The Wanting

Marina Shemesh

The Wanting

down cobbled stones she hears her own wanting-heart

thumping hobbles dragging dread uncanny closer until 

transformed - pantingly vulnerable as any empty-head

heroine smothers all - she simply waits breathlessly for

some swart heroic swoop to rip the disguise from her
pallid poem and fill her world with rounded vowels. 

The making of Honey

Rostislav Kralik

The making of Honey

“Oh I is so tire honey”

My mama worked “in

clothes” that’s the way

she liked me to say it –

Once I peeked in after

school when I sat on

the bench in the front

of the store and waited

for that opening of the

door that would spill

her out. Once I peeked -

and there she was lining

up a row of shirts so -

straight and fine I could

have taken my grown-up

-engineer-self’s level to it

and a bubble would have

floated just perfectly -

Back then on that day –

could have been any day

“Oh I is so tire honey”

lingered in the air sweet

mysterious and sacred

as a Latin service I heard

once – ending with a bell

shimmering like a tear -

Everything come together

in the hot steamy waiting

to a discrete symbol -

A simple element on

the periodic chart of

our life together –
ever remembered 

Weekend in the country with cat and bird

Anna Langova

Weekend in the country with cat and bird  -

She woke to a cat curled on a plump corner chair.

Sunlight spilling on vased flowers - in those un-askew moments

waking in the guesthouse – she smiled - the cat opened

one eye and then another – in steady emerald stare -stretching

in that languid feline way – in feigned innocence of the unhappy crimson pull of dawn’s nightmare furry sanguinary fury –

She turned, poor-still happy-hapless- house-guest,

suddenly startled by the silence of her sweet songbird –

turned to the pretty cage carried along with her –

Its door now curiously opened –

its tiny occupant unrecognizable

but for that precious puff

of yellow feathers stirring

in the breeze

from her hosts’

open window carrying her

soft scream into the now
mourning-morning

Turn the page -

Turn the page

Carefully she squeezed a dollop

Of cement onto the tooth-brush

Leaned over the sink and with a

stop caught her avoided morning

reflection – let it vanish up the air

vent to her half dreamt

vision of self –

young woman of

then, light of foot

free of all weight –

shoulders

and belly-

tight-light

dancing –

barefoot on aquamarine shores –

Ready to ravish and be ravished

in the orange glow

of a new as yet

unlived day –

All so delicious

she could eat it
with a spoon
and did