JoAnn Lord Koff

Cellophane Bubbles

Last seen inside the swell of a giant wave,
kissing, clutching each other, tumbling ashore.
The pair emerge as two cellophane bubbles
birthed by frothy white sea foam on golden sands.
Entangled within the ebb and flow of tides,
the duo dance to whispering ocean winds,
impetuously catching big waves at dusk.
Pinks, purples sprout in the sky weaving sunset.
A magical moonbeam travels the cosmos
landing atop the indigo blue ocean.
Borne of the sea, melding as one, rising up.

Copyright 2020 JoAnn Lord Koff

Bio:

JoAnn Lord Koff, author of Sand, Pebbles, Fossils, and Rocks, a nominee for the Library of Virginia’s Literary Award in Poetry, 2019. InsideNoVa Best Author, 2021. VP of Write by the Rails, and Artist in ART4US.

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Sally Toner

Trucking

When Popa danced the Jitterbug, he wagged a
single finger in the air, unaware that
it’s the sign for understand. He moved so smooth.
Trucking, it’s called—her first lesson that music
lives in the body, not the ears. Now, when her
pitch frays at the ends, he’s there. Finger journeys
across the palm. Twin arms rise to the sky. Hand
made letters round each other over the heart
over again. “What a Wonderful World,” she
sings in silence, their hymn in rhythm, like his
hips and shoulders wed on the living room floor.

Copyright 2022 by Sally Toner

Bio:

Sally Toner is a High School English teacher who has lived in the Washington, D.C. area for over 25 years. Her poetry, fiction, and non-fiction have appeared in Northern Virginia Magazine, Gargoyle Magazine, District Lit, Watershed Review, Porcupine Lit, and other publications.  She lives in Reston, Virginia with her husband and two daughters.  Her first chapbook, Anansi and Friends, from Finishing Line Press, is a mixed genre work focusing on diagnosis, treatment, and recovery from breast cancer. She can be found at SallyToner.com and on Twitter @SallyToner.

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Sarah Browning

Sweet Labor

In the morning, the call of the crossword, but –
Too easy! Simpsons’ bartender (Moe), ___ gin
fizz (sloe). Three-letter word for dust-up (ado),
beehive haircut (updo). Words, word origins,
puns, palindromes, anagrams, funny typos 
(antiherpes in place of antiheroes):
goofball treasures to exchange, baubles of joy,
a home together in language. The sigh’s breath
the imagined tomorrow, body breaking
but still, brilliant promise of the tongue’s work, sweet
labor of teeth, lips, palette, jaw. Kissing words.

Copyright 2022 Sarah Browning

Bio:

Sarah Browning is the author of two books of poems, Killing Summer and Whiskey in the Garden of Eden. She is c`o-founder and for ten years was director of Split This Rock. She now lives in Philadelphia where she writes and leads virtual workshops for Writers in Progress.

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Robert Wynne

Earthquake on Amaranth Avenue

Deep within the earth, tectonic plates tussle
and the ragged surface rears at a dark sky.
Three garden gnomes tremble, sidewalks liquify,
mailboxes shake, streetlights surf and buck, hustling
together their perfect circumferences
to link bright rings briefly, then separating
as the flattening land pulls them back apart.
An aftershock comes a minute later, starts
the whole dance over, two silver poles tangling
until they bathe each other iridescent.
And they stay that way, holding each other, spent.

Copyright 2022 by Robert Wynne

Bio:

Robert Wynne earned his MFA from Antioch University.  He is the author of 3 full-length collections of poetry, including Museum of Parallel Art (2008, Tebot Bach Press), and his latest, Self-Portrait as Odysseus, which depicts Odysseus as a modern day business traveler.  He lives in Burleson, TX with his wife and their German Shepard.

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Joy Martin

Four-Letter Words


Travel across race and place to advance these:
economic, racial, and social justice.
Pick up placards, wave them high, and shout out truth.

What’s needed is something our senses can feel.
Though intangible and indescribable
hearts full of it can tell when it’s faked or real.

In soil prepared and tended, seeds planted grow.
When they’re nurtured, flowers open to beauty.
For fruits of our labor to be reaped, we must

cultivate one four-letter word, not that other!
Life will taste better once hate is weeded out.


Copyright 2022 by Joy Martin

Bio:

Southern-born, Joy makes her home in New England’s Boston area, with memberships in the Newton Poetry Group and the Poetry Society of Virginia. Her poems explore the many facets of life, including her and broader humanity’s place and challenges within it.

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Joan Dobbie

The Viking Spirit

She was high on a sea of sexual flight.
(She was high on a chocolate indulgence.)
The transformation exquisite in darkness.
Ten centuries melted away. He was real.
His auburn locks salty with sea foam and brine.
His whisper a wildly whirling tornado
That churned up a feverish ocean of joy.
Sweetest ghost ever dreamed of—here— in the flesh!
Ancient promise fulfilled, dreams made manifest.
Love healing the heart of a woman made young
By an act as old as the hills and the sea

Copyright 2022 Joan Dobbie

Bio:

Joan Dobbie has a 1988 MFA from the University of Oregon, co-hosts the River Road Reading Series (RRRS), writes family histories, short memoirs and lots and lots of poetry. Her work has appeared  recently in such varied spaces as Wanderlust, a travel mag, Mystery Tribune, and in the EUG Airport’s new short story and poetry dispenser! She also has work in the anthologies Pan-de-Mic by the Oregon Poetry Association and Wising up Press’s Adult Children and will have a poem in Fireweed, poetry of Oregon soon. Her books include Woodstock Baby, A Novel in Poetry (2013, Unforgettables Press), The Language of Stone (2019, Uttered Chaos Press) and upcoming soon, her latest chapbook, Zenyatta/Joanna (hopefully 2023, Finishing LIne Press). She loves taking part in Mike Maggio’s Poetry Month sharing year after year.

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Dolores Hoffman

The Mission of San Juan

For so long, the swallows remain loyal and
compelled to the one mission til their last breath,
Capistrano Capistrano! What a sight,
but oh what a heartache to stay until death.

So in this run, this race, for the prized white swan,
the time we make and that adoration brings,
when then we will put the dark sunglasses on,
after the laughter of spiky points and stings.

or will the berried bush speak its truth and sing
it’s song, the frolicking lyrics “Come to Thee.” 
The swallow sighs and weeps “Will thee search for me?”

Copyright 2022 by Dolores Hoffman

Bio:

Dolores Hoffman is a writer for Northeast Metro Woman Magazine.  Her poems have been published in “Poet’s Choice” and “Pen in Hand” Journal.  Dolores was a 2019 Selected Poet for Eastern Shore Voices. 

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Sally Zakariya

Love on Imaginary Boulevard 

Imagine the sun kissing the rose petals.
It’s like that. Or it’s like the breeze that ruffles
maple leaves on the street outside the window.
Something like that, at any rate, but maybe
more romantic—at least, romantic enough
to make hearts sing or, to be realistic,
to beat faster, but not so fast someone calls
911. Just imagine. Blue sky, warm sun
the perfume of roses carried on the breeze.
It’s a lot like that. No—exactly like that.


Copyright 2022 by Sally Zakariya

Bio:

Bio: Sally Zakariya’s poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Her publications include Something Like a Life, Muslim Wife, The Unknowable Mystery of Other People, Personal Astronomy, and When You Escape. She edited and designed a poetry anthology, Joys of the Table, and blogs at www.butdoesitrhyme.com.

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Luisa A. Igloria

The World, like a Lover, Asks for Another Chance   

From under the banyan where a holy man 
      delivered the sermon Bhagavad Gita;
to trains bearing refugees safely across 
      borders, away from fallen towns. Imagine 
what it takes to bear a body in the sea, 
      the Salish waters silent and stillborn-blue  
where an orca rocked her calf seventeen days
      until she finally let it go. No road 
is hard as that underfoot, no history
      so difficult as that which asks such tributes 
—yet the world promises it will never leave. 

Copyright 2022 Luisa A. Igloria
This work is the sole property and authorship of Luisa A. Igloria, and may not be reproduced, copied, or circulated except with permission.

Bio:

Luisa A. Igloria is the 20th Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth of Virginia. She teaches on the faculty of the MFA Creative Writing Program at Old Dominion University, and at the Muse Writers Center. www.luisaigloria.com

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Gail Giewont

None of This Exists Except Absence

This is not a real road, this pavement, but still
fictional traffic roars by, windows cranked down,
imaginary music spilling out, bass 
thumping in bone marrow like the beat of an 
external heart—songs that exist only here, 
on a road full of ghosts with no on-ramp, no 
exit, no crossing. 		The sidewalk, overhung
with branches burdened by cherry blossom, traps 
notes where roots cracked concrete. Pink petals flutter 
into the street like something soft and shattered,
trailing after blueshifting song as it’s lost.


Copyright 2022, Gail Giewont

Bio:

Gail Giewont is a teacher in the Literary Arts program at Appomattox Regional Governor’s School for the Arts and Technology in Petersburg. Her chapbook, Vulture, is available from Finishing Line Press.

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