by Sara Backer

Though fluent dancing solo,
I falter with the waltz,
my fingers stiff against
your arm . . . I resist
the slide of polished floor
and swirl of chandeliers
and blur of spinning couples
while you, so close, seem not
to move.
    My feet refuse
to follow this illusion.
I take only small steps.

But perhaps I can learn.
Riding home in your car
through a stampede of trees,
how easily the moon
stays at your side.

Published in The New Press

by Agnieszka Filipek

ubiorę się w kwiaty 
złożone na twym grobie 
serce podpalę 
żarem zniczy 
oczy zasłonię 
wieńcami 
usta wypełnię 
ziemią w której leżysz 

Translation:

REST IN PEACE

I will dress myself in the flowers
laid on your grave
I will set my heart on fire
with the embers of candles
I will blind my eyes
with wreaths
I will fill my mouth
with the earth you lie in

First published in Dodging the Rain

by Sheikha A.

Autumn falls on lids
of summer as brown kohl;
dust sticks to formica – dim
laminates – dreary clouds

not heavy enough to pour,
sun sleeps without sheets,
stars bulge like heat-wombs
ready to expel – air bites

like bugs-scratched land;
necks of trees on blade of axe,
green silky bands of crowns
shorn – barks planked, piled

with their withered parts; dry
weeds irrigate soil’s uterus,
roots stoned like cracked clay;
dusk smudges like mascara-

by Marge Simon

Sonnet to a Stray Cat

You came to me full grown with ocher eyes
To hold me in their thrall this darkest night.
Outside my door you bartered for my light,
Until, distracted by your feline cries,
Persistent yowls disturbing me to rise,
I let you in. Your coat of anthracite,
Warms to my touch, yet vanishes from sight
Into the evening shadows’ compromise.

by Miles T. Ranter

Buddy Rich never diddled a drum any quicker
than the beat of the beak of the big Northern Flicker.
Does his brain hurt? Why, no, thanks to pads in his head
as he pounds on an oak tree that’s pretty well dead.

He’s now rattling a tune. It rises then falls.
“We’re making our nest here,” he says with his calls,
then drums for his mate, each roll lasting a second.
Through his pauses, I ponder (my fancy is fecund):

by DavidKM

If She Knew She Was a Ghost

She’d have walked through more walls,

Spent more time at rock concerts

so loud she fluttered in their breeze,

Hesitated less, danced more,

Cared less about her looks,

Butted in where she wasn’t wanted,

Haunted Big Tony within an inch.

But she’d always have told him no,

Especially that last, terrible time;

When she wasn’t yet a ghost.

253rd Weekly Poetry Contest

by Sheikha A.

There are mountains rising from four-leaf clovers;
that was the dream of seeing my beheading

on a guillotine, and some ethereal proclamation
of having been purified spoke in the soft steps of a tornado

before full motion assault; it was the word shaheed
that was used in the same aghast timbre as one of

a woman prohibited from jihad. Someone
caught my armpits, then declared themselves

on a piece of paper. The only sensation
that prevailed after was a jabbing ache. Ironic how

by Ciarán Parkes

I almost pass it by,
its autumn moon above
damp leaves, its aquiline,
symbol-cratered face.

No sun shining down
through the matted branches
but I feel a shadow lift
looking at the gnomic

inscriptions, the numerals,
the careless, glittering deities
in eternal sunlight, moving
above our half-lit world.

I imagine dappled leaves,
the trees above in blossom
till dampness creeping up
my trousers bring me back

by Sheikha A.

How do I be?

by Miles T. Ranter

Though bit by bit the mullein blossoms wither
and daisy fleabane slowly turns to seed,
white cabbage butterflies still sip the liquor
of clover — skipping, capering, keen to breed.

While sunflowers hang their heads to catch the murmur
of bumblebees, and pumpkins put on weight,
woolly bears, fueled up on summer’s flora,
seek a secret place to hibernate.