John Repp

thick heat—
oak branch clatters down—
our son kicks

JOHN REPP is a poet, fiction writer, folk photographer, and digital collagist living in Erie, Pennsylvania. Broadstone Books published his most recent collection, The Soul of Rock & Roll: Poems Acoustic, Electric & Remixed, 1980-2020.

Toni Artuso

I tread gingerly, crunching on mud
made suddenly solid
by capricious Arctic blasts
that throw Spring’s thaw into reverse.

I stop,
arrested by the rustle of chimes:
thin, delicate music from

a bed of upstart tulips,
red-and-yellow flashes
in a miry field.

Swaying on spindly stems,
tossed by the bitter breeze,
frozen brittle petals become bells,

until the next warm day,
when they will brown, curl,
fall into the softened muck.

TONI ARTUSO (she/her/hers) is a trans female writer from Salem, Massachusetts. Her verse has appeared in Honeyguide Literary Magazine, which nominated one of her villanelles for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Her poems have also appeared in The Christian Science Monitor,Eclectica, Space City Underground Literary Magazine, samfiftyfour, Nixes Mate Review, Molecule, Salamander, The Cackling Kettle, The Lyric, Star*Line, and Ibbetson Street Press. X (Twitter): @TAltrina. Instagram: @tonialtrina.

Randy Brooks

no corners
in the goldfish bowl
we circle back home

slipping out of its skin
a perfectly tan
roasted marshmallow

yellow belly catfish
zombie
turtles nibble on

RANDY BROOKS is Professor of English Emeritus at Millikin University, where he teaches a haiku course. Randy and Shirley Brooks, are publishers of Brooks Books and co-editors of Mayfly haiku magazine. His most recent books include Walking the Fence: Selected Tanka and The Art of Reading and Writing Haiku.