The Living Need a Poem

By Saul Landau The Cold War is over
why aren't we having fun
I have destroyed my internal Timex

The Absence of Unnecessary Hurting

By Gretchen Primack This is the press of the earth. One star hanging
there, honking like a goose. The lake
a smudge of black juice, the hill a draped

By Joseph Ross Hammering on rocks
can break the hammerer's back
when stooped

By Truth Thomas Shayna reads the Word and takes
the story of that first miracle as
serious as unpaid electric bills in
winter

By Lisa L. Moore Word got out about the bad bill.
College students packed up their bikinis,
went back to Austin to tell those men why

By Lillian Allen The boy is broken on the sidewalk
The sidewalk is broken beneath him
His colour is back (not black)

By Jennifer Perrine Under the surface of this winter lake,
I can still hear him say you're on thin ice
now, my heel grabbed, dragged into the opaque

By Theresa Davis honey
you are not being judged
because your bones decided

By Amaranth Borsuk Few things the hand wished language could
do, given up on dialect's downward spiral:
words so readily betray things they're meant

By Michelle Regalado Deatrick When I sweat in a Midwest January
and wish to God it was a hot flash but know
it's greenhouse gasses--read the news: