(These are excerpts—click on the titles to view the complete poems)

 

Special Feature — Word Poems
Poems containing the words question, circle, abandon, and electric.

 

At nightfall, my brother
 
Grandma will die soon, I guess.
 
Ramsay Wise

 

My Older Sister Taught Me How to Shave
 
She layered some lotion on one of her eyebrows
before using the razor to sheer off unwanted hairs.
I watched with fascination and asked her to teach me
 
Quintin Collins

 

A Long Human Silhouette
 
At the top of the road I know there is a touchable sun,
that it too is just open space, potentially, like me.
 
Christian Quaresma

 

Three Poems (Spotlight Runner Up!)
 
It was this that stirred
a ripple in my blood, that made me feel
the stomach lining and remember
how crisply, how briefly
a soul with my name moves
 
Lainey S. Cronk

 

Two Poems
 
But that was years ago. Grandma is dead.
Many wars have been fought,
many more women and girls have been raped.
 
Chielozona Eze

 

Intimations, Remediated
 
One hand
shy as a spider
stalked its mate
over this terrain
 
Ryan Hibbett

 

Dryad
 
But when you spoke in runes, the choir
of leaves was stilled
 
Jared Carter

 

Two Poems
 
In this first hour,
there is no word
for separation, for time,
nothing but the space
between fingertips and cheek.
 
Marjorie Mir

 

The Turtle
 
It seemed happy to be released
into what must have felt like freedom.
 
Teresa White

 

The Hesper and The Luther Little
 
Our lungs like ovens, we smoke
For freedom is immortality's thrill
Although mothers still make beds
 
Judith Ann Levison