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When protesters lie on the ground

it is called a die-in

and this is the tactic used

by my blue blotch pansies

when I’ve absentmindedly deprived them

of water. Before misting,

I try to pick out the ones

just taking a knee. I know

there must be at least one

who has gotten plenty of water,

in fact, is drunk on it:

thick roots, muscular petals;

the water having pooled

in his little side of the pot. He,

who is not even thirsty,

but lies down anyway

because his neighbors’ suffering is his own.

---

John Wojtowicz grew up working on his family’s azalea and rhododendron nursery and still lives in the backwoods of what Ginsberg dubbed “nowhere Zen New Jersey.” Currently, he teaches social work at Rowan College South Jersey. Recent or forthcoming publications include: Rattle, New Ohio Review, Sonora Review, and The Ekphrastic Review. He is the author of the chapbook, Roadside Attractions: a Poetic Guide to American Oddities. Find out more at: www.johnwojtowicz.com.

 

Chester Avenue, Southwest Philadelphia, early 1960s

 

As on a children’s show,

the green-and-cream trolley

with wide windows for eyes,

an emblem above the headlight

like a little mustache,

would come into view—

its doors hissing open, then closed

before it went hiccupping

over the cobblestone tracks.

 

And down the back alley

past Rusty the Boxer

and Bunky the Beagle,

stirred up along the hairpin fences,

the songs of hucksters

carrying splintered baskets

of freestone peaches

and Jersey tomatoes;

the neighborly chatter

of clothes on the lines.

 

And the characters we’d meet

along the avenue:

Alex the shoe shiner

and John the milkman;

palsied Mr. Packer

with his handcart of Schmidt’s.

The older boys, who with sycamore pods

they gathered from the curbs

to chalk their lessons—

scrawled in cursive

on the slates of our necks.

---

Joseph Chelius is the author of two collections of poems with WordTech Communications: The Art of Acquiescence.

 

I see whiteness, lightness; is it righteousness?

I feel invisible, a little miserable.

Few Black women, more Black men.

White women and men and dogs galore.

I abhor the fact, the lack of colorful faces

in places where there used to be more.

The city is nicer on the surface,

but to what purpose? Who for?

The scene is pretty but lacks an underscore.

Sore, sore, sore of a space. Sore of a place.

Bandaged to heal, but when you peel—rip—it off

a scar covers up what was unsure.

And you can’t always remember the original lore.

---

Shaleia Rogers-Lee is an emerging poet. She grew up in Delaware County and currently lives in Philadelphia. She writes about Philadelphia, women’s experiences, being Black in America, fairy tales, and anything she wants to explore. Shaleia has an MA in Writing Studies and a BA in English.

 

The world of direct marketing

is a medium reaching out to you,

dearly departed first wife.

Three decades since our divorce

and as many changes of address,

Progressive still wants you to know

you can save when you bundle your insurance.

No tarot cards, no crystal ball, just an algorithm

that believes we’re still together,

that believes you’re still alive.

One flier seems to say

Give us a sign. Show us

you’re interested in Viking cruises.

And now, eight months since you died,

in the inbox of a seldom used email,

they want to know, dear dead one,

who you plan to vote for in the fall.

Of course, you never left me,

haunted me long before you actually died,

but I’m the only one who should know

you’re there in the guilty way I go on breathing,

the way I venerate the only photo of you I kept

like an icon of a long lost saint.

Now, Facebook necromantically

conjures your picture, tells me

you’re someone I might know.

The veil is thin in cyberspace.

I click on your image, make you my friend.

A friend is better than a ghost.

Isn’t it? Give me a sign.

---

R. G. Evans is a New Jersey-based poet, writer, and songwriter. His books include Overtipping the Ferryman, The Holy Both, and Imagine Sisyphus Happy. His albums of original songs, Sweet Old Life and Kid Yesterday Calling Tomorrow Man, are available on most streaming sites.

 

Allegheny hills flatten on ascent

carlights below I press my nose against

airplane glass as we bank I think the hillsides

rise just a bit just like breath before I left

Dad filled my washer fluid, Armor-alled the dash

I didn’t ask for Windex blue he is a man of few words

and many solvents. I packed last items glitter dress

satin heels he cleared snow off my windshield

started the ignition but listen: this is what a father does

he scrapes, wind blows because he hasn’t let her go

just yet she will live across the state and trace a path

engine ever humming bootbrush hills winter ever coming

leaving home it’s sunny second time this year

but the turnpike route, the windshield–both are clear.

---

Jessica Whipple writes for adults and children. She published two children’s picture books in 2023: Enough Is… (Tilbury House, illus. by Nicole Wong) and I Think I Think a Lot (Free Spirit Publishing, illus. by Josée Bisaillon). Her poetry has been published recently in Funicular, ONE ART, Pine Hills Review, and Identity Theory. Jessica’s poem “Broken Strings” (appearing in Door Is a Jar) received a Best of the Net and a Pushcart nomination. You can find her on Twitter/X @JessicaWhippl17.

 

My father doesn’t believe in God the way he thinks he should. There will always be barriers between the holy and the tangible, and today, it’s Big Bang vs Genesis. I think this world will never have the answers for bare feet on the water’s surface. But still, he is suffering, too. My mother believes the moonlit garden where we were born is pure. My father sees the other half. God is not limited to beauty; the world he built is far from perfection. It is blossoming with faith thin as the broken breath between sips of coffee gone cold. Tension tethers to our living room gilded by dawn. My father

my mother believes, but when he sees her, stained glass and baptismal waters shifting between what is known and what is felt, he feels obligated to choose. Worries that resurrection, water deepening to wine, and sin cannot be explained. If God is salvation, he is Monet’s lily pads, each lotus sunset, and the earth we are buried in. For her, this answers everything, creates all. But divinity encompasses heartbreak, hatred, death, ignorance and childhood leukemia and trigger fingers. My father rests, takes my mother’s hands, and silence swaths doubts. Much like God asks, though, he

believes in being good, no matter what follows death. I’m not sure there’s a difference.

---

Annabelle Smith is a student at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, PA. She has received national recognition for her work in poetry from Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. More of her work can be found in Spotlong Review, Potomac Review, Black Coffee Review, and other journals.

 

As long as I’m alive, who can say I wouldn’t be coerced into using it again? – Dr. Serizawa (Gojira, 1954)

 

Brackish water detonates, stickleback failing

to squirm from the kingfisher’s bill.

 

Swept into the branches, what remains:

smash the spine, suck bladder from bone.

 

Pistol-mouthed sun edging the lips

of the river. Last night, I fired

 

upright in bed, struck by a moonbeam of panic:

Twelve years on, you’ve somehow escaped,

 

survived by a stream of electrons,

mourning notes, your candle’s animation

 

frozen on my laptop’s open window.

I almost titled this Open Window

 

to bear witness to not just your death

but the power of air, the advantage of height,

 

the threshold you once threatened

for my murder. Still your tremors

 

haul me, flailing on my side

in your mouth, from the boiling surface,

 

each eye fixed on its own dimension,

talon and water and sky. Here, the air

 

I can’t respire. The delta shrugs, pulls again

its body to its neck, forgets the waves,

 

the trace scales floating. Sleeps.

Surely you are not the last lizard

 

to crawl from this ocean.

If we keep testing this weapon,

 

you may yet rise again. If our atoms touch,

our bodies will explode.

---

Dan Schall is a poet and teacher based in Pennsylvania. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Willows Wept Review, Anthropocene Literary Journal, Arboreal Literary Magazine, Merion West, Cartridge Lit, Thimble Literary Magazine, The Shore, The Light Ekphrastic, Right Hand Pointing and many other journals.

 

Graves warehouse

immortality like a bank

stores bullion. Yet,

if the need arises,

a defunct cemetery

may wish to break

open the marble assets

deposited to its care

by evicting a few

unaccounted bodies

and auctioning off

its surplus headstones,

now repurposed as rip rap

for the Betsy Ross.

At low tide, when

the velvet waters

draw back you

can see the markers

stacked around

the bridge piers like art

displayed in a rich

man’s parlor, names

and dates showing

on their banknote

faces. They have ages

left, standing security

for capital improvement

in perpetual care, though

not as was intended.

---

Chris Bullard is a retired judge who lives in Philadelphia. In 2022, Main Street Rag published his chapbook, Florida Man, and Moonstone Press published his chapbook, The Rainclouds of y. Finishing Line Press has accepted his chapbook, Lungs, for publication in 2024. He was nominated this year for the Pushcart Prize.

 

You suck at striper fishing

declares a bumper sticker on a Toyota Tacoma.

 

I speed up to see the purveyor

of this, in my case,

truthful claim,

expecting a Duck Dynasty

character in camo jacket

and traffic-cone-colored beanie

but, instead,

find a young guy

in a vibrant silk button-up

which I quickly assess

isn’t a Reyn Spooner

or Tommy Bahama.

Maybe a Coogi relic from the 90s.

 

When he notices me,

I smile in a way

that is meant to communicate

but likely does not

that even if this isn’t his truck

and he also sucks

at catching striper, he is good

at catching people.

 

He nods

and releases me back onto the Schuylkill.

---

John Wojtowicz grew up working on his family’s azalea and rhododendron nursery and still lives in the backwoods of what Ginsberg dubbed “nowhere Zen New Jersey.” Currently, he teaches social work at Rowan College South Jersey. Recent or forthcoming publications include: Rattle, New Ohio Review, Sonora Review, and The Ekphrastic Review. He is the author of the chapbook, Roadside Attractions: a Poetic Guide to American Oddities. Find out more at: www.johnwojtowicz.com.