In Memory of Angela, Enslaved, Who Arrived Before the Mayflower

                        After Theories of Time and Space by Natasha Trethewey

                       

The home we knew is only memory. It repeats

without variation. We are forever young—

 

forever children playing in the yard: giggling, kicking stones,

chasing guineafowl, taking too long to answer mother’s call.

 

Mother is so much older now or in her grave, though

in the home inside you, she is always young and lovely—

 

dark skin glistening in the midday sun as she simmers

peanut stew and the spice-heavy aroma is carried

 

on the wind even across the ocean. If you take a deep breath,

Angela, you can taste the meal she prepared the last day you saw her.

 

Ellen June Wright

Ellen June Wright was born in England of West Indian parents and immigrated to the United States as a child. She taught high-school language arts in New Jersey for three decades before retiring. She has consulted on guides for three PBS poetry series. She was a finalist in the Gulf Stream 2020 summer poetry contest. Her work was selected as The Missouri Review’s Poem of the Week in June 2021, and she received five 2021 Pushcart Prize nominations.

Don’t Be Afraid

Leave behind

            fugitive clothing, rags  that stink of evasion,

            irreconcilable anguish,

            unacknowledged fissures,

            time sliced by nostalgia into frames.

Be close to the edge to know your wound your love,

your end to abide, but not in complaisance.

Do not forget to leave your handprint on a wall.

These are the conditions of possibility.

 

Lynn Staley

Lynn Staley is a Professor of English at Colgate University, where she teaches and writes about medieval and early modern literature and culture. However, she is also a poet and has been for many years. Her poems are representative of her awareness of place (a remnant of a Kentucky upbringing), of the intersections of the ordinary and extraordinary, and of her interest in the submerged narrative. Several years ago a poetry manuscript was short-listed for the Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize given by Kent State University Press. She has published in the Seneca Review, The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, and Psaltery and Lyre.

Where we feast

I have rubber-band hands and

Where I come from everything is

Fingerfood. we break the shape

of rice on our plates and smoke

escapes from the side of our palms.

 

and strip down fishbones naked

when in rain, we churn aubergine

In winters we wed coco-

nuts to jaggery. Later

we stir heartburn – strikes as stiff

 

as cheese fried with tume-

ric. but to chilli we are

subjective. pork is eaten

but outside the home at road

side stalls with sizzling woks to

warm your pockets deep and leave

you smiling in a damp all-

ey, in our evening-old city

 

Sristi Sengupta

Sristi is currently studying toward her Bachelor’s qualification in English Literature and creative writing. She’s had a knack in writing fiction and poetry for years now, her debut novel, The Little Mountain (published with Olympia Publishers, UK) vouches on her interest in Tibetology and secrets of the oriental culture. Sristi works as a Marketing Author to earn a living and aspires to build a career in screenwriting as well. Her style in poetry is very personal and often has references to authors who helped her love for writing survive. Her poems are generally about the pace of life, her childhood, her experiences and emotions and her beloved home city, Kolkata.

Writing

Rub the callus

where the pencil rests

instead of the bare base

of your ring finger. 

When you aren’t feeling

 

so much like yourself, 

what is your relationship

to enough? The sea

 

that gives you sand, the foam

that gives you the spray

 

of algae floating toward river,

salt into a far off fresh?

            Will you let the conches rest

with their oracles gestating

 

or beg they scream

bloody murder? Evenings 

the pencil marks two 

dimensionality like a dog 

 

who sits and laps

at the edge of a mirage

 

called thirst. 

At night the foam builds

without shine. If you don’t 

 

bed a scientist, will you 

never hear that 

 

the existence of the surface is 

more important than what 

the surface contains

 

or your silence? 

 

If dreams weren’t fluid,

            they would answer 

to day. Instead 

they drown it.

 

Amy A. Whitcomb

Poetry and prose by Amy A. Whitcomb have recently appeared in Witness, Poet Lore, The Baltimore Review, Terrain.org, and other journals. She holds a Master of Science degree and a Master of Fine Arts degree, both from the University of Idaho. Her writing has been honored with a Pushcart Prize nomination and residencies with the Jentel Foundation, Playa, and Great Smoky Mountains National Park. You can meet Amy at www.amyawhitcomb.com/artist.

And the sweater you’ve been missing

appears among some clothes you are sorting

 

and the recipe you’d forgotten falls from

the pages of the cookbook you’re perusing

 

and the person who convinced herself

she must hate you for your differences

 

appears in a dream as a character to protect.

And the friendship once abandoned

 

is resumed, though only in spectral form,

in a familiar world you’ve never seen,

 

where garments are only imagined

to fit, and flavors are tasted

 

simply by reading ingredient lists,

but promises to cook it again

 

are never kept because it didn’t

taste that good in the first place.

 

Nancy Whitecar

Nancy Whitecar is a professional pianist and music teacher living in the Bay Area, California, who is making publication of her writing her third act. Her poetry has been published in “Stick Figure,” “Loud Coffee Press,” and “A&U Magazine,” which nominated her poem “Punch Line” for a Pushcart Prize. Her short stories have appeared in “The MacGuffin” and “Ember: A Journal of Luminous Things.” She’s listening to jazz or Beethoven at home when she’s not hiking and camping with her husband.

Tradeoffs

Especially in winter

everyone knows coyotes

are tempted by lapdogs – on leash or off –

as much as by rabbits or mice.

Their wild eyes glow white like stars

in their dark dens. No coyote pup grows up

with Grandma’s yarn Shih Tzu gracing

its duvet.  Or stays cute all its doggy years.

Better make yourself Big. Wave

your arms. Pretend to be wild

to protect little Gizmo who must

pretend to be human for you.

Paula Reed Nancarrow

Paula Reed Nancarrow is a Best of the Net- and Pushcart Prize-nominated poet and winner of the Winter 2020 Sixfold Poetry Prize. Print publications include Sixfold, Artemis and Whistling Shade, with work forthcoming in Permafrost, Paterson Literary Review, The Avalon Literary Review, and Night Picnic. Find links to poems available online at paulareednancarrow.com.

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