March Rain Shook Sweet Perfume Loose from the Neighbor’s Flowers
by Grace Hansen
Five-petaled brides the size of a penny
Wed to skinny pink buds
Settled in a wave of two-toned ivy branches,
Spilling over a tired red fence.
A thousand angels
Dripping crystal tears from their chins,
Shivering in the spring current;
Begging the Sun to reach out and
Touch their cheeks.
A thousand faces
Will wilt and wither and die.
Still, they anoint the Sun with their sweet perfume
And kiss the rain drops as they fall,
For they know who has given them life.
NY
by Avery Panganiban
The Ever-Ticking Clock
by Matthew Wanner
Time, time, time,
My clock is a broken thing,
Ticking forward, ticking back,
The face is broken,
The second hand never,
Never moves forward,
But all those other hands,
Never stop.
Sometimes so loud,
Sometimes so quiet,
Footfalls, footfalls,
Loud and unsteady,
On eternal pavement,
Deafen much,
wind and water
by Annaliese Smith
I know that they are not flowers
by Amber Stefanson
I know that they are not
flowers, he said,
thumbing a bolt of red silk,
but waxing in his eyes
there was a field
of summer poppies twirling.
We sat for a long while,
twisting concrete skies into the
ravenous skin-prickling arctic.
My earthen mug of matcha foam,
the mossy cliffs of Ireland,
I lace in wave-capped fingers.
Once I thought of Kit-Kat caskets,
and to him, the
late spring wind is Spain,
and now we two as songbirds lift
into our leafy turbine mix
of hot Madrid and coffin chills.
