Friday, July 10. 2026: Rose Mary Boehm's "The Woman Who Wouldn't Take a Lover"

The Woman Who Won’t Take a Lover

The afternoon slowly trickles between

her spread fingers, over her forehead,

into her closed eyes. She lets herself sink

to the floor, onto her knees.

Hard wood, splinters, rusty nails

mark her flesh.

 

An insect buzzes, thuds against

the dirty windowpane.

Today she feels equally

trapped.  No wings or vision.

Dust motes settle.

She is still.

Head bent.

 

From the park children’s summer voices.

A goldfinch in the nearby pine.

The clock’s pendulum’s familiar rhythm.

 

Nothing has her attention

except the swelling of her lust.

Barbed wire cuts into her upper thigh.

A drop of blood congeals.

© Rose Mary Boehm

(First published by POETRY QUARTERLY in 2023)

Rose Mary Boehm is a German-born British national living and writing in Lima, Peru. Author of two novels, short stories, eight poetry collections and one chapbook, her poetry has been published widely in mostly US poetry reviews (online and print). She is a several times ‘Pushcart’ and a ‘Best of Net’ nominee. All her recent books are available on Amazon. The new chapbook, ‘The Matter of Words’, was published in June 2025, and a new full-length collection has been slated for publishing in 2027. https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/

Friday, June 26, 2026: Jeanie Greensfelder’s "The Backward Glance"

 The Backward Glance

I look back at myself climbing the nine mile

Bright Angel trail out of the Grand Canyon:

Halfway, she runs out of water, and must

panhandle sips from passing hikers,

then pours trickles over her hot head.

I love this woman who never hiked,

who practiced for months, who learned

she could helicopter out only if she broke

her leg, who learned too late she could

have sent her belongings on a mule.

She lightened her load carrying less water,

causing problems for herself and friend.

I love that woman with all her foibles

I reach for her, want to hold her,

but, like Eurydice, she’s gone.

 

© Jeanie Greensfelder

Bio: Jeanie Greensfelder’s poems have been published at American Life in Poetry, Writer’s Almanac, and as a Poetry Foundation Poem of the Day; in anthologies: Paris, Etc., Pushing the Envelope: Epistolary Poems; in journals: Miramar, Thema, Askew, Persimmon Tree, and others. She served as San Luis Obispo County poet laureate, 2017,18. A Pushcart nominee, Jeanie’s books are: Biting the Apple, Marriage and Other Leaps of Faith, I Got What I Came For, and Time Traveler.   jeaniegreensfelder.com

Friday, June 12, 2026: A.J. Huffman's "Guidelines for Confusion" and "Eternity is Breathing"

 

Guidelines for Confusion

The warnings at the edge of time’s cliff

fly like arrows—whoosh whoosh—

pierce heats still searching for purpose.

the valves close in sequential stutter—

click murmur snap—sounds never mistaken

for anything exotic. Ears touched by proxy

listen for comfort, learn nothing

but the normal distribution of air.

                                                           Butterfly Nebula/NASA

Eternity is Breathing

against our bodies as we dance,

naked, under stars that look too much

like a cross we could easily hang from.

The wind shudders for us as we refuse

to open our eyes, preferring the ringing

of this darkness that lingers like a scream.

We call this frequency a failure of decency

as our skins resonate. Our weakness

is off key.

© A.J. Huffman

A.J. Huffman is a poet and freelance writer in Daytona Beach, Florida. She has

published 27 collections and chapbooks of poetry. In addition, she has published her

work in numerous national and international literary journals.

Friday, May 29, 2026: Ann Tweedy's "By the river"

 By the river,

hanging my camera on the plank

of an Adirondack chair. Wading in the cold

flow–shallow, bed of smooth rocks,

slippery and hard on the soles of my feet.

Turning out of the water to a sheltered pool–tiny fish

swimming there. Almost like tadpoles but so small.

A centimeter to an inch.

Squatting by clumps of grass that formed

the pool’s barrier and staring in. Getting up, a sense of someone

watching me from behind--at the river shore. I turn and

a surprised woodchuck, large and beaver-like but with a thin tail, stares back.

It kept its eyes locked with mine as it moved

haltingly upland. Meanwhile I inched toward my camera,

keeping myself in our eye-lock.

As I got close, my toe stubbed hard on the wood chair,

the small one next to the pinky. I felt the stab but mostly was glad

to be within reach of the camera--grabbed it and proceeded

to snap. The woodchuck’s serious and cautious gaze

caught in my aperture, face with its mix of brown and black.

The rounded oval back. Alert squirrel stance.

When it was over, the woodchuck up in the grass and trees,

beyond my sight path, I noticed that my toe was blooming purple,

felt the pain it took to walk. Picture-replay revealed my camera

had been accidentally set to “effects”–photos

a mash of painting and cartoon, contrasts in color

overdone, too much black at the muzzle, the intelligence of the eyes

lost. Scathed by eagerness but left

with fascination. Those moments

looking into its eyes, the lens

our mediator, rivet my days.

 © Ann Tweedy

Ann Tweedy’s first full-length book, The Body’s Alphabet (Headmistress Press), earned a Bisexual Book Award and was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award. Ann also has published three chapbooks: Beleaguered Oases (2 nd ed. Seven Kitchens), White Out (Green Fuse Poetic Arts), and A Registry of Survival (Last Word Press). Her poems have appeared in Rattle, Literary Mama, Naugatuck River Review, and many other places, and she has been nominated for three Pushcart Prizes and five Best of the Net Awards. A law professor by day, Ann has devoted her career to serving Native Tribes. She recently left the University of South Dakota School of Law for a position at University of Mississippi School of Law. Read more at

www.anntweedy.com.

Friday, May 15, 2026: Cynthia Linville's "Scrapbook"

 Scrapbook

She sees sunlight, so quiet

she can almost hear the dust.

Heat wears away the edges,

in life, in photographs.

These memories are old

like someone else’s shoes –

rigid where they should bend

pliant where they should be tough.

She didn’t know how much she wanted

until she felt ready to jump in.

By then the zeotrope had blurred –

scenes spun past too fast.

Now she sees how quickly opportunities collapse.

To want one thing is

to want a thousand things.

The real trick is to want today’s offerings.

She places the book back up

on its high dusty shelf

slips on her shoes and gloves

and steps out to tend her roses.

© Cynthia Linville

Bio: Cynthia Linville’s work has appeared in many publications and several anthologies. Her two books of collected poems, The Lost Thing and Out of Reach, were published by Cold River Press. Her poems have been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes and two Best of the Net awards. Linville has received three mini-grants from Poets & Writers to perform in collaboration with musicians. She invented a poetic form dubbed the Linvillanelle which can be viewed here:

https://webpages.csus.edu/~sac16141/TheLinvillanelle.pdf

Cynthia is also a photographer whose work has appeared in People's Tribune, Sacramento News & Review, Capital Public Radio website, WTF, and more. You can see more of her work at CynthiaLinville.com.

Friday, May 1, 2026: Lynne Bronstein's "Tangelo Winter"

Tangelo Winter

There are still tangelos on the tree, at this late date in February. Some soft large

ones have fallen on the ground; some that are high in the tree will be eaten by

racoons. I have gathered many of these fruits, pale and deep orange, some easy to

peel, some with few seeds, and some so seedy they might as well be cheremoyas. I

am thankful for the free fruit and for the mixture of sun and rain that brought on

such a rich harvest this year. It may be the most memorable thing about this winter,

which has been full of turbulence in the world, and which has brought some sorrow

to this house. I longed for treats with no trouble, fruit that was sweet with no

annoying seeds, even as I knew that the knobby seeds, like the more annoying and

painful aspects of life, are what bring on another season of fruit for us to eventually

enjoy.

Tangelo winter

Ripe rich fruit for the picking

Reward not asked for.

© Lynne Bronstein

Bio: Lynne Bronstein is the author of Nasty Girls (Four Feathers Press) and four

other books of poetry. She has been published in magazines ranging from Playgirl

to Chiron Review, from Lummox to anthologies in England, Ireland, Israel,

Canada, and India. Her short fiction has appeared in magazines and anthologies

and has been read on National Public Radio. She also writes a column on Facebook

and Substack called Show Biz Cats.

Friday, April 17, 2026: Three Works of Art by Lorraine Caputo

 

                                                         "Calingasta"

                                                      "Noche de otoño"

                                               "Star in the Palm"

© Lorraine Caputo

Wandering troubadour Lorraine Caputo is a documentary poet, translator and travel writer. Her works appear internationally in over 500 journals and 24 collections of poetry – including Orinoco Plains (dancing girl press, 2025) and Santa Marta Ayres (Origami Poems Project, 2024). She also authors travel narratives, articles and guidebooks. She is a Parliamentary Poet Laureate of Canada honoree (2011), and Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominee. Caputo has done literary readings from Alaska to the Patagonia. She journeys through Latin America with her faithful knapsack Rocinante, listening to the voices of the pueblos and Earth.

Friday, April 10, 2026: Marjorie R. Becker's "Retain the Light"

 

Retain the Light

And it is song toward gemstones,

gemstones wild with heat and their prolong

as song remembers kinds of kindness we the Lavenders

and all the other sighing, shyest women winking,

blinking off the cruel travails of plunder near

the central sudden sea of being where

we as singers claim, maintain, retain

the light of harbor hope and home for those alone

until we sing and bring about

the bluest, azure helpful sky to sigh the light,

reply by night and dawn.

© Marjorie Becker

Bio: “I am a Macon, Georgia native, a professor of history and English at USC. I am fortunate enough to be the author of eight books, three of which are poetry collections, including The Macon Sex School: Songs of Tenderness and Resistance.  My poetry and critical theory have been widely published, and I am one of the founding members of the Venice Poetry Collective.”

Friday, April 3, 2026: Cindy Weinstein's "Empty Hands" and "The Tower"

Empty Hands

I am haunted by the ghost of my living son.

I am mourning the loss of my child not yet passed.

Somewhere, somehow, deep in the web of city streets

his body of flesh goes on,

carrying the spark of who he once was…

who he might have been.

There has been no memorial to remember.

No one to speak of his loving sweetness,

his kindness,

his generosity,

his open heart.

There are no loved ones gathered around.

No condolences, no words of sympathy.

There is no grave to visit,

no stone,

no urn,

no candle to light.

There is only

my empty hands,

finally letting him go.

© Cindy Weinstein

© marie c lecrivain

The Tower

Someone ripped holes in all the metaphors

and now the artists have nothing to paint but

the naked truth.

Someone tore apart all the dreams

And now the prophets have no heaven,

Only stark reality.

The sidewalk is cracked.

The stairs are broken.

The roof is leaking.

The rats are eating the crumbs in the cupboard.

We’;re banging on pots and pans

In the kitchen.

We’re shooting off M80s

On the concrete

In the desert.

We’;re making an unholy racket.

The cacophony is a continuous thread.

Screams of the mother.

Cries of the babe.

Moans at the climax.

Wails at the abyss.

Whimpers in the dark.

Shrieks in the flame.

Howls in the air when the white bones fall.

The metaphors cannot be sewn back together.

The dreams will never be rewoven.

The sidewalk is cracked.

The mother screams.

The stairs collapsed.

The babe is wailing.

At the crash of the climax the rain pours in.

The rats are eating the bones at the bottom of the abyss.

So now the artist paints without guile, while

The prophet dances in the corner bar

To the clanging of pots and pans.

In the holes in the metaphors

In the space between life and dream,

In the heartbeat under all the voices

In the heart beat

Under the heart beat

Under the heart beat

is truth

is reality

is love.

© Cindy Weinstein

Cindy was born and raised in upstate NY. After college she moved to Washington DC where she established her career, her art, and her family. She came to Los Angeles in 1993 with her two young children and stayed until she immigrated to the desert of Joshua Tree in 2017. She has been writing, reading and performing her poetry off and on since she was 17. She has been published in a number of Los Angeles anthologies including Poetic Diversity as well as in Cholla Needles and the Joshua Tree Voice.