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I point 6-year-old Joey’s attention to the lime-green

baby caterpillar curling itself along the sidewalk

in front of our homes, and before I take a second breath,

he lifts his miniature Nike and stamps the poor thing to goo,

 

spreads it from the bottom of his shoe to the curb, scraping

and scraping it away like Lady MacBeth unable to stop

washing her hands. But without her guilt. My horror is visceral

—it’s all I can do not to glare at him like a school marm

 

shaking a long finger. Then I recall summer nights

long ago—gaggles of kids on the block—allowed

to run free till parents called us in for baths. How many

fireflies we caught those nights, dropping them into glass jars,

 

holes poked by the boys with an ice pick into the tin lids.

They were the lucky ones. Others we stripped of their

tiny lamps, lined them around our fingers—brilliant rings

turning us into lords and ladies, queens and kings.

Bernadette McBride, author of two poetry collections, is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, was a second-place winner of the international Ray Bradbury Writing Award, and a finalist for the Robert Fraser Poetry Prize. Her poems have appeared in the UK, numerous U.S. journals, and on PRIs The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor. She is poetry co-editor for the Schuylkill Valley Journal and was the 2009 Bucks County Poet Laureate.

I am afraid

of noises miles away.

It’s like presence in a room

filled with

   jazz

   claps

   bangs

all active at once—

fifty people talk in chorus.

Simultaneous listen

makes my tasks impossible

and activation of the switch

switches on the panic trigger.

The whisper approaches

from the room downstairs

   smells

             lights

             vibrations

 

pseudo- sounds mask the

noticeable sound—phone

rings but just an air

conditioner. The worst sound

I hold is the continuous beeps

behind cacophony.

 

It’s just noise domination

with more noise elevation

embodied in the rebel

that lives deep in—

side my head.

I guess I can’t

be a firefighter

anymore.

Aminah Abutayeb is a full-time MFA candidate at Fairleigh Dickinson University concentrating on poetry. She is an Assistant Editor at The Literary Review and currently works at the Writing Center in William Paterson University. Her poem is forthcoming in Common Ground Review.  She lives in Northern New Jersey.

We forgot to water, we forgot to open the flue, so the living room quickly filled

with clouds, smoky gray, a locomotive engine had taken a wrong turn,

ending up against your parents’ figurines, gold frame caught in mid-undulation, draping over

the fireplace mirror,  bubbling milky-blue paint and the bar wheeled in for special occasions.

Sliding open to be washed by winter, we had years of thirsty African Violets, not dead yet.

 

I found you prone with a tiny angel, your hands folded to hold it.

Blue angels climbed to the top of flagpoles posing in mid-flight

reigning over that spring day 19 years before when there were orange-robed singing monks,

and smoke-damage was covered in grape vines painted,  roaming the room.

Sliding open to be washed by winter, we had years of thirsty African Violets, not dead yet.

 

Violet-themed bedclothes, lavender bath rug, the flowered towels, thick enough

to grab fistfuls, digging my nails into my numb palms, your dead ones already cool to the

touch.  Wading into wailing, all the while, picturing you up in blue and purple and orange

sliding open to be washed by winter, we had years of thirsty African Violets, not dead yet.

Julia Blumenreich is a poet and finishing her 19th year of teaching 4th grade at Germantown Academy in Fort Washington, PA.. A recipient of a Pennsylvania Arts Council grant for her poetry, she has read her work in various venues including the University of Pennsylvania, Brown University, and Muse House in Philadelphia. In 2012, she collaborated with the visual artist, Wendy Osterweil, on ‘Reforesting: An Homage to Gil Ott’ a poetry/ sculptural installation/print show at The Painted Bride Art Center. Four of her poems have been set to music composed by Kyle Smith and were performed as part of “Lyric Fest” in 2014. She’s published two chapbooks: Meeting Tessie (Singing Horse Press) and Artificial Memory (Leave Books) and has completed a poetry manuscript called “So You Wonder.”

I’m sitting here ankle deep in the brown blues of this creek,

hoping the slim oak board bridge we made doesn’t break.

Yoda is completely absorbed by the colors in the water

near the gray rocks a few yards ahead of me. His chocolate fur

always seems clean even after his usual afternoon dirt bath.

My mom told us to stay up on my yard away from the evergreens

where our small bodies always get lost in this forest between

our houses. The green of the trees touching the grays in the sky

and I hope you snuck out the back window

climbing over trash cans and those scratchy bushes.

The afternoon settles into night and I finally see your flashlight

through thick branches and can almost spot your orange Converses. You rush

and dip your feet in, bringing bug spray and pizza pockets,

and we pop out the tape-deck with my homemade radio recordings.

Next year we’ll be able to drive and our late nights will extend

to Taco Bell runs and Evanescence on a car stereo

instead of these shared headphones. Yoda’s shaggy mane

is tough and gnarled with mud and I soak up the earth and sounds and you

my best friend Amber, not hearing the rumble of my mother’s voice

beneath the sudden hard dropping of rain

 

Dorina Pena graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with her B.A. in English Writing: Poetry in 2008. She got her M.F.A at Carlow University in Creative Writing Poetry in 2011. She has a chapbook published titled Family Tree by Monkeyman Press and she has individual poems published in Voices in the Attic anthologies and the Pittsburgh City Paper, as well as the journal Girls with Glasses. She is currently sending out her full length manuscript Masking White and her second chapbook Black History. She resides in Philadelphia, PA with her husband.

The soul of the world sings in blue, sapphire

Midnight cerulean stone periwinkle Aegean

Egyptian steel, shadow shimmer, silver glint,

Flow tide breeze and sun, musics of smooth

Chaos soft violence restlessness dissolution

Concord mystery beauty revelation change,

My blood singing back to the singing waters.

 

Furious machines burning anger, fume and

Rage to the choke point, ferocity of sound,

From here all silence and twinkle, sweeping

Slow rise and fall, rust blistered blue towers,

Harp-strung, Buddha serene, light and heavy,

A mountain of stone and steel engineered to

Rise like thought and dance in the delicate air.

 

Spring has uncorked all her bottles, pours her

Sparkling vintage into the coupe of May with

A liberal hand. Winter’s damp gloom is swept

From the vaulting sea and a convoy of cloud

Blusters at full sail. I will fill my pockets with

Rubies and expectations, book passage on a

Perfect merchantman and trade with heaven.

Peter McEllhenney’s work has appeared in the Seminary Ridge Review, Referential Magazine, Blast Furnace, the Apeiron Review, and previously in Philadelphia Stories. His poetry was part of the 2015 R.S. Thomas Literary Festival in Aberdaron, Wales. He blogs at PeterGalenMassey.com.

on their anniversary

to a song from the forties,

sisters singing harmonies,

horn pops, a muted-trumpet

or clarinet soloist,

the television turned off,

he in his bed shirt, laughing,

she in her nightgown, bare arm

softly draped around his back,

the other arm letting him

take the lead for once, hands clasped,

turning slowly in circles

lumbering to the downbeat,

tipping over as they turned,

usually by accident,

laughing as the circle grew

more wild and uncircle like,

bumping into TV trays,

inching closer to the bed

in the middle of the room,

laughing as if we weren’t

there to watch the performance,

their faces shining with glee,

enough happiness to last

them another whole, sad year

of insults and bickering. 

Robert Fillman is a Ph.D. candidate and Teaching Fellow at Lehigh University, where he also edits the university’s literary magazine, Amaranth, and runs the Drown Writers Series. He was named the judge of the George S. Diamond Poetry Prize by Moravian College for the 2015-2016 academic year, and has been featured as a “Showcase Poet” in the Aurorean. Recently, his poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Apeiron Review, The Chiron Review, The Common Ground Review, Glassworks, Kudzu House Quarterly,  Spillway, Third Wednesday, and others. He lives in eastern Pennsylvania with his wife, Melissa, and his two children, Emma and Robbie.

I had this idea I would

write about the

old aquarium in Camden,

not the new. The old one

had indigenous fish

that live in the slate grey

waters off New Jersey–

the kind few deigned

to see.

 

That is why they renovated

the place. Set aside or killed

the flounder and bass  and

bluefish you might just

as soon find on

a dinner plate as

in a tank and

replaced them

with tropicals:

floating mosaics from

a Byzantine ceiling.

 

These are the creatures

people pay to see.

Now the turnstiles

are humming and I

find myself viewing

delicate beauties,

as well as sharks

swimming

overhead, ram-

bunctious penguins,

and one lone

alligator lying in a

tiled tank, waiting, as

we all are, for something

 

good.

Ruth Rouff is an English instructor and educational writer living in Collingswood, NJ. In addition to being published in a number of literary journals, she has written two young adult nonfiction books.  Her poetry/creative nonfiction collection Pagan Heaven will appear this November.