Ashton Hicks: The Strength to Surrender

I used to be the wave.

The wave

that thought rising

was my strength.

I’d build myself up,

pulled by the moon —

swelling,

aching,

just to hold on a little longer.

A wave 

can only be 

a wave 

for so long

before it collapses

under its own weight.

It surrenders.

Crashes,

and becomes still water 

once again.

Is letting go the same as giving up?

This crash —

It’s not defeat.

It’s arrival.

Ashton Hicks is a writer and film photographer based in Chicago, IL, whose work centres on the beauty of the everyday and the art of noticing

Jacqueline Jules: Guard at the Gate

In my mind, there’s a guard

at the gate wearing a tall fur hat

and a thick strap on his chin.

Unsmiling, he raises his hand

and warns me not to pass,

to turn around before I see

empty slippers in the closet.

To keep the TV silent rather than watch

the next season of the series we loved.

To leave our favorite ice cream in the freezer.

Like Buckingham Palace,

there’s a guard blocking entry

to a large ornate building

with many beautiful rooms

I’m not ready to visit again.

Jacqueline Jules is the author of Manna in the Morning (Kelsay Books, 2021), Itzhak Perlman's Broken String, winner of the 2016 Helen Kay Chapbook Prize from Evening Street Press, and Smoke at the Pentagon: Poems to Remember (Bushel & Peck, 2023). Her poetry has appeared in over 100 journals. Visit her online at www.jacquelinejules.com

Michael Penny: My Refrigerator

My refrigerator gets too full

with ambitious recipes

and my fear of running out.

 

Fruit piles on butter

and wine lays down cool,

all ready as eggs to use.

 

I plan meal systems

and clear the shelves 

for cleaning and order

 

in life and provision,

until the next supermarket 

hunt and gather.

 

My packed fridge lives

for diminishment, 

a life of full and using up

Michael Penny was born in Australia but his family moved him to Canada when he was a teenager. Since then he has published five books and in numerous literary journals.

Harrison Fisher: Carnivorous Squirrels

Biologists were stunned in 2024

after California ground squirrels were

captured on film killing

and eating voles,

a big surprise from this cousin

of our familiar lawn-worker,

burier of acorns, not

field mice,

but I remember well

walking on my block one day

and seeing a squirrel’s flattened body

in the street,

and one

persistent crow

coming to pick at it

every time traffic cleared. 

Then, a week later, same quiet block,

I saw a crow’s body crushed

on the same stretch

of asphalt,

and a squirrel pushing down on it

with its forepaws, pulling up

black feathers and more

in its teeth.

Harrison Fisher has published twelve collections of poems, most recently Poematics of the Hyperbloody Real.  In 2025, he has new work in Amsterdam Review, eMerge, Metachrosis, Panoplyzine, Trampoline, Uppagus, and several other magazines.

rob mclennan: from 'Fair bodies of unseen prose,'

and years bent over a horizontally placed womb.

 

Practice, if you could. Land, worthy. A vanished garden. Secret. Simultaneous, as were. As if. As then. Though problems. Arise, inflection. Then. Across the Atlantic, finally. Across the St. Lawrence. Across the Ottawa, Rideau, Castor. Raisin. Every torso of water. Every limb. What, to complete. The moment, born and scathing. Wet, heart. A body of blood. You do not wish to. Quiet, and the lung’s deep. Disregarded. Airport, shuttle. Let me know. No logical objection, I can muster. Stand in plain sight.

Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa, where he is home full-time with the two wee girls he shares with Christine McNair. His most recent titles include On Beauty: stories (University of Alberta Press, 2024), the poetry collections Snow day (Spuyten Duyvil, 2025) and the book of sentences (University of Calgary Press, 2025).

Jacquie Bryson: Bloods

We appreciate the gestures: the orange and fuchsia

Chairs, the free tea, arm touches of soft solidarity.

Once we saw a woman sob into her mother’s arms while

The room dropped its head in courteous, paperback calm.

I whisper, ‘Silver fox!’ just to see him half laugh then turn                         

To me.  I see our sons in his eyes. We scan the clinic

For people we recognise or can build stories upon

As we all await the benevolent taking of bloods.

Today the consultant is hesitant.  To paraphrase:

The chemo could kill him.  The cancer will kill him. In time.

Her words cut kindly.  They’re running out of plans.  We understand

That the medical team will reconvene after more scans.

 

While waiting, he will seek God’s voice in the mountains

While I will listen through birdsong prayer at dawn and at dusk.

We will attune to the earth’s groaning, green liturgy,

Waltzing twirls in the kitchen to our first dance melody.

Jacquie Bryson lives in the hills outside Belfast with her family.  She has worked in education and community relations.  She began writing poetry during lockdown and has been published in A New Ulster and Poem Alone.

Howie Good: Factory

My mom almost gave birth to me

in the backseat of a taxi on the way

to the hospital. My dad, per usual,

was at work. He worked in the factory

six days a week, 10, 12 hours a day,

throughout my growing up. He was

at work when I got up to go to school

and still not home when I went to bed.

Although he lived to be 96, he would

remain a stranger to me. There are people –

you may even know some – who think

that what can’t be easily understood

isn’t worth the effort to understand.

Howie Good is a professor emeritus at SUNY New Paltz whose poetry collections include The Dark and Akimbo, available from Sacred Parasite, a Berlin-based publisher. Sacred Parasite is scheduled to publish his newest collection, Dead Heroes, in 2026.