Zackary Sholem Berger

Every day ties another knot
In the net, and I haven’t got
An instruction book, or a thought

Which coaxes to loosening.
Time will unbind. Or the ending
Of time might mean unwinding.

The night angles shut like a lid.
The day collapses, is elided
Into a mesh of what I did

Or did not. Tangled up and closed,
I watch the dipping sun lose
Itself in the basin of chatzos.

(Chatzos: Midnight according to the definitions of Jewish law. [Hebrew/Yiddish])

A poet and translator in Baltimore, ZACKARY SHOLEM BERGER is a physician by day.

Felicity L. Rollin

in winter diamonds fade 
superseded by the fireplace’s warmth

that never reaches far enough;
our ever-optimistic Lassie shivers

on nights like this,
when the old woods that protect us grow thin,
forever

is never so long as
tonight

FELICITY L. ROLLIN loves art and the color purple. Besides poetry, her hobbies include learning languages and reading philosophy. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Trouvaille Review, Quatrain Fish, and elsewhere.

DS Maolalai

long walks 
each evening.
and health—eating plenty
of apples. the reading 
of second-hand novels. books 
you have handy, and have read
before. no wine—
just black coffee
in cafes with free wifi

and glasses of water—really tasting
glasses of water. 

knocking some nights
at a neighbor
to borrow her straightener
and flatten the sleeves
of your shirt. 

DS MAOLALAI has been nominated eight times for Best of the Net and five times for the Pushcart Prize. His poetry has been released in two collections, Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden (Encircle Press, 2016) and Sad Havoc Among the Birds (Turas Press, 2019).