Glass
CS Crow
​
From the back of the classroom,
A five-year old’s hand shoots straight up
Ms. Whiskey, my mom says cops are pigs.
Condensation on a curved glass
Mr. Policeman shoved her into the bar.
She hits the ground—ears ringing.
We kept our heads down and our thumbs up.
Nobody wanted to be the one caught
Cheating at a game we weren't invited to play.
A boy with an action figure in his pocket
Runs face first into the water fountain—
Ms. Whiskey always kisses it better.
Getting drunk is all about touch:
Bruised knuckles, bruised jaw
The windows turn blue. Then red.
We were good people, we would have helped,
But the floor? The floor was lava.
We put up our feet and sat out the game.
Five minute timeouts happen in the corner
Everyone wants to sit with Ms. Whiskey
At recess, even if it means no monkey bars.
No badge. No body camera. No uniform.
Put some ice on it. The hangover.
She can feel it. Gonna linger a while.
When someone goes crying to the teacher,
We are the ones at the bottom of the slide
Pretending that nothing happened.
From the back of the classroom,
A five-year old’s hand shoots straight up
When will Ms. Whiskey come back to class?
​
​​
​
Two Egg
I dropped two eggs
on my way back from the store
a good name for a town
a good place to call home
the entire town, an eggshell
unbroken on the ground
the yolk sucked out
houses with windows cracked
a gap-toothed smile
front tooth missing
bottom molar capped
framed like a photograph
when planes passed overhead
we threw stones high into the air
we were told nowhere else
could be happy like we were
we were told everywhere else
had become a rotten egg
abandoned in the bushes
when Easter ended without church
come to the sunrise service
we will give you something to do
we will give you something to love
we will teach you how to throw stones
​
CS Crow is a storyteller from the Southeastern United States with a love of nature and a passion for writing. He believes stories and poems are about getting there, not being there, and he enjoys those tales that take their time getting to the point.
​
​
Numbers
Peter Mladinic​
​
In Geometry, which I flunked, Mr. Williams
said numbers are beautiful. The somewhat
sharp tip of his small nose, hair cropped
close at the sides, wine red bow tie
and the chalkboard behind him spoke
of that beauty. He lived it. Many years later
I met Robert, who, like you is an accountant.
We taught at a community college, started
at the same time. He retired before I.
After he retired from teaching he still did
accounting but also started working with his
mother, who ran a shelter for women. I
should mention he was adopted. Two years
ago she died and he became the shelter’s
administrator. I should mention also his
elder son’s funeral took place a few days
after his mom’s, only in a different church.
I remember when we were teaching Robert’s
being hospitalized for pneumonia. Also,
shortly after I started teaching I visited
with his mom, about a grant to bring
a well known writer, a woman, to our town
to speak at the college and in a venue,
off campus, to raise money for the shelter.
Across her desk, Robert’s mom, Deanna,
listened but ultimately ignored my grant
proposal. She didn’t like me, I didn’t like her,
nor did I like Robert’s elder son; however,
I like his younger son, who was my student,
very much. At the service for his brother,
as I walked from the casket down the aisle
I leaned to where Philip sat and lightly
hugged him. Like his dad, he is an army
veteran, but unlike Robert, he spent time
in Afghanistan. He wasn’t my best student
but he had a great attitude. His brother,
who died, I only encountered a few times
but he seemed obnoxious. At the service
a male cousin said if you got to know him,
the departed, he was your best friend.
At Deanna’s service, the minister, a native
of Nicaragua, said when he arrived in our
town he met Deanna and she spoke to him
in Spanish, their native tongue,
which made him feel welcome. I know
Robert’s sister is of Mexican origin, as was
Deanna, but, as well as I know Robert,
I’m unsure if he is, and likely will never ask.
Likely ethic origin won’t come up. The writer
I had in mind for the grant was born
in the U. S. but has strong roots in Mexico.
Like you I am white, and in regard to Robert
ethnicity is not important, Robert is Robert,
but I sometimes wondered if his mom
and I were distant because she identified
as Hispanic, and lesbian, and I’m a white
male. That’s possible, and doesn’t take
away from all the good she did
in our community helping women. Now
Robert is “in her shoes.” Last year,
at tax time, he spoke about the shelter
in ways that suggest how stressful things
are there. It has to be a strain on his health.
Yet he continues the work Deanna
started. And is still doing taxes, but is
cutting back. I don’t know why he didn’t
do just accounting when he retired from
the college. For a number of years I served
on the welfare committee Robert chaired.
He always made the meetings fun.
​​
Peter Mladinic's fifth book of poems, Voices from the Past, is due out in November 2023 from Better Than Starbucks Publications. An animal rights advocate, he lives in Hobbs, New Mexico, United States.
​
A Boy Made of Bullets
JD Isip
for David Hogg
Caught the first one before high school graduation.
He was never the same. No more dimples, no more smiles.
No more snakes or snails or puppy dog tails. Bullets
were what this boy was made of.
He’d open his mouth and expel a round. Heard the click
in the chamber of his throat. Pretty soon his fingers, his vertebrae
his every thought became casings.
They’d hiss in the air, roll across the floor, excitedly jump
back into him, a never-ending artillery. That’s what little boys
are made of.
But you should have seen him before the smoke. The way his hair
pointed skyward. The light in his eyes before it was the flint and the hammer
was a belief that deep down every human was good. But the lesson of that first
bullet was man is made of blood and he is always looking for more.
​
J.D. Isip’s full-length poetry collections include Kissing the Wound (Moon Tide Press, 2023) and Pocketing Feathers (Sadie Girl Press, 2015). His third collection, tentatively titled I Wasn’t Finished, will be released by Moon Tide Press in early 2025. J.D. teaches at Collin College in Plano, Texas, where he lives with his dogs, Ivy and Bucky.
​
Back From Iraq
John Grey
​
You wheel yourself to the window
for first glimpse of summer,
daisies and daffodils,
tiny lights on your brow.
Face against glass,
if anyone sees you,
they think you whole.
It's a strange household.
You laugh at your lack of legs.
Others cry that you still live.
One more spurt of arm
and. you out with the crowds of newness,
within an arm's reach of the willows,
a thought or two
from long ago lost swimming holes.
In the eyes of today,
you're a tear too easily wiped.
But the birds sing a chorus.
And the wind orchestrates.
The sound gets in what's left of you,
swings your body new.
​
Please Officer
​
Let me up.
Make me lighter.
Give me back
to the ones who love me.
Otherwise,
my trachea squeezes shut,
my lungs deflate,
and I die right here
between your knee
and the pavement.
​
Let me up
and I swear to you,
the film won’t go viral.
Nobody will know your name.
I’ll even hang around
and answer all your questions.
Let me up
and there’ll be no riots,
no one will connect you
to cops shooting the unarmed
in the back
or while they sleep.
You will even keep your job.
And your buddies won’t lose theirs,
along with all those juicy pensions.
​
So let me up.
So I can breathe
like you do.
So my bloodstream,
loaded up on oxygen,
can take the easiest option,
from heart
to all parts of my body
and back again.
And I can watch TV.
I can get a job.
I can have a home-cooked meal.
I can walk the neighborhood unbothered.
​
Let me up.
Please, let me up.
Otherwise, you go down with me.
​
At the Greek Festival
Anonymous
​
The band is playing “Never On Sunday.”
At least, anything I hear on a bouzouki
has to be that song.
Of course, it could be “Zorba The Greek.”
​
And the dance, so I am informed.
is the Antipatitis,
traditional to the Aegean Islands.
​
Souvlaki meats sizzle on skewers.
Gyros drip tzatziki sauce.
​
Booths invite me
to see the Acropolis,
buy an icon,
or join the Greek Orthodox church.
​
For the kids, there’s a bounce house
and face painting -
time out from the Mediterranean.
​
I eat, I watch, I listen,
and yes, I even absorb.
And do not leave without
a box of honey-soaked pastries.
​
It’s an odd but welcome side to America.
Countries can pop up anywhere.
​
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, California Quarterly and Lost Pilots. Latest books, ”Between Two Fires”, “Covert” and “Memory Outside The Head” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in the Seventh Quarry, La Presa and Doubly Mad.