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Dear Writers and Readers, We had an extraordinary response to this particular artwork. Clearly both the artwork and the subject struck a major chord. The thrill for me of reading numerous takes after the same painting, and seeing it through so many eyes and souls, never fades. Each poem and story gives me a different window into the human imagination, and makes me see the artwork more fully. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of you writers, whether or not your work was selected this challenge, for participating in this amazing experience. We aim to choose a wide and generous selection, but cannot include all the worthy works we receive each time. The challenges remain a popular, essential part of The Ekphrastic Review, a consistent and growing aspect of the journal among so many projects and opportunities. It is an honour to read your entries every session. Every writer who participates in these challenges, once or always, is an integral part of this amazing community that we are building together. May I invite you to join us in the many exciting opportunities ongoing and ahead. There are so many ways you can get involved. We have a book club, thanks to Barbara Krasner who hosts them. There have been two sessions so far and the next event is in three months. These quarterly ekphrastic book club gatherings are held on zoom, and involve a different book on art each time with rousing discussion. Click on the book club link in the overhead menu for more information. We now have a monthly reading series. Join us for July's session on zoom to hear some of your favourite ekphrastic writers read their work. These sessions involve five writers each time and community conversation after the reading. Click on Electric Ekphrasis Reading Series in the menu above to sign up for the free monthly readings. The Heaven Eleven marathon is coming up very soon. Don't miss out on the epic event of the year. Our fifth annual ekphrastic marathon celebrates our eleventh birthday! This event is intense and exhilarating, a day of total creativity. Writers participate independently from all over the world, connecting for support, community and inspiration in a FB group. I'll be there all day cheerleading you along and answering questions. Click on Heaven Eleven in the sidebars to register. Finally, if you haven't discovered The Ekphrastic Academy yet, sign up today for an upcoming zoom course. We offer single session zooms and longer courses on various artists, themes, and writer's craft subjects. These workshops are about creativity, connection, and conversation. We look at and discuss art together and do generative writing exercises with art. Sessions ahead include Ekphrastic Journaling, Chagall, photographer Tina Modotti, exploring darker themes with Night in My Veins, and our monthly Ekphrasis Anonymous sessions, a generative writing event for ekphrastic addicts. Click on the Academy link in the menu above. Here's to a fabulous summer. Happy reading and writing! love, Lorette  Factory Workers on the Way to Work, by Helene Schjerfbeck (Finland) 1922 The Dreams of the Associated Realities So many times I am awakened to sanitized dreams real dreams that quietly drift away from my mind at night can sanitize the dark True dreams that show understanding can continue into the daylight very soon the day awakens the mind and can create the freeze from the dream Chloe Hougan Chloe Hougan is a painter and jewelry maker from Stoughton, Wisconsin. Using brilliant colour, powerful pattern, and poetic titles, she reflects abstractly, bravely, and boldly upon both her inner and outer worlds, capturing them with distinctive vibrance. She is non-verbal and autistic, and although she only recently discovered creative writing, she enjoys it tremendously. She has been previously published in The Ekphrastic Review. ** Being the Moon We take turns being the lantern for each other. Today your cheeks glow like the full moon, the road before us illuminated by your glowing, lunar care. You look down, listen, gently gather up any fragile words that have fallen from my mouth, ask about how the days have collected at my feet, about my parents’ health, about the things we carry that remain cloaked by busy days. My neck welcomes the moonglow now floating all around us. Your light absorbs my crimson; my crimson has turned you a dusty rose. We walk in the biosphere of loving friendship, where green leaves flourish and everything drinks in rain and nourishment. Next month, my hands will emanate a healing light, as I draw you close for a hug on our walk. Vines will grow all around us on the path. I will catch what falls for you in our well-worn basket of knowing. I will listen. I will carry. I will care. No one person can be the moon. Cristina M. R. Norcross Cristina M. R. Norcross is the founding editor of the online poetry journal, Blue Heron Review. Author of ten poetry collections, a multiple Pushcart Prize nominee, and an Eric Hoffer Book Award nominee, her latest book is The Poetry Apothecary (Kelsay Books, 2024). Cristina was featured in the Poem-A-Day series for the Academy of American Poets in 2021. You can find her work in the James Crews anthology, The Wonder of Small Things (Storey Publishing, 2023) and the anthology series boxed set, A Boxful of Poetry (Storey Publishing, 2024). www.cristinanorcross.com ** Duplex: This Old World Has Always Been Ending This old world has always been ending. That is why we walk to work on two feet. That is why we once crawled on hands and feet. Those were the days when we had nowhere to go. Days when we have nowhere to go will return. But now there is the factory, the office. And the factory has nothing to offer. And the office is not really a factor. There is so much we really should factor in. Sadly, we have too little capacity. Because too many have too little to eat. Why did we bother to walk, to crawl, to swim? Why did we ever bother to evolve? This old world has always been ending. Rose Menyon Heflin Originally from rural, southern Kentucky, Rose Menyon Heflin is a poet, writer, and visual artist living in Wisconsin. Her award-winning poetry has been published over 250 times in outlets spanning five continents, and she has published memoir and flash fiction pieces. She has had a free verse poem choreographed and danced, an ekphrastic memoir piece featured in a museum art exhibit, and two haiku published in a gumball machine. Among other venues, her poetry has appeared in Deep South Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, and San Antonio Review. An OCD sufferer since childhood, she strongly prefers hugging trees instead of people. ** What the Body Does Two women, smeared into their own faces. Schjerfbeck knew: you stop seeing yourself somewhere around the third winter of the bus, the dark before, the dark after. One of them has put on red. Warpaint. The mirror watched, unconvinced. She did it anyway — that small performance the body enacts before the body goes. The other has closed her eyes. Not sleep. Something older. The way a person disappears inside the going, the destination unremarkable, the motion enough. “Time to do the donuts.” The coffee lukewarm, the window black, the self somewhere back at the house, still in the chair, still possible. You learn to send just the shape of yourself -- the coat, the hands, the reasonable mouth -- into the cold machinery of another day. What remains learns to wait. 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 and writes in an 1830s farmhouse in rural Delaware County, New York, where she shares her property with a murder of crows, one of whom she has named Edgar Allen Crow. ** The Palette Knife of Despair The factory girls plow through the doors. They punch in with their time tickets, hang up their coats, sit at their sewing stations and think about their self-portraits on the verso. They punch in with their time tickets, their faces still staunched by weather and worry. They think about their self-portraits on the verso, the girls they wish they could be: Their faces no longer staunched by weather and worry, fat-cheeked and rouged, hair coiffed by professionals, the girls they wish they could be if only their families had money, if only, if only. Fat-cheeked and rouged, hair coiffed, professionals, but palette knife scratches their skin, erases their dreams. If only these girls had money, if only, if only, they could lift their eyes from the throat plate. Palette knife scratches their skin, erases their dreams. Their sunken eyes reflect in machine’s metal. Unable to lift from the throat plate. Money only comes from the needle, the thread, the tread. Their sunken eyes reflect in machine’s metal. The factory girls, no way out. Money only comes from the needle, the threat, the tread. They hang up their coats, sit at their sewing stations. Barbara Krasner Barbara Krasner's ekphrastic poetry collections include The Wanderers (Shanti Arts, 2026), Insomnia: Poems after Lee Krasner (dancing girl press, 2026), and The Night Watch (Kelsay Books, 2025). She feels fortunate she was able to view Seeing Silence: The Paintings of Helene Schjerfbeck at The Met in January 2026. Visit Barbara's website at www.barbarakrasner.com. ** Women Working Hardly halting, Heavy hearting, never a moment passing slow Industry increasing, indeed injuring, protections long forgot, forgoed Looms lurching, leaders lurking, closing every bright window Shuttles shifting, shifts stacking, missing the children whilst they grow Treadles turning, toes toiling, walking here through rain and snow Women working, wonder wintering, watching wefts pass to and fro Employees earning, economy expanding, uplifting unknown politicos Women working, window washing, putting on domestic show Offspring objecting, often obscuring, frequently found here undertow Rest reclusing, routines racing, he wants a trip to lovers’ row Kitchen keeping, knot knitting, life is labor this she knows Julia Harr Julia Harr is a narrative practitioner who lives in Queens, NY. She is happiest browsing the many art collections of NYC and writing shorts and poems in response. Professionally, you can find her practicing narrative therapy and offering narrative medicine workshops to other healthcare providers. www.story-ethic.com ** White Death Factory air, thick, black— coughed into the night. Are you the girl with blonde hair, who helped mother? Face lowered, eyes downcast, bearing the weight of disapproval, even in submission. Even if I catch the shadow on your face, it does not bring father back; his last breath hangs in the night air. David Hershhorn David (he/him) is an Ohio poet drawn to unsettling verse as well as editor for the forthcoming horror poetry journal Fear in Dust. David holds a Bachelor of Arts from The College of Wooster in Philosophy where he was awarded the John F. Miller prize. When not reading or writing, David enjoys boardgames, playing the baroque flute, and listening to music. David is a proud member of the Horror Writers Association, Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association, and the Academy of American Poets. ** the caste of office angels we’ve become angels on wings floating in our modern city silent hands pull strings and arms extend and legs retreat footsteps whisper leather dreams billboards beg for believers dark sirens no rocks at all we weave gears and sparking trams to make our robes and jewelry walk with me on concrete rivers we skate through morning and night and sing to the new gods in glass and steel ribbed towers climb higher and higher so no one ever needs to let down their hair ever again mike sluchinski mike sluchinski reads vonnegut's harrison bergeron religiously and got hooked on ekphrasis. grateful to the ekphrastic review and other great journals for getting it right when so many others just couldn't get it. can't get this hook out of my lip. ** Instructions for Perrine Girl, don’t weep and moan. Lean over that soapstone sink and scratch the blood from her frocks. Emerge from that cobwebbed basement and bleach the linens on the line. Girl, don’t covet her rubies. Just dust the vanity and tidy the bedroom. Stash your dreams of luxe with Madame’s baubles. Girl, don’t feed your hunger stones with raspberries from her ice box. Wipe the counters and scrub the floor. Lay down your longing. Perrine my girl, you transcend service. You must crack open your geode soul, release the saffron breath of the crocosmia flower, and tend to your unfurling spirit. Allison Connolly Allison Connolly revels in the challenge of telling a story in one hundred words. Her work has been published in The Ekphrastic Review and in scholarly journals. She is Professor of French at Centre College and splits her time between the U.S. and Europe. ** Facing the Day Caps with tight straps cover hair or bald heads. Alabaster Woman looks inside herself with shaded lavender eyes. A woman of fire faces what the other avoids. Red Woman’s neck is a blade/ lips blood red/eyes blackened. There she is, despite the darkness heavy around them, Red as lava Red as a lover Red as a forest fire that turns aside, burns out, for no one. Meg Senuta Meg Senuta: "A graduate of Grub Street’s yearlong intensive Memoir Incubator, Pushcart nominee, and finalist for Fourth Genre’s Steinberg Memorial Nonfiction Award, my words have appeared in Brevity, Creative Nonfiction, and Cognoscenti, and were featured in Wake Forest University’s Narrative Medicine’s series and Tell-All Boston. I have served as patient advocate on research grants for inflammatory breast cancer; patient/actor to teach medical students how to deliver bad news; and mentor for newly-diagnosed cancer patients at Dana Farber Cancer Institute. I studied traditional textiles in Sweden, and learned weaving and spinning from a Scottish folksinger. I have actually used tenterhooks." ** What Lies Beneath We, the under-represented, all appear similar. With blank stares into a fixed destiny, we seem colourless, voiceless, featureless, yet essential to the cause, but under our assembly line skin lies a dancer, a musician, a chef─ dreams waiting for an opportunity to bust from this factory floor prison. We identify this as wishful thinking until she arrives with tinged lips and a non-compliant attitude, a welcome addition of colour and hope to the grayness of monotony. It’s clear, for her, this stop is temporary. Her arrival alters the drudgery vibe, every downcast worker vies for a spot to toil next to this living revelation of grander possibility and potential; we feel rebellious change in the air. 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. She is facilitator of the Duxbury Poetry Circle in Duxbury, MA. ** Twins Twins? no, we are not even sisters, only our hands do the same thing tackling eleven wool spinning machines 24/seven for the last ten years, as we just came of age, but instead of soul search this post- and pre-war age pushed a different future for us, regardless God’s incredible plans. Of course, we know how to spin by hand, but the master wants it fast and fine and yes, all the fun is gone: no boys around so we signal our joy by dropping the spindle down giving them a chance to pick it up and touch our fingers. Now it’s just the noise of metal and brass pricking our years while eyes stay attached to the hubris of details which sooner or later stick begotten as the yarn of our living, or better – surviving. Ekaterina Dukas Ekaterina Dukas writes poetry as a pilgrimage to meaning and her poems are often honoured by TER and its challenges. Her collection Ekphrasticon is published by Europa Edizioni, 2021. ** Factory Workers on the Way to Work forward to what work forward from what past they breathed the red & black air their masks grew from sand & ash death & sadness daily knowing yet unknown Sister Lou Ella Sister Lou Ella has a master’s degree in theology and is a former teacher and librarian. She is a certified spiritual director as well as a poet and writer. Her poems have appeared in America, First Things, Emmanuel, Third Wednesday, and new verse news and in five anthologies. She was twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her first book of poetry entitled she: robed and wordless was published in 2015. (Press 53.) Five poems from the book, set to music by James Lee III were performed by soloist opera singer Susanna Phillips, principal clarinetist Anthony McGill of the New York Philharmonic, and Grammy® nominated pianist Mayra Huang. ** We Wake in the Dark We wake in the dark, my sister and me, not needing to see as our work clothes are draped across a chair, ready to drape over our shoulders. Our toes feel for the floor, our sturdy shoes shaped by our shapeless stockings. Every morning the same, save for the sabbath, when we sleep until first light. Do not despair for us. We bring home the rent and pride in our labour. Our neighbours toil with us, making wonderful works for the world to use. We dance in bright dresses on Saturday night. Our faces are smiles then; our shoes made of satin. Our suitors are many. Despair not for us: We labour with our neighbours in community. 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 ** My Big Sister She was brave, adventurous, a front-runner in her time, a lady in red. She was my world- my protector, my confidant. I looked up to her, admired her strength, trusted her with my life, my heart, my soul. No matter where I moved, she came to me- came to ground me, came to comfort me, came to remind me that she was always there. Things are different now. I cannot forget her screaming voice, her angry face, her harsh words. I cannot let my heart get close again lest it be scorched, ridiculed, betrayed. There are no words or actions that can change things- we only walk together as siblings, side by side, in stony silence. Lynn Bastoni Lynn Bastoni began writing poetry more than a decade ago as a unique way to teach her middle school students important life lessons. As a former middle school principal, she had many opportunities to shape attitudes, cultivate empathy and affect the choices of the adolescent children in her charge. Her book, Bullying, The Remedy Lies Within was published in 2020 and is a testimony to her commitment to educating through the use of poetry. Lynn lives in Duxbury, Massachusetts and is a long-time member of the Duxbury Poetry Circle. Her poetry is often written from the seat of her emotions and reflects her love of the natural world. Rhyming is a particular passion and a well-honed art, but anything goes! ** Ashes in Their Eyes So you heard of the fire? Sisters lost at the Triangle Waist Company. We go about our business at the factory, our hair bobbed and angled so bobbins won’t catch tresses like threads wound around spools of commerce. The darkness of our eyes, not from ashes thumbnailed on our foreheads to remind us of Lent and dust, but pools of kohl under our eyes filled with lint that disclose lost sleep and sadness. So you heard of the fire? Could that happen to us? Doors locked with no exit, latched with locks like padlocks on the hope chests of their hearts. Scraps of shirtwaist cottons and linens charred and trapped. The tatting of needles. The tapping on tables, keeping pace with fingers as they raced, unable to unlock the locks. Confined behind wooden door posts of death. So you heard of the fire? Women for hire. Cynthia Dorfman The dark eyes of the women in the Schjerfbeck painting made Cynthia Dorfman think of the fire at the Triangle Waist Company in New York where 146 workers, 123 of them women and girls, died. The fire was during Lent in 1911 and this image was painted in 1922, but Cynthia speculated on what these factory women might be thinking in their circumstance. She lives in Maryland, US ,and writes regularly with the Driftless Writing Center based in Wisconsin. ** Faces The gaze is fixed upon the way, The way, that is ever the same, Ever open, Never showing anything beyond its emptiness, Always uncertain. The gaze stems from a teeming pool, The pool of being: Of want, Of yearning, Of wounds, Of resignation, Of nothingness. Do we hear the footfalls Of souls upon smoke? 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 poetry, The Dew Between The Petals And Other Poems and One Hundred Poems Of Aesthesia. @ ghalibiqbalsheriff8314 is his YouTube channel, that features his poetry videos. He lives in Bengaluru, India. ** Homeward Bound, Unbroken Helena and Elli no longer smile. They shove their short hair beneath casket caps. Move together as comrades through dark Finnish streets. Weary with fatigue from factory fires, painstaking handiwork. Their ghostly faces hide their fierce determination, their willingness to fight for a better world. Silent women, unafraid of sacrifice, unafraid of the world’s cold treatment. Barbara Edler Barbara Edler is a midwestern poet who enjoys writing poetry and flash fiction. She appreciates the challenge of writing to art and the bi-weekly challenges offered by The Ekphrastic Review. Her poem "Homeward Bound, Unbroken" is a nod to the Finnish women who were unafraid to break established gender roles and worked fearlessly to create a better world. Edler's poetry has been published in a variety of anthologies such as Encore Prize Poems 2025, The Cities of the Plains, Words that Mend and a variety of literary journals. ** Soul Sisters For years we walked. Together. Holding each other. Secure. One night this tall, bald strange man stared at you through the window of her house. We grabbed two knives, stood ready behind the door. We kissed two boys under the oleander bushes at the Costa Brava. We took many trains, we left our hurts in each other’s arms. We shared a suitor, our mothers... I stood stiffly at the dance, while she took his hand and sailed into the Foxtrot, whispered later behind her manicured hand that he got too close. Many a night we sipped champagne and giggled until the first light. We solved the world’s problems. Bitched about our brothers. Got old together. At first, I didn’t notice: she faded slowly, her mind curled in on itself. But she always knew that I had somehow been a part of her. Rose Mary Boehm Rose Mary Boehm is a German-born British national living and writing in Lima, Peru. Author of two novels, short stories, eight poetry collections and one chapbook, her poetry has been published widely in mostly US poetry reviews (online and print). She is a several times Pushcart and a Best of Net nominee. All her books are available on Amazon. Her chapbook, The Matter of Words, was published in June 2025, and a new full-length collection has been slated for publishing at any day now. https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/ ** A Sabot Story Liege, in the 19th century industrial revolution That region famous for its coal, iron and steel Known as Europe’s Forge, and a beating heart Its industry as a participant in an age of steam Belgium, at the south end of a long coal seam Where labour unions joined in that early start In hard working jobs having a lessening appeal With silent compliance ever the poor solution Coal mining, exclusively as a male occupation Not revolt, and with safety first and foremost But many women also played their silent role In factories, at machines making ammunition Another early shift before the sun had risen And as the story goes, sabotage was the goal A clog in the machine, in reality, not a ghost As silent female resistance, never capitulation Howard Osborne Howard is a UK citizen, retired. Published author of non-fiction reference book, scientific papers and poetry. Interests mainly creative writing (poetry, novel, short stories, songs and scripts), music and travel. ** … brazier glow … an undisclosed hour on a waking morning unidentifiable from any dim indistinct signs around which the cold mist mixes with brazier smoke disturbed to swirl by passing shapes becoming human forms as if emerging from the darker night wearing muted colours of orange and lilac two human forms distinguishable from the churn only by their lighter faces— sombre faces facing the day ahead scarfed heads bobbed against the cold one a jaundice yellow the other a ghostly white eyes sunken shadows in skull sockets adding to an incorporeal look of phantasma eyes tired by shortness of sleep— like a shortness of breath even before exertion theirs is a hard pill to swallow as they wend an already weary way to work in the cold dark broken by the brazier they pass often not seeing light of day as they toil behind factory doors or underground returning after sundown with their burden of weariness weighing on shoulders that have already weighed heavily upon their souls the warming glow of a brazier barely felt barely noticed even if from one of Dante’s hells into which they might be about to descend hoping to have the preserve from which they can ascend to return to their normality passing the brazier once more as its heat through the harsh weave of the garments thinning at the neck Peter Longden Peter R Longden grew up in Rotherham, South Yorkshire before moving to Coventry in 1981 for a long career working with young people. Now retired, poetry is a significant part of his life, having started writing poetry over 25 years ago. Still looking to publish a first chapbook, he has had poems published in Yesterday’s Diary. edited by Cathy Cassidy; by 9th O’Bheal Five Words Competition (2022); five poems published by The Ekphrastic Review between June 2024 and May 2026; and two ekphrastic poems in the Wee Sparrow Poetry Press Newsletters in 2024 and 2025. Other poems have been published in local anthologies. Peter is married to Sally with two grown-up boys (and a two-year-old granddaughter). ** ...but Deadly (a Guide to Mimes) 1. Mimes have silence on their side. In a fight, this can cost you. 2. I’m not implying that mimes are dirty fighters. But heckle them at your own risk. After you yell, “Oh, no, I’m trapped inside an invisible box! How will I ever get out?” don’t turn your back. You won’t hear them coming. 3. When you see a mime, walk away, into the wind, dragging your heavy sack of sarcasm behind you. Find something, anything, real or imagined, to lean against. But don’t piss off a mime. 4. Yesterday you delighted in making that street magician’s composure vanish into thin air. If you’re still itching for fun, and you can’t be dissuaded from antagonizing a mime, get ready. Mimes see the world in black and white. If you impugn their honour, you’re asking for it. 5. Remember, first and foremost, mimes are performers. Acrobats of the dramatic. You may throw a haymaker, maybe blacken a mime’s eye. But watch, while you can, as that mime uses an invisible grapefruit spoon. To scoop out your very real eyes. Tracy Royce Tracy Royce’s writing has appeared in The Mackinaw, MacQueen’s Quinterly, ONE ART, and Best Microfiction. Her work has been nominated for Best Small Fictions and a Pushcart Prize. She lives in Southern California, where she enjoys hiking and watching Richard Widmark films. Find her on Bluesky. ** when the work stops - click clack - slanted back stiff walk slow marching in a day hardly worth waking sorrowed eyes pale skin our bodies theirs our minds ripe for taking - knock knock - striking nails dyed skin palm bleeding on my boot so mad I’m shaking clenching fists numb arm stomp aching feet “enough, tools down” I call out - tik tok - dropping awls raised hands the guards come in “bring us the owner” we all shout the man enters smug smile pink slips waiting brows set we test his clout Alexandra Fritz Alexandra Fritz is based in Los Angeles and roams whenever possible. Inspired by social justice and the complications of being human, her work searches for dignity in difficult circumstances and the moments that reveal our shared humanity. ** The Visitation It wasn’t the first time that Maura had felt Cindy, although she couldn’t see her, and tried to look away and pretend it was just in her mind. It was the coldness of the air that could not be ignored. Brushing against her left cheek, she could feel its icy grasp as if pulling her into the other world as well. It wasn’t her fault that Cindy died, although she felt guilty. She had been the passenger, and Cindy had been the one driving when the car went over the bank on a perfectly beautiful morning in the hills of Tennessee. “What do you want, Cindy? I know you are there. It has been two years now, and I think you should move on. Are you stuck?” Cindy’s unrelenting pressure campaign echoed the tone she had also used when confronting Mother. “What the hell, Mother! We have been out here in the rain ever since the bus dropped us off three hours ago.” Maura remembers they pounded on the door and could see their mother moving in the kitchen. Cindy charged almost aggressively toward her Mom when the door finally opened, and Maura ran crying to her room and put on her headphones. “You girls are lucky to have me for a mother, teaching you responsibility. Maybe next time you will remember to take your house key and not depend on me to open the door. I am not your servant.” With that, she turned and disappeared into the kitchen. Maura shook her head to dislodge this memory and sat down on the couch to stare out the window. Lake Michigan was so still this morning that the clouds looked like they were swimming in the icy water. Gazing at the horizon line always transported her to a frequency where she could talk with Cindy more clearly in her mind. “I am not stuck. Ever since Dad walked out of our lives 23 years ago when I was 5, and you were 3, I have tried to be strong for you. To be your protector. I see you squandering your life by shrinking until you are now invisible even to yourself. I want to wake you up. Do you think it is okay that Mom murdered me and tried to kill you too? Please, Maura, find your voice.” They had discussed Mother many times since the accident. It seemed plausible that she had known the brakes were defective when she told Cindy to take her car, instead of Cindy’s Volkswagen. It would have seemed forgivable, innocent even, except that Mother hated Cindy for defying her controlling demands from an early age. “You will have more room if you take my car,” were the last words her mother spoke to Cindy. At the time, it seemed odd because why would Mother care if there was more room, but Maura shook it off like she always did. This hatred between Mom and Cindy was a looming presence that inhabited their home and interjected itself in every conversation, every interaction. A toxic poison spewed continuously from Mother’s mouth, except when she talked to the neighbors in that silky voice that arose from her red lipsticked mouth. After the accident, when Maura was recovering from a broken pelvis and a crushed leg, her mother visited her twice in the two months she was in the hospital. The first time was to ask her where she should dump Cindy’s ashes, and the next time to tell her she was moving to the Netherlands. Good riddance, she thought at the time. These repeating conversations with Cindy were upsetting. She wanted Maura to confront her mother. It was like Cindy could see she had become a hermit, living in this cabin by the lake, working remotely as a grant writer for a non-profit, ordering takeout, and binge-watching Netflix movies. Her only interactions were scrolling through Instagram and liking and commenting on strangers' posts. Maura knew it was dangerous to be visible. Staring out the plane window, Maura relived her conversation with her mother,. She had hired a private detective who tracked down her mother’s address to a small Dutch village. The detective also discovered that the investigation into the accident had focused on the car's faulty brakes, and the police were beginning to question her mother. Somehow, with Cindy's help, she had found a desire to discover the truth and, with trepidation, called the number the detective had given her. She instantly recognized the fake silky voice when her Mom answered the phone. “Hello Mother, this is Maura.” Her voice sounded stronger than she felt as the old fear gripped her. “Maura!” Maura could tell her mother was truly shocked to hear her voice. “I have a plane ticket, and I will be at your house on June 29th if all goes as planned.” “What? You are coming here? No, don’t come. Frank would not like it.” She already knew from the detective that her mother was living with Frank Barnell and that they both had moved to the Netherlands together. “I am sorry, Mom, if it makes a problem for you, but I have something very important to ask you.” This was the first time in her life that she had stood up to her mother, and it shocked both of them. “I do not intend to leave the Netherlands until we talk. We can meet at a restaurant if that works better for you.” Maura intentionally closed the door on her mother’s excuses, and it felt strangely delicious. Maura stirred her cold coffee as she waited at the cozy restaurant in Marken, the one with a view of the water. Relief and anger surged through her as she recognized her mother wasn’t coming. She should have gone to her house; she had the address. But coming here had been a first step; maybe it was enough. Cindy was sitting here with her, too, though fainter, as if she were disappearing. Connie Meyer Connie Meyer lives in Maryland with her husband, Alden, and is discovering a passion for writing after 40 years as a management consultant. She is always delighted to have new subscribers and readers of her Substack, Dispatch From Planet Earth | Connie Meyer | Substack. ** Monday Monday, the pound and hiss of mechanical melancholy stamped on their souls, birdsong broken by the clunk, snarl and whirr of the workhouse, there is no music to temper the morning trudge, their heads loll, shoes scrape pavement’s dew and glistening flecks, unseen by them, fling themselves to jewelled joy before the shadow of a sole presses them to dry death, they see nothing, they have left their thoughts resting against the plums on the kitchen table, the ruthless cry of the factory’s klaxon flattens their dreams, a thin, fading line reaching back into the folds of their sheets slackens, sleep evaporates, speech evaporates, what is there to say anyway, who could hear it beneath the iron roar, work calls, weariness calls, lives are lost in could’ves, love is absent in the daily tread, they have been soldered in the steel furnace of fierce demand, their screws loosened in the rusting of desire and the remnants of dreams smothered in the piston’s pounding, the murderous peal of stained bells There is nothing to lift their heads for, the engineer of human souls choked on the cloggy smog from the sky-scratching smokestacks, the relentless black fog, the black fog that suffocates, the black fog that stains, clouds, lungs and hope sour in a soup of blackness, what life is left when sunrise is a siren song for grim smelting release me she calls release me she cries eyes retreat, sunk in hollow despair release me she calls release me she cries the factory gates open Simon Parker Simon Parker is a writer, performer and teacher from London. He is an associate artist of Vocal Point Theatre and runs creative writing and reading groups for the homeless and socially excluded at the 240 Project. Recent poems appear in Litbreak, Cleaver, Prosetrics, The Ekphrastic Review and The Pomegranate London. More at simonparkerwriter.com ** Colleague Is that you I see, or just a memory of me? I hoped to be retired by now gone from here somehow to where the days would cease to blur into a garbled slur of tasks and meal breaks, greetings, sighs I barely recognize But leaving is impossible instead I fade to gray a crafty plan to disappear a cell or two each day My lips and nails and clothing once were bright as yours are now I’d give you energy I spent I’d hoard it for you, cent by cent if only I knew how Julia Denton Julia Denton grew up in Atlanta, Georgia and now lives in northern Virginia. She recently completed her Diploma in Creative Writing at Oxford University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in One Art, Anthophile, the Mid-Atlantic Review, the Alabama Literary Review, and elsewhere. ** The New Girl Her second week and she’s still wearing colour. Shining through wool mill dusk, her lips pout like lingonberries expecting dew. I pale beside her; my skin robbed of sunlight, rubbed thin by fume and steam. I’ll give her one week until the usual smudge-yawn palette drains her. As I work mechanically, I notice her eyes bruising, chemical dust snuffing out vision. Is she dreaming of crisp air whistling tall pines? Artists and poets? Meeting one? I see her mouth shudder as she studies my face and touches her own cheek with an inky-blue hand. Then the winch falters. Helen Freeman Helen Freeman loves poetry and art and living in Edinburgh. She has visited Finland for a niece's beautiful lakeside wedding, but has never worked in a factory. Her instagram page is @chemchemi.hf ** The Ghost of My Younger Self Has Bright Red Lips The ghost of my younger self haunted me last night. Muttering, “Remember when?” and “What about that time?” Reminding me of moments I don’t want dug up. But I know that as long as I keep them buried, ghosts will use them to drag me into nighttime recriminations. And what is it I’ve buried away? The violent husband, the lies about how the bruised cheek happened, again. Or digging even deeper into the grave of my past, the times I drove so drunk I could hardly keep my eyes open, my 11-year-old son in the seat beside me. And deeper still, the feel of the needle pricking my arm, and then the warm rush wrapping me in cotton as the heroin entered my vein. The momentary relief from the battering of the world. And under it all the constant struggle to balance mothering and working and trying to be a writer. Last night I tried again to reassure at least the ghost who wanted to be a writer, “if only there was time.” I reminded her, yes, there was still time, your whole life lay ahead. Still time to end that marriage. Still time to be a good mother, to find love for your one and only pained and aching self. Still time to push past the barriers of fear and doubt. Still time to lay the needle down and pick up the pen. Judith Yarrow Judith Yarrow has been published in two chapbooks and various literary journals over many years, most recently in The Bluebird Word, Meniscus, Raven’s Perch, and Hedgerow. She lives in Seattle, WA. Find more of her work at jyarrow.com. ** Second to my dear friend Liza M. S. They called me the second wife. But in the factory’s spent air there was no first, no second, only repeats. She stood beside me, an earlier version still cooling in the mould. The press was run again until likeness passed for order. I began to see how a face is overwritten how absence arrives already duplicated. We learned not to notice fatigue: days given, shaped, to return thinner. I looked at her and could not tell which of us had been first, only that neither of us was finished. The belt did not pause. His gaze – a stamped instruction calling each of us by a name cut near enough. Our hands kept working after meaning had left them. And when we tried to leave, we did not leave we only moved down the line past him, past us, into the same outline still being made unnamed. Angela Segredaki Angela Segredaki holds a CW degree from Oxford University and loves poetry, flowers, and people. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Blue Unicorn, The Ekphrastic Review, New Lyre, Amsterdam Quarterly, Mouthful of Salt, The Adelaide Literary Magazine, Lighten Up Online, The Dawntreader, Snakeskin, The HyperTexts and elsewhere. She’s currently collaborating with the American Oxonian poet Julia Denton, on a joint poetry collection. ** Fantasies I wish to invent a future, one for you, and for me, to travel amongst the blanket facades and fall into disrepair or, like our glass eyes left wanting to the music, create havoc become an ocean of ideas, trained on one becoming; to wash this world with ink and let it dry in the moon, let everyone in on the secret, and inject passion into their loins, to echo, to sing, to play the fool to the delight of all that exists in the frozen faces in the mirror, and watch it smash into fragments, shimmer as it turns us all into beauty. Zachary Thraves Zachary Thraves is a writer and performer. His poems have been published by Broken Sleep Books, Juste Millieu, Nitrogen House, Asylum Magazine and at Poetry Worth Hearing, as well as contributing to The Ekphrastic Review. His plays have been performed in competitions and festivals across the country; in 2023 he created a one-man fringe show exploring his experience with bi-polar, and in the same year won best actor for portraying Charles Dickens. Zac also co-hosts a podcast. He lives with his partner in East Sussex. Find him on Bluesky @28hary.
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