Today’s choice
Previous poems
Paula R. Hilton
Eating Apple Pie with Louisa May Alcott
When the genie appears, I’m in a frivolous
mood. First request? My mom’s apple pie.
Genie, exceeding expectations, delivers it
hot. As steam rises from slits in its cinnamon
dusted crust, I cut two slices. One for me.
One for Louisa, my hero. My second wish.
Yes, I tell her. Those are golden delicious
apples. We used to pick them from the orchard
behind our house. The whole forest’s a subdivision
now, but Genie tells me nothing’s impossible
when he’s around. Louisa eats while I ramble.
Would you sign my copy of Little Women?
She marvels at the ballpoint pen I hand her.
I always wanted to be Jo, you know? A writer,
nonconformist— Louisa, clicking the Bic
in her hand, laughs, dismisses: As you wasted
wishes on trivialities—dessert and necromancy,
I’d say you are more of an Amy. I gasp as if
she’s slapped me. Use my last wish to tell
Genie: Take Louisa May Alcott away.
Paula R. Hilton explores the immediacy of memory and how our most important relationships define us. Her work has appeared in The Sunlight Press, ONE ART, Feminine Collective, and elsewhere. She earned an MFA from the University of New Orleans. Website: https://paularhilton.com/
Gabrielle Meadows
I am tearing the peel from an orange gently and somewhere
Far away a tree falls in a forest and we
don’t hear it but the ground does and the birds do
Hongwei Bao
Every five minutes it does its job,
hoovers every inch of her memory,
declutters all pains and sorrows.
Gary Day
And once the father frowned
As the boy struggled to fasten
The drawbridge on his fort.
‘He’ll never be any good
With his hands’ he declared,
As if the boy wasn’t there.
Royal Rhodes
Perhaps the friends of Lazarus, who died
and slipped his shroud, on seeing him might swoon
or rush to hear the tales of that beyond
they hoped and feared to face.
Dmitry Blizniuk for World Poetry Day
God in his worn, greasy jeans like a car mechanic
is lighting a new life from an old one.
Jeff Skinner
It takes ages. Tell me what it is you’re after
she says, when finally I get through.
Annabelle Markwick-Staff
I devoured the Olympics, filled my mouth
and scrapbook with sticky ephemera.
Charles G. Lauder
beneath night’s skin he unearths raw stones
serrated encrusted enigmatic cold
Arlo Kean
we are at a cafe just round
the corner from hampstead
heath & sipping berry sunrise