Today’s choice
Previous poems
Royal Rhodes
Miles of Memory
The passenger train along the Connecticut shoreline moves as if in a
river of wooden ties and steel rails. It travels through the old
industrial towns like Bridgeport, long ago a manufacturer of brass,
and places settled in New England’s past: Old Saybrook, Groton, and
Mystic. Once I rode north during a quick thunderstorm and witnessed
from the window of a coach car the tangled cables of lightning
attaching the sky to the ground. But mostly my travels were on dry,
calm days when I could look out on sun whitened wetlands and woods,
with occasional glimpses of flocks of boats moored not far from access
to the placid Sound beyond. As I journeyed alone, I saw In the train
window a white stick in the marsh — a rigid egret.
Royal Rhodes is a poet trained in the Classics. His work has appeared in various literary journals in the U.S., the U.K., and Canada. He lives in a village near a nature conservancy and a green cemetery. royalrhodes.com
Rushika Wick
slid in bass-drop dams up
pierced ears, furred
with youth, his vest drinks sweat,
Helen Smith
lunchtime, in the maths department
arranging pencils by colour
two friends, carefully sorting
into clear plastic tubs
Carolyn Oulton
Unexpected as burned stone,
what am I supposed
to do with this memory?
José Buera
Aircon crickets through the night
outside my parents’ bedroom
since brother and I are not allowed AC
given the dangers of cold air to children.
Abraham Aondoana
We did not inherit land,
only remnants of fields they burned—
black fields scorched before we understood
Lorna Rose Gill
Maybe I remember getting brunch;
or the time the dog ate my croissant;
Adam Strickson
He couldn’t play rugby – the oval slithered away
whenever he touched it and he fell in the mud
or more often was pushed with some viciousness.
Leigh-Anne Hallowby
When we first came here two seasons ago
You were barely as high as my hip
Now you can look me right in the eye
It’s almost impossible to believe
Tadhg Carey
When our plaything ricochets
falling
who knows where
everything hinging
on the line