Arvilla Fee
door hinges creak,
a widow
sips her tea
an alley cat pounces,
the dumpster reeks
of feast
ARVILLA FEE teaches English Composition for Clark State College and is the poetry editor for the San Antonio Review. She has published poetry, photography, and short stories in numerous presses, and her poetry book, The Human Side, is available on Amazon. For Arvilla, writing produces the greatest joy when it connects us to each other.
Amy Wunders
Still, held by the mortar
black tar as gritty as lava
after grinding against my cheekbones
pulling away the tender fat
off my hipbones.
Maybe it’s because I was singing
so exuberantly
or because you were panting
so heavily
that my windshield fogged.
Still now, my skin smeared
against the painted yellow lines,
a reflector at my eye line.
With a slivered peek
my vision strains to find you
my unbridled, unbuckled,
wild, domesticated, partner.
The relief tranquilizes me
floats me off into peace
as I watch you jaunt over
and lap up my blood.
AMY WUNDERS is a Poet and a Potter. While she loves the bustle of the LA city life, she also enjoys the attunement of mountain lifestyle and finds inspiration from both. Amy has been writing poetry since she was young and recently found the gumption to share her word-strings during the pandemic (thanks for something, covid).
Sharon Kennedy-Nolle
Cat poop in my shoe
into which I put my foot.
The scaler (a hygienist’s gift), now so bent
to run like a razor.
The paring knife
next to the scratched-out glass etching.
“Do you really believe I’d do that?”
fourteen-year-old you protested, hurt.
Never mind the spanner, candlestick, rope.
Never mind whose turn it is.
Never asked the real question, why?
Now I doubt every piece of evidence.
About the real culprit coming,
I hadn’t a clue.
A graduate of Vassar College, SHARON KENNEDY-NOLLE received an MFA from the Writers’ Workshop as well as a doctoral degree in nineteenth-century American literature from the University of Iowa. She also holds MAs from the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University and New York University. Chosen as the 2020 Chapbook Editor’s Pick by Variant Literature Press, Black Wick: Selected Elegies was published in 2021. Recently appointed the Poet Laureate of Sullivan County for 2022-2024 she lives and teaches in New York. Kennedy-Nolle has just been awarded a Poet Laureate Fellowship for 2023-2024 from the Academy of American Poets.