the not letting me touch him when mummified again
by medicine and its machines. Even when I wrap
him in his favorite blanket, lift his saddled head and lay
it on his home pillow, he doesn’t look at me. He barely moves.
Featured Poetry
Warrior
Inside the Kaleidoscope
by Jane O. Wayne
All it takes is one turn
of the kaleidoscope and the butterfly-world shatters.
Why can’t you learn?
I Hope Your Birthday Is So Beautiful, It Hurts to Look at It
by Josette Akresh-Gonzales
barbeque and a good dog and beer and acres of thigh-high grass
touched by the first draft of evening. A sunlit breeze lunges
across the hay field. We stand around, breathing.
Verge
by William Cordeiro
You walk beside the crick as light is rushing
off. Afterglow molts lavender and saffron.
Each house you pass is built of falling dust.
It Just Goes to Show
by Sylee Gore
Now I know what you’re thinking. In this one you’re the princess; the dragon is faceless. Everywhere, the edges of the waves are blown into froth. I worry so much about making it interesting. Off the ferry, the first thing we buy is a cone of sugared almonds. Crests of waves begin to topple.
Evelyn Nesbit Poses as Bluebeard’s Wives
by Rose DeMaris
My abundant hair, my only wealth, fits so easily
in his fist. I pull the soft stem of his handrolled cigarette
from my lips, which he told me are a pair of petals
Threeple, Tripple
by Kelly R. Samuels
Cumbria: gentle sound made by a quick-flowing stream
The traffic always was just outside the bank of windows
and down and could be heard
more than seen for the trees that spring and early summer.
Absent
by Susanna Lang
I have been missing from this year’s spring.
Witness to the winter aconite and snowdrops, the first daffodils,
but not the tulips or hyacinths.
MAYDAY “Editors’ Choice Award” Interview with Winning Micro Chapbook Author Ja’net Danielo
An interview with the winning Micro Chapbook author Ja’net Danielo on the inspiration and process behind This Body I Have Tried to Write: “With these poems, I very much wanted to convey that illness, disability, loss, and grief are not physical and emotional circumstances that happen to a body but are ever-evolving processes held within the body.”
After 13 Years of Alzheimer’s, My Grandfather Spoke.
by Caleigh Shaw
The next morning, she imagined thousands of blooms the blue Melvin’s work shirts used to be.
