​The birds in the sky know her better
For they spent glorious time on the move
To the land painted red
From the blood the forefathers left behind
In fight for the freedom for all
Where all is selective
With no regard to the patches
She could watch from far
But the heartbeat at look aggravates the speed
No fight could keep her far-flung
In company of hummingbirds
Sweeps the dust off the arteries
Heartbeat restored at once.


Author Bio:
Mtende Wezi Nthara lives in and writes from Malawi. She currently works at the Catholic University of Malawi as an Associate Lecturer in the English and Communication Studies Department. Some of her work appears in Nthanda Review, Kalahari Review, Suicide: A Collection of Poetry and Short Prose, and Literary Shanghai.

he tells me I remind him
of a beached whale lying in
bed in the morning I close my
eyes and imagine myself
being picked apart by the claws of
tiny sand crabs burrowed into
by thin red beach worms
gobbets of flesh ripped

from my carcass by flocks of sea gulls
luring even the raccoons down
from the stubby forest
following the shore. he asks me
if I feel ashamed of myself
and I don’t answer because
I feel dead already I’m
too busy

imagining the shock of
girl scout troops stumbling across
my massive corpse in the shallows
the feel of their tiny hands
on my body joined by the larger hands
of Greenpeace workers and passing
tree huggers as they try
to push me back
into the water

hoping somehow that this half-eaten
cold and lifeless body might
magically come back to
life and swim away if only
they could get me back
into the water.


Author Bio:
Holly Day’s poetry has recently appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Grain, and The Tampa Review. Her newest poetry collections are In This Place, She Is Her Own (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press), A Wall to Protect Your Eyes (Pski’s Porch Publishing), Folios of Dried Flowers and Pressed Birds (Cyberwit.net), Where We Went Wrong (Clare Songbirds Publishing), Into the Cracks (Golden Antelope Press), and Cross Referencing a Book of Summer (Silver Bow Publishing), while her newest nonfiction books are Music Theory for Dummies and Tattoo FAQ.

I have stood next to the Rockies,
and they are grand,
but the most illuminating
and awe-inspiring view is from the air.
A perspective
lending the greatest respect
for the power and lift of what doesn’t breath.

Cragged they are,
steep-sloped in places,
with graded roads at the less precipitous sections.

I am awestruck,
by the way they cluster,
like vertebrae on a backbone.

I examine
the long-distanced, ribboned trails
upon which many hike.

I find praise for rivers and lakes, grasses, trees,
all on display, waiting to be admired.

I marvel at snow starting at the peaks
and showering its way down the slopes,
formed within frigid air
I can only imagine
from my warm airline seat.

I take it all in as we hurtle by.
This natural landform
which will lie upon the ground
through all time.

Surely the eagles and gods
appreciate the view as much as I.


Author Bio:
When not writing, Linda is an avid reader, classical guitar player, and a practitioner of both Yoga and Tai Chi. In, addition, she helps her husband, a Luthier, build acoustic guitars. Linda enjoys her 200-gallon saltwater reef tank wherein resides her almost 20 year old yellow tang. A retired teacher, who began writing in earnest in January, 2015, Linda believes that poetry truly adds to the beauty of the world. Much of this beauty she feels can be found in the night sky and, on warm nights, her telescope serves as inspiration for this belief.

ripped at the seams
from a home that is no longer mine
to be brought to a country
that openly hates my kind
raised in a city that we have claimed
yet outside these walls, i am still afraid
afraid to speak Spanish, to be proud
told that i shouldn't speak so loud
that they will then know i am not one of them
if i do not belong here or there
please tell me where?


Author Bio:
Sabrina Caridad was born in Cuba. Her family brought her to the U.S. at the age of 3. She grew up in Miami around people from the same community. She is keenly aware of the cultural divide that exists outside of the city and struggles with the prejudice against her community and underlying inequality.

Take me some place
Where there's a bed to sleep
Food to eat
Where there are birds to see
Trees to swing

Do not leave me here
I wasn’t born here
If it were here
I will be sleeping in my mother's arms
Still have the taste of her milk on my tongue

But I was taken away
Many years ago
Against my will
Against the wind of my destiny

I remember the journey well
The promise of a better life
But all I see is darkness now
A road so wide
It can only lead to nothing.

Now I'm used to emptiness
That of the soul and spirit
My soul hangs in limbo
Somewhere, my spirit too
Eaten by dogs
Cast off
Not even as bones
But something less

So when you take me away
Find me a bed of only roses
A dress as white as cotton
And pump into my veins
Blood unadulterated
From a source
Just as clean as the first man


Author Bio:
Nathaniel Bivan is Arts and Entertainment Editor for Daily Trust, a leading newspaper in his country. His poems and short stories have been published in different platforms. In 2016, his picture storybook for kids, Flower Blind, was published by African Storybook. His debut novel is forthcoming from Masobe Books in 2021.

…if you wish for (these things) you must know
that you are wishing for a fig in winter.
–Epictetus (c.55 AD)


The widow’s arboretum—a wire fence
to keep out deer—guards these blonde bushes,
lute-like, wooden, harbor for the thick fruits
she tends. I have seen her walk ghost-like
down a road of dust to get the mail.
I’ve heard her swear not to take the pain pills
that sustain me these days after a surgery

whose recovery takes months, perhaps a year.
Whomever crucified my spinal cord,
a snake housed in bone, can have these bitter
words. When a blizzard kept my better
housebound, she baked cookies, stirring chocolate
chips to a fine melt. Oh f’ing fig, I said.

*

Oh fucking fig I said, snake-tongued, wanting
to blame addiction and depression
on my husband, the traffic, the neighbors--
on age, infirmity, disability.
Who will take this dark window and turn it
into Alice the widow or Alice in
wonderland? How re-learn how to shrink
or grow at will? My child self was once

given cakes, sweets, rivers of cinnamon
and poppy seed. Jaunty triangles
of dough cut and folded by Bubbies.
Heady fillings, honeys and nuts. New
years ripe with fetes and fasting. Now
learn: sugar equals poison, poison—decline.

*

Learn: sugar equals poison, poison—decline.
Stare down the mirror—a pane of glass,
a haunted gallery of imagery
where each woman takes her measure, finds
it lacking. The Boom Stick, the gray hair. Nan
saying They call them the golden years but I
call them the boring years. Shelling peas

into a colander, her eyes blank beneath
useless glasses. Once I drove her to Port
Townsend and back after going there
in the morning to attend workshops with
a famous poet. She and I. Her cane
obstreperous, a contraption.

*

Her cane obstreperous, a contraption
I would never have the need for—my flight
secured by greenness. My bloom a ticket
to the world. Springtide. Jejuneness. Salad
days. A swan on the wound: Char’s freedom, gone
now, no longer the gift of days or hours.
The widow grooms phlox, encircles lavender

with concentric wire, dries gifts for those in need
while I shop online for another pair
of boots. For sweaters, earrings, anything bling
to garner a bit of red from what faded.
It seemed preposterous, when young, that I
would hover and wait to pinch dough soft cheeks.

*

I hover and wait to pinch dough-soft cheeks.
I ruminate, obsess, repeat rituals
like the old grandmother from Poland
who wore red beads against the evil eye.
She grabbed our heads, spat on them three times
to protect us from those who would steal
our innocence. Spare me the malaise,
of my condition. Is a cripple given

to jealousy? Why feel distress when others
prosper? How return the good luck Bubba,
wearing her ruby pendants, signed over
with cabbage breath and toothless mouth, waltzing
a little. What gardener has a bad back.
The widow’s arboretum—a wire fence.


Author Bio:
Judith Skillman is the recipient of awards from Academy of American Poets and Artist Trust. She is the author of Came Home to Winter, Deerbrook Editions, 2019. Her work has appeared in Poetry, Shenandoah, The Southern Review, and Zyzzyva. Skillman is a faculty member at the Richard Hugo House in Seattle, Washington. Visit www.judithskillman.com