poetry

Hooked

By

Driving my flatbedover Nebraska back roadswhere marsh land opens uplike an ironed seam.Driving to Merton’s fishing holebeyond the aster and bottle-brushwhere we once spent afternoonsreeling in trout.

Some People

By

Molly Murphy

Some people have been leaving too soon.

Their library books still due,the gas and electric bill waitingin the bills to pay slot.

What Remains

By

John Pidgeon

Where the author’s formulations challenge the reader’s credulity, I have quoted the German original in the notes. Seeing is believing. —Ralph Manheim, translator Mein Kampf

Poetry

A Few Miles Outside Warroad, Several Weeks Before the Fall

By

Christine Holm

Mothers make excuses, hardly doe-eyed but entirely well-meaning.Their daughters aren’t wayward. Simply, they misplace their sensesof direction or heighten their prospects of efficiency.

Poetry

Annunciation

By

Lisa Vihos

When I got to her earthen room,I thought, Oh God, no. Not this one.

Too young, too fragile, for this word-made-flesh deal you’ve got brewing.

Homeless in August

By

Kathleen Dale

The new bed rests where the oldone was, but he will notset paw on its new-smellingsoftness; instead, sticks his nose underthe old rug wadded for trash, sighsfor what still smells like home.

Poetry

Neighbors

By

Jeri McCormick

I felt as if I knew him. I felt as if he knew me. —Young soldier, upon hearing about FDR’s death

Book Review

Tracks on Damp Sand, by Franco Pagnucci

By

Claire Dulgar

As someone who appreciates the writings of Henry David Thoreau, I have tried to imagine what it would be like to experience nature as he did in 19th century America, to have even a modestly similar experience as this: “