By Mercedes Lawry Beneath the ground a green thunder, roots weave among limbs of the fallen, so war digs and swallows and the birds still etch the smoking sky. Prayers falter, disappear. How do we watch from afar, our fingers twitching, our thoughts but ashes? Hopeless it seems as the rusty wheel of history creaks [...]
By Rebecca K. Leet As molecules of steel madness concussed the air and no next breath was sure a vibration in his unbowed soul prompted Sasha to step outside and feed a posse of stray cats. The offering – from one displaced in the world to others also beggared – cost Sasha his right foot. [...]
By Karen Kilcup How do they do it— lift a heavy head and place the bomb beneath an ear? Slide the metal disc under a shoulder or thigh? Or worse: do they slice the swollen long-dead chest, flies fluttering, the stink unbearable, nearly? Do they carve a red-rimmed cavity large enough to implant the device, [...]
By Dia Calhoun for Ukraine, 2022 Because the woman hugs a green glass bottle yellow-wicked, and waits by the fabric store where she once bought the blue wool for her coat, the scarlet gingham for the kitchen window, coral flannel to snuggle her baby somewhere now on the pouring road to Poland— Veni Magna Spirita [...]
