molly Klump
 
Molly is a senior at The Gregory School in Tucson, AZ.
 
**

The Local Java Joint
 
Quick, cozy, quiet, clean,
a neighbourhood cafe
with a familiar vibe and
servers who remember you.
 
A regular stop to and from
work, an easy place for
lunch, a space devoid of
the stress of the world.
 
The chain coffee shop
opened across the street
with a minimum of fanfare,
no pomp or circumstance.
 
Slowly, surely, lower
prices and speed, convenience,
draws customers away, leaving
tables empty.
 
Prices are raised to maintain
salaries, further driving loyalty
away from local comfort
into corporate monotony.
 
Size and scale are rarely
threatened by Mom and Pop,
leaving the impersonal in
place of authentic human connection.
 
The chairs sit empty and
the tables bare;
community has been lost.
 
Brydon Caldwell
 
Brydon is a long time teacher and emerging writer from the western edge of the Canadian Shield. His writing can be found in The Ekphrastic Review and The Fib Review.
 
**

Where Are My Friends?
 
Lucie came to the Coffee House
To chat with her friends
She was looking forward to seeing them again
She hasn’t been there for two months
She missed her last get-togethers
She was undergoing cancer treatments
There is no one at her meeting place
You are mistaken Lucie
Your friends are all there
They are inconsolable and they miss you
You can’t see them Lucie
You died last night
You didn’t survive your cancer
 
Jean Bourque
 
Jean lives in Montreal. These words are dedicated to the memory of his cousin, who passed away a few years ago from cancer. She was 48 years old.
 
**
 
Four Minutes
 
You have been standing here since the morning Diane hadn't come in, and then the next morning, when her daughter called—the younger one, not the one she always talked about—you simply kept showing up because no one told you not to and the counter needed someone and you were the kind of person the counter welcomed, people come through and speak to you either looking down at the plastic menu card or looking down at their phones, they do not look at you, this is fine, this is the whole arrangement, and there is a window where light arrives in the afternoon at an angle that for approximately four minutes makes the Formica and pastel and vinyl and wood trim look like something that was once loved, and you recall how Diane used to stop mid-sentence whenever the light happened, she'd just…stop…hold her coffee, watch the light, and you never asked her what she was thinking about during those four minutes, you were going to, there was always going to be time, and you understand now that this is what the dead take with them, not the years, not even the days, just the four minutes, the thing you were always about to say but never did, and now you notice the light is coming, so you stop wiping the counter, put down the cloth, and you wait.
 
Renuka Raghavan
 
Renuka Raghavan is the author of three prose and poetry collections. Her most recent is Nothing Resplendent Lives Here (Červená Barva Press, 2022). Her previous work has appeared in Boston Literary Magazine, Bending Genres, The American Journal of Poetry, Blood+Honey, and Mom Egg Review, among many others. A Pushcart Prize and Best Small Fictions nominee, she lives and writes in California. 
 
**

The Things In Thingness Theory
 
objects become discarded objects
in a room where nothing moves
 
sun-bleached lines on chairs
align with faded table legs
 
shadows sway like moving creatures
shaped from steamed foam & espresso
 
baristas voices once reverbed off tiles
two shots lovey & cream’s organic dear
 
now unheard in a post pandemic sweep
while shadows catch that lost dance
 
in moving light & dwindled hours
piled rubbish from tossed masks & takeout cups
 
who can say where any single
unused human object will land
 
my father’s kayak & mother’s balls of yarn
for sale at Danny’s Deals now
 
I once entered an abandoned Sushi restaurant
the bowls & cups for tea or miso
 
soy sauce & sake piled along the bar
where silverfish ruled in rice
 
& on a shelf above a corner booth
the white for luck Maneki Neko sits
 
its right paw raised
to beckon

Yvonne Blomer 
 
Yvonne Blomer was the 4th poet laureate for the City of Victoria and has published a cycling memoir and six books of poetry, most recently Death of Persephone: A Murder (Caitlin Press). She lives on the territories of the Lək̓ʷəŋən (Lekwungen) speaking people in Victoria, BC. She has edited three water-focused, eco-poetry anthologies, Sublime: Poems for Vanishing Ice is the latest.
 
**

To Laura Mate Regarding Coffee House Kirkgate Market, Bradford
 
Implicit echoes heard are those
in mist of minds that must compose
farewells to where so long they shared
their silence with delights they dared,
 
or lent their ear and voice to hum
as tales evolving, crumb by crumb,
became a feast forever hence --
the place for soul that heart could sense
 
as home to faith that being from
means owning changes when they come
like softened dusk on shadowed wall
of eve that will but once befall
 
and leave the gleaming wood to fate
as glisten wishful eyes await
recalling scent of roasted brew
pervading what begins anew,
 
not felt as mourning of demise
but dawn, unyielding, of reprise.
 
Portly Bard
 
Prefers to craft with sole intent...
of verse becoming complement...
...and by such homage being lent...
ideally also compliment.
 
Ekphrastic joy comes not from praise
for words but from returning gaze
far more aware of fortune art
becomes to eyes that fathom heart.
 
**

The Empty World
 
The sunless days linger on.
The beauty of the world hidden.
Chairs and tables our only landscape.
Empty of souls, even the lost ones.
Left to make our way alone.
Scavenging what is available.
Visions of love untenable.
 
Sandy Rochelle 
 
Sandy Rochelle is an award winning poet, accomplished actress, filmmaker, and narrator. Publications include, One Art, Dissident Voice, Verse Virtual, Wild Word Impspired, Haiku Universe, Amethyst Review, Poetic Sun, Spillwords Press, Every Day Writer, Indelible, and others.
 
**
 
Falling for a Meteorologist
 
I look up from wiping tables
and I see him.
Not walking across the parking lot
not in a bird,
or a butterfly,
or a flower,
But a thunderous cloud.
 
Its high green wall moves slowly,
showing its might.
Not letting out a small drizzle,
not a soft breeze
or a cool breath
or restorative rain
But a funnel reaching down.
 
I reach into my pocket
and I grab my phone.
Not to call the weather station,
not to call 911,
but to text him a picture.
And I can’t help but smile,
knowing he’d love what I’ve seen.
 
Kate Speak
 
Kate Speak is a graduate student at Truman State University, and she does her best to find time to write between school and work.
 
**
 
as the gates yawn open
 
do they wait for us there? well
their echoes do, carried along
trays, gossip so piping hot
the steam billows and seeps
into the grout
 
more coffee? someone asks
amidst the chatter, an elderly
couple mugs clink softly,
yes-pleases waterfalling forth, and
just like that
they're gone
 
a certain kind of quiet lives
among the thin veils of dust,
between the windowsills
and the rafters, where
the gray morning above
doesn't feel as lonely
 
and when the keeper's bell rings, may
the breeze that palms the shoulder, as
the doors thrown wide, remind us
that the clouds above, are just as kind
as the warmth that resides within.
 
Ty
 
Ty is an undergraduate student from Western Washington University, studying for a BA in Creative Writing. All throughout their life, they've harbored a deep appreciation for stories of all forms and genres, especially those that aren't afraid to be odd or experimental. They hope with their writing that others may experience that same spark of emotion that drives them to keep being creative.
 
**

It Used to Be
        
The coffee house sleeps indefinitely,
pale blue velvet bistro chairs are stacked,
the baristas are not in, customers 
have gone elsewhere. Shadows grow 
where light cannot reach. I look
through the window at emptiness,
can't ignore the shapes, the repetition
of squares––a wall of clean beige tiles,
nine square panes of a window, 
the bar's rectangular blue panels--
a void so clean and precise. Rings 
from coffee mugs are non-existent. 
Crumbs from the walnut cake 
are swept away. But I know I was here
with cream on my lips, holding your hand,
reading a book, licking a tear
when you left me.
 
Vanessa Zimmer-Powell
 
Vanessa Zimmer-Powell's poetry has appeared on the radio and in numerous journals and anthologies. Awards include first place winner of the 2017 and 2016 Houston Poetry Fest ekphrastic competitions, top honors in the 2017, 2019, and 2021 Friendswood Library ekphrastic poetry competitions, honorable mention in the 2023 ReelPoetry film festival, and finalist in the 2024 Mutabilis Press chapbook competition. Her chapbook, Woman Looks into an Eye, is published by Dancing Girl Press. Her cine-poems have been shown at Gulf Coast Film Festival, ReelPoetry Film Festival, and the Copenhagen Nature & Culture International Film Festival. Her poem, Hole in the Sky, was part of the 2025 Ars Poetica II Juried Exhibition at the Blowing Rock Art & History Museum.
 
**

The Chrononauting Adventures of the Brontë Sisters 
 
found Anne, Charlotte, and Emily at a brutalist café inside Kirkgate Market just before close where they ordered spam fritters with mash and pints of stale beer that smelled of tuberculosis.  
 
The women recalled the handsome boy who was visiting his aunt for the summer and how he sat perfectly straight in the pew at St Michael and All Angels until he died suddenly last week. 
 
Then talk turned to birds, beautiful books by Bewick, and the latest Swarovski bins, but the splendor of skylarks and geese gave way to cuckoos’ deceit and the lekking and madness of grouse.
 
When Charlotte’s fingers began to thrum her copy of the Leeds Intelligencer, Anne knew that the mood would soon turn political and with a deft hand motioned for the check.
 
As they rose to depart, leaving behind cigarette smoke and modernity, they could not help but wonder what would happen next. Then, in the flipping of an hourglass, the time travellers were gone like swifts on the wing to who knows where.
 
Reader, I followed them.
 
Lara Dolphin
 
A descendant of immigrants, Lara Dolphin lives with her family among the Allegheny Mountains of Central Pennsylvania on the ancestral land of the Susquehannock/Iroquois people. She has written three chapbooks In Search Of The Wondrous Whole, Chronicle Of Lost Moments, and At Last a Valley. She, like countless others, hopes for a world filled with greater peace.
 
**
 
Decaffeinated
 
Narratives caught in the interior
of a process that ends on
the horizon at the missing door
- an endless exit into fading
memories - what else should I
expect?  And here is Crow again,
having his say before sunrise
for some strange reason. Is he
trying to coax the day to open
early? Is there a line of people
waiting to get in? I doubt it.
Instead I feel crowds at the edges
of my weary synapses, cursing
at the interruption, turning over,
pulling the covers up restlessly,
looking for a way to escape time.
 
Kerfe Roig
 
This photo reminded me very much of the atmosphere of most of my dreams.
 
**

Honey
 
I remember the way you tripped down my front steps when we went on our first coffee date all that time ago. I tried not to laugh, but a nervous chuckle dripped from my lips and it felt like the first day of the rest of my life. We walked to the quaint and quiet coffee shop in the town square and sat at the only available table. My chair wobbled and you offered—no, begged to trade me. I refused, teetering and waiting for the balance to shift so that I’d maybe topple over.
 
Surely it was eons ago or maybe in a dream as we sipped coffee from paper cups and made promises we never intended on keeping. They were the nice kind of promises, beautiful lies that felt like kisses down my neck and your hand in mine. Lies you swore you’d never tell. Lies that felt like being tucked into your side on a Sunday morning, rubbing the sleep from my eyes and drowning in your caffeinated compliments. 
 
You’re like the teaspoon of honey that I started putting in my coffee. Sure, life’s okay without, but when it’s gone I know something is missing. 
 
And maybe that is when I should have known, and maybe I did but I didn’t really know better. I just listened to you talk and heard “you’re special” and forgot the part that screamed “I don’t need you.” A backhanded compliment because you take your coffee black and I sit there superfluous. Just a body to warm your bed and a teaspoon of something sweet that your life is just alright without. And sometimes I wish that I could shout through the void and ask simply, “Do you miss me?” 
 
I sometimes sit at coffee shops wondering if somehow, the universe will glitch and I’ll get to watch us walk through the door. I have forgotten the way that happiness looks on my face—it breaks me to see it again. I’ll scald my tongue on hot tea to the point of silence, and I will not warn this past version of myself that I’ve eclipsed with in the quiet of a Sunday morning. I will watch the sun dip in the sky and light up your bright blue eyes. 
 
And for a moment, the universe will be as it should. You pitch your voice up as you tell a joke. I laugh. I watch as my chair shifts and I wonder if I fall if you will be there to catch me. I know you won’t be, and that’s okay. I’ve learned how to fall in love, but I can’t seem to fall out of it.
 
I drown in the sound of my naive, sickeningly sweet laughter and I turn to the woman working at the counter. We share a knowing glance. We both know some love is not built to last. We pity me and I hate the way it feels. She puts on another pot of coffee. 
 
I sit in the quiet coffee shop and I sip my tea and try to decide whether to drown out or cling to your voice. I disappear into the background of the beige walls and neutral carpet because I’m just a teaspoon of honey. Something sweet but superfluous. I watch the way it drips from your spoon onto the table. You wipe it away quickly, and the mess is gone. 
 
Lucy McCormick
 
Lucy McCormick is a current graduate student at Truman State University. She has done editorial work for the Missouri Folklore Society Journal and when she isn't writing, she enjoys stargazing, crocheting, and wishing on dandelions, ladybugs, eyelashes, and fireflies. 
 
**

In the Midst of It
 
This is the story of a hiatus,
Of silence,
Of stillness,
Of space,
Of a certain signature.
 
The elements in it
Stay within their contours:
There are no spillages and overlappings
About that storyline
To dazzle the aspect:
In its idiom is constancy,
Of every mote and every moment.
 
And,
Why should one be bothered
About the beginnings and endings of stories?
 
Substance is in the here and now,
In the midst of it.
 
G.I. Sheriff
 
Besides a substantial contribution over the years of poems, essays and stories to various literary journals and anthologies, G. I. Sheriff has published two books of poems, The Dew Between The Petals And Other Poems and One Hundred Poems Of Aesthesia. His poetry videos are featured on his YouTube channel @ghalibiqbalsheriff8314. He lives in Bengaluru, India.
 
**

Tell Me What You See
 
Good gravy — an empty coffee shop, closed for the evening. Chairs carefully stacked so the floor can be mopped. The smell of bleach fights with the coffee bean oil, and the bleach is losing. All the sounds and smells of the day are still in the space — you can’t mop those out. My grandfather knew this. He’d point at something — a flower, a bird, something with a Latin name — and I’d be watching his nose instead, the one with no cartilage, moving in ways that noses don’t. He’d scratch it. Whatever he was pointing at, gone. This is how I learned: sideways, catching the wrong thing. Pam and I meet every other Wednesday. Her family, my family, books, politics, heartbreaks, great deals this week on avocados. Bradford keeps its own counsel the same way — working-class, weathered, not making a fuss about what it’s held. Tomorrow the shutter lifts. Fresh coffee, new conversations, old ones continued. Dreams, news, old news. The pots and mugs are washed and waiting.
 
Lynne Kemen
 
Lynne Kemen is the author of Shoes for Lucy (SCE Press, 2023) and More Than a Handful (Woodland Arts Editions, 2020). Her work has appeared in One Art, The Ekphrastic Review, MacQueen's Quinterly, and elsewhere. She received a 2024 Pushcart Prize nomination and serves as Editor/Interviewer for The Blue Mountain Review. She lives in rural Delaware County, New York.

**
 
The Coffee Shop
 
Before returning home
to our innocent partners,
we’d meet here,
 
greeted by the hiss
of the steaming machine
and a dim wink of lights.
 
The faded blue chairs,
the pink tiled walls 
showing their age, 
 
the wooden tables
that wobbled weakly
even then, furnished
 
a haven for our 
secret enjoyment.
Wordless with want,
 
we sipped creamy foam
and drained cupfuls
of sweet darkness.
 
Our place
abandoned now,
awaiting demolition.
 
Ruth Holzer
 
Ruth Holzer is the author of ten chapbooks, most recently, On the Way to Man in Moon Passage (dancing girl press) and Float (Kelsay Books). Her poems have appeared in Blue Unicorn, California Quarterly, Freshwater, POEM, Slant and elsewhere. A multiple Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, she has won the Edgar Allan Poe Memorial Prize, the Tanka Splendor Award and the Ito En Art of Haiku Contest Grand Prize.
 
**
 
I Am Not Sitting in the Fifth Chair
 
What the hell, you guys. We agreed to sit at that booth with the view of the parking lot and whatnot, and then while I’m taking a leak you sneak over to this table.
 
Oh. Over at the booth, Billy’s legs stuck to the vinyl cushion. Maybe if you covered up those getaway sticks for once they wouldn’t get stuck to stuff, Billy. Just jam a jacket under there and everything’ll be fine. 
 
Well, I can tell you one thing, I’m not sitting here. Not in the fifth chair. No way.
 
Check it out. Over at the counter, that guy gumming his pie to death. Within minutes either he’ll dribble the rest down his shirt, or he’ll shovel it in a box to go. Then the five of us can sit at the counter, two on one side and three on the other. 
 
What do you mean, “What’s the difference?” Those aren’t chairs at the counter, that’s the difference. Those are stools. Totally different than chairs. 
 
Look, I’m not sitting here, period. Because I don’t need no fifth chair problems. See that little family at the four-top in the back? Two kids and done. I bet Ma and Pa knew about the fifth chair. If they’d had a third kid, they’d have signed on for a lifetime of trouble.
 
What’s with the fifth chair? I can’t believe you guys don’t know this stuff. You know who loves to sit in the fifth chair? Ghosts, that’s who. You sit down in the fifth chair, you’re not alone for long. I don’t know why. It’s some kind of pentagram thing or something. I just know those stains may look like ketchup, but they don’t come out in the wash. And it’s not just stains. You sit in the fifth chair, something lingers.
 
All right, fine. You four enjoy your fries. I’m gonna go across the street and get a beer. And if you still don’t believe me, call up Timbo, tell him to come down and join you. Tell him to sit right there. Timbo’s a lonely guy. Maybe he won’t mind a little company.
 
Tracy Royce
 
Tracy Royce is a poet and writer with work appearing or forthcoming in Heavy Feather Review, The Mackinaw, MacQueen’s Quinterly, ONE ART, and Best Microfiction (2026). Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best Small Fictions. She lives in Southern California, but you can find her on Bluesky.
 
**
 
Leaving it all
 
In glances, in jingles of coins,
In folds of tablecloths --
In thoughts of times
When these are past.
 
Crafted napkins, water lines,
Leaving it all
Like a lone palm
Tilting
A little away
From its morning shadow.
 
Abha Das Sarma
 
Abha Das Sarma lives in Bangalore, India. An engineer and management consultant by profession, writing is what makes her happy and fulfilled. Her poems have appeared in Muddy River Poetry Review, Spillwords, Verse-Virtual, Visual Verse, Sparks of Calliope, Trouvaille Review, Blue Heron Review, Poetry X Hunger, here and elsewhere. She has also contributed to several anthologies, Pixie Dust & All Things Magical and Soul Spaces: Poems on Cities, Towns & Villages, among others.
 
**

Urban Renewal
 
Inside, you could not see
the brutalist outside
already embracing
this coffee house and you.
 
Inside, you could just sit,
pretend the world outside
had paused, and time eddied
around you and your friends.
 
Inside, you watched the mall
empty as you talked, sighed
when it was closing time,
cried as you went outside.
 
Inside, only echoes
still fill the hollow, wait
until the wrecking ball
lets the outside in, turns
 
history to rubble.
 
Gary S. Rosin
 
Author's Note: The Kirkgate Shopping Centre (Kirkgate Market) was closed to the public in 2025, and is to be demolished in 2026. “Shoppers sentimental as end of era for historic centre nears,” by Steve Jones (BBC March 2, 2025). 
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy9nd3e79no (last visited April 13, 2026)

Gary S. Rosin’s work has been nominated for Pushcart Prizes and “Best of the Net,” and has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Concho River Review, Friendswood Ekphrastic Poetry Anthology, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Notes of Light and Dark: Southwestern Nocturnes and Aubades (Dos Gatos Press), and elsewhere. He is a Contributing Editor of MacQueen’s Quinterly. He has two chapbooks, Standing Inside the Web (Bear House Publishing, 1990), and Fire and Shadows (Legal Studies Forum, 2008, offprint).
 
**

The Espresso Machine Confesses
 
I stand alone on the counter top
like I own this hour of first light-spill,
chrome spine and metal ribs hold my breath
waiting to be filled with beans, bubbles  
and heated expressions of my goal.  
 
Before footsteps load the room, chairs scrape,
cups clink, sugar scatters, voices shout,
you’ll proffer your daily offering –
a small measured hope of roasted beans,
ground fine and tamped flat, which I’ll lock in 
 
and swallow. Built for pressure, I know 
how to move water through resistance
and force beans to speak in dark grumbles,
rising, like a cobra, to a hiss.
You lean on my steam like it’s prayer, 
 
a bitter shot that can truly shake
and wake you. But I’ve seen your mornings –
how you hover half-lit, eyes searching 
through screens, even as you raise the cup,
like you’re waiting for new life to flow.
 
You will press me again tomorrow,
regular as rectangular tiles,
and I’ll answer as I always do. 
But listen – my promise is hampered –
I can not pull the day from shadow.
 
Helen Freeman
 
Helen Freeman started writing poetry and flash fiction whilst recovering from a car crash in Oman and got hooked. Although she knows that coffee is not the answer to everything, she loves her morning brew. She enjoys trying her hand at some of the challenges presented on The Ekphrastic Review and reading the different interpretations chosen by editors. She currently lives in Edinburgh and her instagram is @chemchemi.hf 
 
**
 
Kirkgate Market Closes
 
I remember when it opened and we met at Athenium for the first time.
Young, impressionable, a little lost, and wary of starting something new.
I said getting a cat was easier than dating because at the end of the day 
there was a warm, furry, creature to come home to; not the emptiness 
of solitary rooms and sad meals cooked for one person. You said
“Let’s get a cat and share it.” I thought you were crazy. You insisted.
 
Let’s leave, then, to fill the emptiness! 
 
The first ten years were filled with drama, volatility, excitement
travel, tears, and traditions started, careers, more travel,
the children taking root, growing up alongside the cats.
The next ten years were filled with losses, careers ended,
new ventures started, moving, children branching out
on their own, coming home, leaving again. We would still
meet at that coffee house at least once a week to rekindle
what we had when we first got those two cats so like us.
 
Let’s leave, then, to fill the emptiness!
 
I admit the next ten years inched by, a slow drip 
like molasses seeping through a maple tree spigot, 
my little trees all grown up and firmly planted in their own lives.
The cats are long gone too. We’re left here staring at each other 
across the table in an empty coffee house with nothing more to say
and I think we’ve reached the end of our cycle just like this market.
 
Let’s leave, then, to fill the emptiness!
 
Laura Peña
 
Laura Peña is an award winning poet born and raised in Houston, TX. She holds a BA in English Literature and an MA in Education. She is a primary bilingual teacher as well as a translator of poetry into Spanish. Laura has been a featured poet at Valley International Poetry Festival, Inprint First Fridays, and Public Poetry. She has been a workshop presenter at VIPF in the Rio Grande Valley, TXand People's Literary Festival in Corpus Christi, TX. Laura writes ekphrastic poetry and has many pieces published on The Ekphrastic Review. She has also been published in Equinox, Boundless, Synkroniciti, Point Clear Press, and Voices. 
 
**
 
Hopper Could Have Sat Here
 
I wish she were sitting here. The woman in the yellow cloche drinking a cup of Joe. Hopper knew the value of the automat for an extended stay at the table. At midnight or at dawn, with or without someone to share a quip or take a sip to jolt one out of depression.
 
The haze of abandonment sits here. Or is that sun percolating early morning before opening? But where are the baristas bustling in preparation? It looks as though lonely may be served here. Closing time before its time. Lease lost when the cost of coffee is more than elation from writing a poem, searching the phone with head down, or waiting for a lover to arrive on the bus.
 
Will they open? The doors to the blue chairs waiting for customers, offering a swig of lingering for entertainment?
 
Cynthia Dorfman
 
When she saw Laura Mate's Coffee House image, Cynthia Dorfman thought of Edward Hopper's painting of the woman sitting in the automat with a cup of coffee. You might say this is a double ekphrastic poem. Cynthia wrote this piece from Maryland, US. Her latest work appears in the Maryland Bards Poetry Review 2026 anthology.
 
**

Echo 
 
I cover this place with attention. Where they laid gravel over the mossy train tracks. Where the burned-out warehouse sprouted into an apartment complex. As Janey and I walk to the cafe, the creaky white morning holds us down.
 
There used to be bells on the door.
We would tear into the booths. I liked to yank on your hood and you would choke, then slug me. Beat me. You always hogged the wallside seat.
Janey said we were both deranged but if you kicked her under the table, she would pin your arms behind your back. We ate more syrup than a human being is really meant to. Knock ourselves out. We would be nodding, foreheads sticky beside our plates.
They close at 12 PM. They would have to kick us out. We paid with ones and big smiles.
 
Now, Janey and I both drink coffee. We split a plate. Her fingertips are cool on my palm.
 
Once, we lived on sugar, like hummingbirds. Food never got the chance to make us taller, lost to the whir of our bouncing legs. We were perpetuum mobiles with secret thumb-sucking hitches.
Rattling on the early bus, we spat venom. We laughed as the janitor mopped bloody fights off the linoleum. Unphased, we ate unwrapped cookies out of each others’ pockets.
Skinning our knees still made our eyes water. We faced the wall to cry. In the empty gym, we danced our white socks gray.
After school, we laid like a tangle of puppies on the rug, resting our heads on piles of cleanish laundry.
We used any light but the overhead. We glowed in the brightness of spliffs, of summer Christmas lights, of star showers, midnight streetlamps, little fires set for fun. We introduced hairspray to a match then jumped back, hollering. We fit three teenagers in a
bed made for one little kid.
At 1 AM, sleep was nowhere to be found. Our ribs were sore from laughing. Our hair got dirty fast, no matter what we tried.
 
Death smiles at teenagers with a cocked head. You act like you’re just getting started. Like you could go any minute.
 
We liked to play in the warehouse. Scale the walls and hang from the rafters. Straddle the beam. You white knuckled every move. You were always the worst with heights.
 
We would drop empty bottles down and watch them explode into glitter.
 
The last time I saw you, you had that misty look all over your skin. Lips and hair suddenly too dark, mouth forced closed. The second to the last time I saw you, you had a misty look in your eyes. Not crying, just far away.
 
Why didn’t you tell me? We always went to the warehouse together.
Is that what you were thinking about when you would get so quiet?
Who said you have to haunt the place you died? You were always the first one in the room but the last to leave.
 
This morning, I am heavy. My back is sore and I give into the slouch.
In the corner of my eye, I see you with your head on the table. You’re facing me, eyes closed.
Like your dad did, I think you would have gone bald. Do you still recognize me with this silver beard?
 
Once you make someplace your bed, you’ll be waking up there for the rest of your life. In sleep, we fall through time. Spirits run for cover in the light. Sometimes it takes a second to remember when you are. In the bleary dawn, you could be anywhere.
I saw you blinking like this on my bedroom floor, upside down on my pillow I see it now. You’re quizzing me with your eyebrows.
 
In the kitchen, someone drops a plate but it doesn’t shatter.
From another table, a man murmurs, “It smells like smoke, not coffee.”
 
At 11:42 PM, Janey and I pay with a card. She agrees to meet me back at the car. I just need to wait a little on the sidewalk for you. From out the dim diner, your spark is glowing.
I decide to leave before I have to see you never come out.
 
The real relief comes when the forks are still, but the clinking continues.
As I walk away, a bell jingles behind me.
 
Holly Lola Peterson
 
**

Sustenance Haibun

Thirsty, hungry, longing for respite, wandering the market, searching.
“Are you sure,” you ask, “there’s a place to rest our feet, refresh ourselves?"
“Oh, yes,” I assure you, “just around the corner.”

We look in every window at empty seats, empty counters, bereft at the loss of that  special place where everyone paused...to chat with servers, eat fresh baked pastries, drink fresh brewed coffee. 

As time takes its toll 
on the places we cherished, 
so we must adjust.

Donna Reiss
​
Writer, editor, teacher, bookmaker, and mixed media/paper artist, Donna lives in Greenville, South Carolina, where she is a member of the Greenville Center for Creative Arts, the Guild of American Papercutters, and the Poetry Society of South Carolina. Follow her on Instagram @dreissart