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 gnaw, let, house and same.

If you would like to participate in the next special poetry assignment, the new words are wood, receive, trip, and tree.

---

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

First Bells

The first cup of coffee is like a first kiss,
simple, short, not penetrating,
just sweet enough to long for more

Karen Carter
 

Garden

The yellow
daffodils let spill
all they can't contain.

Corrie Thompson
 

The Time My Colleague Saw Me Eating Chana Masala in the Breakroom and Said, "Here in America, We Eat Our Lunch Between Two Slices of White Bread"

hey, it's just me: your funny, no-filter
work friend who shoots from the hip, but
I'm actually a good person

Julius Lobo
 

The Longest Ride

Let me take in lemon-scented air freshener
even though we are zooming past acres of
those wild lemons groves

Melody Wang
 

The Trans Girl in the Tree House

an earth that has not reached
its final form any more
than I have

Corinna Schulenburg
 

Lines

I used to hang our washing on a clothesline
The sun would bleach away the dirt of us

Adele Evershed
 

river home

don't let the lake water
seep too deep

Jessica Scirocco
 

House Wren

to have so much in common with a brown bird
especially now during this pandemic

Amelia Díaz Ettinger
 

A Year in Scales

As time gnaws through its cardboard rest,
as body and memory are mulched,
she and I will be the same in our grief

Evan Martin Richards