An excerpt from “House of Unending” by Reginald Dwayne Betts (poetry ’10) published by Poetry.

House of Unending

1

The sinner’s bouquet, house of shredded & torn
Dear John letters, upended grave of names, moon
Black kiss of a pistol’s flat side, time blueborn
& threaded into a curse, Lazarus of hustlers, the picayune
Spinning into beatdown; breath of a thief stilled
By fluorescent lights, a system of 40 blocks,
Empty vials, a hand full of purple cranesbills,
Memories of crates suspended from stairs, tied in knots
Around streetlamps, the house of unending push-ups,
Wheelbarrows & walking 20s, the daughters
Chasing their fathers’ shadows, sons that upset
The wind with their secrets, the paraphrase of fractured,
Scarred wings flying through smoke, each wild hour
Of lockdown, hunger time & the blackened flower.

[…continue reading “House of Unending” at Poetry.]

An excerpt from “Ship of Fools: Surviving Fragment of Triptych” by Rose Auslander (poetry ’15) published by The Piltdown Review.

Ship of Fools: Surviving Fragment of Triptych

and what remains of us? A plateful of cherries
spilled, half-eaten, a breast forgotten, dangling

from a torn bodice, men bellowing drunk
nuns plucking lutes, blind to children
begging naked in the water and
the fool we raised on high to guide

our leaking vessel, canvas torn, paint
cracked with age or by his rage—

[…continue reading “Ship of Fools: Surviving Fragment of Triptych” at The Piltdown Review.]

An excerpt from “W A K E : A SLEEP IN FORTY-SOMETHING WINKS” by Jennifer Sperry Steinorth (poetry ’15), published by Connotation Press.

W A K E : A SLEEP IN FORTY-SOMETHING WINKS

Midway through our night’s sleep
I woke to find the dream lost
My body shaken from it— salt

 \ /

At the midpoint of the night we were allotted 

I found myself     in dark apartment

 \   / /

Half through rocky return journey
I woke beneath a skein of geese
three fleet deer mice scrambling o’er me

[…continue reading “W A K E : A SLEEP IN FORTY-SOMETHING WINKS” at Connotation Press.]

An excerpt from “Fifty-seven-year-old Sharecropper Woman. Hinds County Mississippi” by Gail Peck (poetry ’87), published by The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature.

Fifty-seven-year-old Sharecropper Woman. Hinds County Mississippi

When there are no doctors
you do what you can, a dime with a hole
on a string tied around each ankle
to prevent headaches.
Her bare feet rest on the planks
of a porch, her feet so calloused
it’s hard to feel splinters.
How many miles have they walked among rows?

[…continue reading “Fifty-seven-year-old Sharecropper Woman. Hinds County Mississippi” at Dead Mule.]