(These are excerpts--click on the title to view the whole piece!)

My Book of Mormon and the Fall of Communism in Poland
 
Look at me, the young bride. And here stands Mom, not old at all, and so lovely. See my school friends—the girls dolled up, the guys handsome with their jackets and ties? The rest is easy. Everybody else in those photos is dead.  
 
Monika Lange

 

Faces of the Homeless
 
Picture the years,
tracing lines down cheeks
that have seen too many days in the sun  
 
LeAne R. Austin

 

Police Beat
 
The homeless man becomes intimidating when he's got your money in his pocket. And is that how they see us, with our ten-dollar bills we choose to hide? Is that what makes us intimidating to them?  
 
John Pahle

 

An Apology to Sonja Spencer
 
For myself, I know that old injustices don't flow by like water under a bridge. They stick like burrs, pricking in vulnerable places.  
 
Larri Anne Rosser

 

Hummingbird
 
My neighbor who keeps chickens says that baby chicks, when they are dying, will close their eyes. This baby hummingbird, she says, is dying.  
 
Bridget Smith

 

Before the Storm (My Experiences As An Atheist)
 
I asked, "What rumours?" That was how I got to know about the death of someone I spoke to just two days before (Friday). I was told on Sunday that he had died.  
 
Onyeka Nwelue

 

Tragedy Lite: or How to Spin a Classical Lesson Into PC Farce
 
We don't want to know that some of our dazzling heroes outrageously malign the good names of their opponents' wives, mothers, and sisters, call into question their maternity and paternity, both intra- and inter- species, hurl the basest racial and ethnic slurs as easily as they order up a pizza, extra cheese / no anchovies.  
 
Jim Gourley

 

Doppelganger
 
Yeah. You dodged a bullet with 'Nam, and you'll dodge another one regarding irresponsible, promiscuous sex. You're a lucky little Stitt.  
 
Don Stitt

 

The Sleepless Verse
 
While I concede that a verse will not heal the world of its ills, I am also acquainted with the fact that neither all the narcissistic religions on earth--whose faithfuls still seek succour in their tenets--can lay claim to demystifying the human condition.  
 
patrick iberi

 

Out, Out, Brief Candle
 
On that February day, David canceled his intellect and his talent in the space of a grisly second, leaving an aftermath of blood, horror, anger, grief, and guilt. It was something that could not be accepted or understood.  
 
Michael Collins Morton

 

When Genes Move Sideways
 
Conjugation is like bacteria sex, only there are no baby bacteria produced.  
 
Anju Kanumalla