In an ongoing series, the editors, former contributors, and readers of Eclectica have been invited to write a poem containing four pre-chosen words. The words for this issue are mirror, demand, rain, and settle.

If you would like to participate in the next special poetry assignment, the new words are ground, triangle, vision, and knit.

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(These are excerpts—click on the title to view the whole poem)
 

Trust Me, I Heard You When You Told Me I'm Only What I Hold
 
Rain never settles the right way/it
always falls awkward & tense against
the drum of earth
 
Hannah Radeke

 

Small Songs
 
nail thick swarthiness
back bent under white flour sacks
sweat settled
 
Judy Kaber

 

The Mirror Demands
 
the sister I always
wanted, the one I would have
settled into my mother's closet with
 
Lisa McMonagle

 

Urban Redevelopment
 
We were all at the demolition—
the adults slouched in lawn chairs
and shrouded in a haze of Lucky Strikes
 
Steven Deutsch

 

Tarot Love
 
She shows me
an earth distant from the hills, and I see him
settle his horse
 
Sheikha A.

 

Ennui with Amphisbaenic Rhyme
 
I feign indifference although it galls
to have the glass put on airs like some nob.
 
Miriam Kotzin

 

Cruising on I-74 to Firefly Farms
 
Mercury brusquely is in retrograde again.
I can't settle this or any of my Irish grudges.
 
David Mathews

 

You Eat a Bowl of Soup in the Corner Bakery on Michigan Avenue Where You Signed Your Divorce Papers Several Years Earlier
 
But now it's easy to forget that anything else ever demanded your attention, that you ever sat here for any other reason but to warm up on a cold afternoon, your black gloves folded neatly on the table, mirroring the position of your hands.
 
Jennifer Finstrom