Poetry
by Dominika Bednarska.
“if I slurred my speech, if I stuttered, /
if I could not swallow, which variable /
would make me less worthy of living?”
by Judy Katz.
“These days I think of you / on the yellow chaise / with your Parkinson’s / and hatred of telephones, / and make myself call.”
by Susan Donnelly.
“Everything she did that day / was the hardest thing / she’d done, but it felt easy.”
by Alex Johansson.
“There are more important things I should be doing at the age of forty-two,” / you say, showing me photos of your daughter in a pink, fluffy tutu and I…”
by Julia B. Levine.
“The world mostly gone, I make it what I want: / from the balcony, the morning is a silver robe of mist / I make a reckless blessing of it…”
by Rafael Campo.
“His worn-out T-shirt, black as mourning, black / as countless deaths, surprises
me— it screams…”
by Martha Young.
“A wingspan so wide it soared beyond the sidewalk / like a small plane. I turned, I had to turn, find where it landed…”
by Abe Louise Young.
“Your left hand is a dead fish, your left leg a sunken anchor, your / left eye a black mussel…”