Today’s choice
Previous poems
Rongili Biswas
Rosary peas
Girls under the tree,
one with hands clasped as in worship,
the others picking
the scarlet fallen seeds,
so they could string them,
those necklace beads.
They’ve played this game
since sun-up, and even now,
all through this windswept day,
rosary peas fall to their feet,
waiting quietly
to be gathered
and picked and gathered again
for a stringing
that will never end.
Rongili Biswas, a bilingual writer and musician from Kolkata, India, writes across fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Her work, published in journals and magazines internationally, explores memory, observation, and the rhythms of daily life. She has received multiple literary awards.
Laura Sheahen
What is the ancient curse they know that you don’t
Moving along their mouth-lines and their eyebrows
Lowering their lids, tensing their nods or shrugs
Marilyn Ricci
After his baby son died he strapped
a tumble dryer to his back and ran
the roads around the village.
Wendy Clayton
I’m always thinking about how I can find more human beings.
Kate Leah Hewett
Sorry, but I’ve stopped
cleaning the windows.
Winifred Mok
Perhaps it’s because
I look like
I’m just passing through
Col Fleetwood
Unmoored on an ocean of heather
no wind to pluck the strings
of the aeolian harp
Amlanjyoti Goswami
Those night boats are back.
Fishermen string their nets
Counting fresh catch.
Brian Kirk
That was the time you caught
the mumps and I was half
afraid I’d catch it too.
Dawn Sands
Walking home from the lecture on Frankenstein
through the November mizzle, small breaths of exhaust
sighing in the twilight headlights, particles of wet air commingling.