Nick McGaughey

      Slow Worm And here you are slid from the rain under my door, “s” -ing along the cool checks in the hallway. I’ve had slugs silvering the skirting, a hissing squirrel cornered by the stove, even a mouse that made his den next to the cat food… but...

B. Anne Adriaens

      Fancy etymology for a vacant lot The French term terrain vague enfolds a plot of land I thought at first was vague, undefined and malleable. As a noun, this vague echoes on the edge of its meaning: perhaps a patch of earth evoking a wave, capable...

John Bartlett

      sclerenchyma mornings I wake wary of abundance wondering why I’m still here and then I recall all the green leaves with their hiding birds and the slow triumph of ripening pods here lily stalks move like living things for this is what they are...

Maya Little

      Longing golden shovel after Czesław Miłosz I’m trying to stop thinking about what I want to not // be. Sometimes I have looked into my heart and found that // everything’s packed up. The space so unassuming that I // catch myself thinking, where...

Liz Byrne

      I want to be two-tongued again To go back to the time when I slipped from one language to another with ease, when I knew the contours of my Irish home. To stand with Dad by the window, chat in the room of our own tongue about my day, my dreams. I...