By Sara Bowman

Told him
I liked the way
he looked at me
when I looked away

Could feel
in my periphery,
some puzzling touch of
eyes passing over,

an admiration?
an undressing?
maybe no matter.

maybe simple study
of cheekbone and lips
of curls and eyelashes,

maybe crunching the numbers
of some hidden equation,
deciding
if
I add up.

a smile twists
and arms unfold

unfounded
ungrounded
like
stepping into traffic
without looking,
Fall in.

maybe it was
only the moon
but no matter.
  I didn’t mind him
kneeling at my feet.
was a kindness to
    the Earth to touch
his knees, and She
  would tell me the difference
between worshipped and
  walked on,
      really just a subtle shift
In position, really,
and She has never lied to me.

Let us pray.

now seems maybe
my math is too much.

alpha to omega,
beginning to end, maybe
running superficial like
the cephalic vein,
that is, traveling arm to heart,
directly fragile and
close to the skin,
vulnerable and un-

hidden

so ready to be bloodied
by a punch of life —–
I am
a sliced live wire

begging for
rain!
cut me loose
or be electrocuted
by my disarray

I told him anyway

I liked the way
he looked at me.
made me forget
forgotten things
for whatever it’s worth
whatever that means.

By Elynn Alexander

You are out there
But I refuse to have my face
About me. I have left my eyes on ice.
Back. At that palace.

They have a name for you there.
And a room. Number twenty two.
This is information
I will not use.

But I say it matters
That they see you. 
So I push to make this so. 

So when they ask. (As they will ask)
I can describe you

And I do: Standing there,
Holding up this bound. Bold biography.
Flapping pages in the air
I make birds of you.
I wave a thin, painted face, paper. A page.
I clutch a pile of your hair.
I present in three directions:
I say, “Look. Evidence. Behold.”

Then I shake you until you scatter
I draw you.
And I erase you.
Getting all of them right
Until none of them are you.

But I say, “Look at what I hold here.”
From this idea. From how now,
I choose
To say I’ve made you up
When they’ve all, one by one, become convinced 
of you.

They say that you are in there, 
Room twenty two
But this is information
They will never use

Elynn Alexander co-hosts Tuesday Muse, a monthly performance series and open mic, with Cleveland Wall at the Ice House in Bethlehem. She is the author of “The Shouldspeak Disease” from Naked Bulb Press, poetry that explores the language of shaming. She is the founder of the collective resource Lehigh Valley Poetry, at www.lehighvalleypoetry.org.

By Darrell Parry

Dare to show another
the cracks in your glass,
knowing that person might
have a baseball bat
hidden behind his back.

If you do it often enough
you might find someone
who appreciates the intricacies
of your spider web pattern.
Someone who finds it beautiful.

Dare to show another
the cracks in your glass,
knowing that person might
toss stones in the gale
that howls all around you.

It is the only way
to find the one
who will stand 
in just the right place
to shield you 
from the storms.

Darrell Parry is a writer, artist and open mic organizer from Easton, Pennsylvania. He works in higher education, not a professor, but as one of those reviled paddlers of unaffordable textbooks.

By Nancy Scott

I've always wanted snowflakes
to hold in my hands;
to examine at my leisure.
They hit my face fluffy or stinging--
frisson of fairyland

I may have snowballs and snowdrifts,
but snowflakes elude
to water on cheeks and fingers
that no tongue can catch;
that flicker near an eye-blink.

But now you bring me crystals to explore.
I hold them and know of snowflakes.
Jagged, smooth, triangles, not-quite-squares. 
They let me have my fingers' fill of them.
I, too, may have my snowflakes. 

Nancy Scott's over 850 essays and poems have appeared in magazines, literary journals, anthologies, newspapers, and as audio commentaries. Her latest chapbook appears on Amazon, The Almost Abecedarian. She won First Prize in the 2009 International Onkyo Braille Essay Contest. Recent work appears in Black Fox Literary Magazine, Braille Forum, Chrysanthemum, Kaleidoscope, One Sentence Poems, Shark Reef, Wordgathering, and The Mighty, which regularly publishes to Yahoo News.

By Florence Susanne

We’re not in love,

But I feel as though we have been once before.
I don’t believe in fate, but could it be that we fell for each other in another life.
We could have held hands and watched as the Western Roman Empire fell.
My fingers possibly traced the veins on your arms while we lay in bed, unaware of the tragedy that would have fallen upon Pompeii.
I can remember how they look now, even as my eyes are closed.
Flowing under your skin almost in a wavy parallel, not unlike the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
Maybe we lived in ancient Mesopotamia. 
You’re soft, and I know you’re new, but your breath tastes familiar.
As if I’ve had it in my mouth before.
Almost like our tongues are old friends, finally reuniting under the same roof.
My fingers burrowing into your hair, diving into the silky chestnut pools that almost made me remember a time where we decided to row down the Mississippi. You’re new to me but you remind me of a song I heard once in between the static that buzzes between radio stations. 

A song that brought back a feeling of us dancing in our dusty living room. 

And no, I do not love you…yet.

But I feel like I have before. 

Let’s re-make history.

Florence Susanne, aged 22, mother of two beautiful boys! Located in the Lehigh valley area and my book Love, Lust, and Misery is available for purchase!

By Michael Daigle

Thunder rumbles like distant gun fire,
The echoes of endless battle.
The statues all have swords,
Huzzahs not to sacrifices, but to campaigns for glory forgotten.
Let the metal rust and the stone melt.
Remember the faces and tears,
Not the cries, nor the gloating words of conflict.
Let love be as fierce as war.

Dry rivers mark deserts, hunger descends to hollow eyes;
Cries of pain cannot penetrate the smiling evil of power.
Dry bones nestled in soft sand for others to find,
The poetry of need crushed by the metal wall of self.

A broken heart sighs behind a smiling face.
What splinters of your dreams are mine?
An old woman’s shaky letters cry for life and love,
Words full of times and weariness, rest that has not come.

Hate is easy, blame easier still;
And easier yet it is to let the past poison.

Pray the rains come and dissolve the walls
Pray tears soften to forgiveness.
Pray that soft words balm the wound that festers still.
Pray the sunlight cracks the hardness.
Pray that silence stirs to sound, that stasis turns to motion.
Pray we step from the porch hands held, voices raised
Pray love is aroused to wake the gray day,
To end a thousand years of drought.

Michael Stephen Daigle is a writer and journalist who lives in Phillipsburg, N.J. He is the author of the award-winning Frank Nagler Mystery series, published by Imzadi Publishing, LLC of Tulsa, Okla.: “The Swamps of Jersey,” 2014; the sequel, “A Game Called Dead,” 2016; “The Weight of Living”, 2017; “The Red Hand,” 2019.

By Magdalena Mateo

The first rays of sunshine glitter against the mopped floor
A slight spring breeze pushes through the window
Drips of coffee echo in the kitchen

But I don’t even drink coffee
It sits dark inside the hand painted ceramic mug
The French vanilla creamer just inches away
The stolen Splenda packets leaning against the container

But I don’t even drink coffee
This is the way he liked it
He made it a point to wake up early
So he could take his time and enjoy every sip

I don’t even drink coffee
But this is the only way I feel close to him anymore

I’ll reach the bottom of the vodka bottle later

By Cleveland Wall

First snow, no dog.
First dog I ever loved
died Tuesday morning.
I had to go to work anyhow,
stuff the hard lump of sad
into a tight compartment
behind the file vaults.
No dogs allowed. My dog
was a past master at all
the doggy pursuits—the bunny chase,
the bacon snarfle, the nuzzling into
the exact center of the tent.
And first snow
was never old hat; no,
it was miraculous every single time.
Late morning
someone sneezed and it sounded
like a dog barking.
And again. It couldn’t be,
but I had to ask:
Is there a dog here?
No. There is no dog.
Only snow.

Cleveland Wall is a poet, editor, and teaching artist in Bethlehem, PA. She is one half of the poetry/guitar duo The Starry Eyes, a founding member of the poetry improv group No River Twice, and cohost of Tuesday Muse, a monthly performance series. Her first book, Let X=X, is available from Kelsay Books.