Tag: writer

“The Eagle and Mrs. B.” by Linda Romanowski

Many a Philadelphia area college student spent those post-Thanksgiving/Pre-Christmas days working at one of the “Big Three” department stores in Center City: Strawbridge & Clothier, Lit Brothers, or John Wanamaker’s. Due to my mother’s influence, I thought working at Wanamaker’s was the best of all worlds. After all, who could resist the classy interior and exterior window displays, the jagged mountain range stroke of the owner’s signature on the side of the building, and the transportation proximity?

Two other striking figures claimed the store’s signature distinction: the Wanamaker eagle and the annual Christmas fountain and light show. The serene and imposing gilded bronze aviary statue was the focal point for gathering, for claiming  “lost parents,” and for bon voyages until next time.

Lifting one’s eyes to the sights, sounds, and waving fountain streams of the hourly Christmas performance stopped shoppers in their tracks and delighted the minds of wide-eyed youngsters who rarely cried during those few minutes of awe. My first recollection of seeing the aqua wonder made me fearful, thinking at any moment, the fountains would fall from their upper stage perch and drown the audience below, extinguishing the prancing lights in the process.

Not every pair of eyes welcomed this holiday diversion. My first Christmas working season in the children’s department in 1972 provided a novel view of the saleswomen employed at the makeup counters. The daily music grinding of “Frosty the Snowman” did nothing for their business. No cash registers rung in harmony with “O, Christmas Tree.” Gazers leaned on their pristine cosmetic display cases; their backs turned away from the porcelain faces of Estee Lauderettes, who resorted to makeup remover to erase the handprints and elbow marks on their precious encasements of promised beauty and glamour. No allure of scented bottled blossoms could overpower the lofty sounds and scenery above the audience. It must have been the bane of their existence, their dreams of pocket money ruined by lit-up distraction. One year, I counted viewing thirty-six performances of Rudolph’s very shiny unpowdered nose glowing across the ceiling.

*****

Every college student on Wanamaker’s holiday payroll hoped to work for the main floor supervisor, Mrs. B., known for her kindness. She was a smartly dressed, middle-aged Jewish lady, brownish-black hair coiffed to perfection, with no-nonsense eyeglasses attached to a pearl chain that hung elegantly around her neck. Her high-heeled pumps that coordinated with every outfit gave her an acceptable height, appearing taller than she was. Her trim figure clicked in tandem with her stride. Mrs. B. took the time to acquaint herself with several of us. One afternoon, during the height of the Christmas rush, she announced that she would retain us for the week after Christmas. We were delighted, as it meant money for next semester’s textbooks would be less of an issue. All we needed to do was follow her instructions without variation.

When we punched in on the time clock on December 26th, Mrs. B. led us to an unfamiliar store area, one at a time. We were placed separately in obscure areas of dressing rooms and stock areas, out of the view of the “suits” who might sniff through the aisles looking for post-holiday imperfections. There were close calls, but none of us were spotted. Had we been “caught,” we would say we were Christmas shopping to maintain our ruse. During that week, Mrs. B. was ubiquitous, her eagle eyes surpassing that stony sculpture’s glance on the first floor. We functioned seamlessly as the suits paraded the aisles, praising Mrs. B. for her diligence and attention to detail. I’ll always wonder if the Wanamaker eagle suspected her and kept the secret, among all the others, under its ornate-clad feathers.

Linda M. Romanowski is a graduate of Rosemont College, in 1975 with a BA in Psychology and Elementary Education, and this past May as an MFA graduate in Creative Non-fiction. She was assistant editor of Non-fiction for Rathalla magazine, Rosemont’s literary publication. Her Italian heritage-based thesis, “Final Touchstones”, earned with distinction, is scheduled for publication by Sunbury Press within the coming months. Several of the essays from her pending book were published on City Key, Ovunque Siamo and the Mario Lanza Institute Facebook page. She recently reviewed Ellen Stone’s poetry book “What is in the Blood” for the online Philadelphia Stories 2021 Fall issue. Her poem, “Seen In Translation” was selected for inclusion in the Moonstone Arts Center Protest 2021-100 Thousand Poets for Change.

Three Poems by Ed Meek

Soundtrack of the City

The soundtrack of the city
can keep you up nights
or hum in the background
a discordant tune of wheels turning
and gears interlocking, trucks
unloading, planes taking off
and coming down.
The bass thumping in a passing
smoke-filled car. A Harley roaring
down the street. Sirens wailing
of rescues and D.O.A.
daytimes the volume
jumps to life with the birds
who serenade leaf blowers, lawn mowers,
horns, the ebb and flow
of traffic, the heavy breathing buses
the scraping skateboards,
barking dogs. The disembodied voices
of neighbors you’ll never know.

The Reserved Section

I’d wandered into the reserved section by mistake
but the performance had begun
and it was too late to escape
to the seats for the general public
my inexpensive ticket already paid for.
It was as if I had pulled back the curtain
and entered the first-class cabin–
been admitted to the club
and seated at the head table.
The champagne was vintage.
The caviar Russian.
The lights dimmed.
I was just behind
a Guggenheim and a Rockefeller.
They didn’t seem to see me.
I was invisible as I often am.
For once it was an advantage.
I glanced down the row at two
black women who smiled and nodded.

Hostages to Heat

In Brooklyn when the temp hits 90
the heat invades our claustrophobic co-op.
Outside, the cement sends the heat
up through our bodies in waves.
We float in our sweat like seals in the shallows.
I used to love the feel of sweat
blanketing my body
running in the mid-day sun
and playing pick-up basketball on black tar.
Now we dread summer days when
an orange disk occupies a hazy sky,
Particles of ash coat our lungs
and the sunlight sears our eyes.

Ed Meek is the author of four books of poetry and a collection of short stories. He has had work in The Sun, The Paris Review, Plume, The North American Review, The Boston Globe. He writes book reviews for The Arts Fuse. He is a contributing editor for The Rivanna Review. He teaches creative writing at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. He lives in Great Barrington with his wife Elizabeth and their labradoodle Mookie. His most recent book is High Tide.

“Temp Job” by James B. Nicola

Walk down Fifth Avenue for lunch hour when
you have a temp job in the Forties or
the Fifties; next day, do the walk again
and I’ll bet you a hundred to one you’re
not going to see any of the same
faces. I did this for about a year
when suddenly I thought I heard my name,
or something similar (I’m still not sure).

I turned and shook a total stranger’s hand.
He squeezed, I think, my upper elbow too
as if some mutual past permitted such
a thing. The passing gesture, so unplanned,
impressed me. I could not say where he knew
me from, but I shall not forget that touch.

James B. Nicola, a returning contributor, is the author of eight collections of poetry, the latest three being Fires of Heaven: Poems of Faith and Sense, Turns & Twists, and Natural Tendencies. His nonfiction book Playing the Audience: The Practical Actor’s Guide to Live Performance won a Choice magazine award.

“To Khulood al-Zaidi, Women’s Rights Activist” by Suzanne Morris

“Just to have the freedom to go wherever I wanted,
and to not think something bad might happen to me.”

I try to step outside
freedom’s airy shelter

and look in through
the open windows of my day:

how I stroll from house
to road, unafraid,

and, heart unflinching,
open the box to withdraw
the mail, then

wave at a friendly honk
from a passing car.

Nothing worthy of note
along the way.

Or so it seems,
until I think of her:

how, alone that time in Amman
she heeded a warning

and boarded a plane
for San Francisco

then rode the bus for hours
just because she could,

rode and rode
all over San Francisco,
just because she could

maybe her thoughts
drifting to Fern, who

might be there too,
had she survived

the short ride from Baghdad.

Imagine how,
by habit of mind,
she might have

lowered her eyes
from a stranger’s gaze

then, stepping out,
surveyed
the sloping street

for any suspicious sign;

how she might have
smiled to herself then, that

being free and being safe would
take some getting used to

at least for as long
as she was here

how she might already
have known that

Duty would call her home.

I think of her as I sit down
on my porch of an evening,
to read a book

how heedlessly I surrender
to a world of make-believe,

how easy it is to take
this small freedom
for granted.

The breeze picks up
and I look around,

suddenly alert.

I bring my fingers
to my cheeks,

trying to imagine myself
inside her skin:

the breeze upon her face
as she waits for the bus

in San Francisco.

Suzanne Morris is a novelist with eight published works, and a poet. Her poems have appeared in several recent anthologies, and in online poetry journals including The New Verse News, The Texas Poetry Assignment, Stone Poetry Quarterly and The Courtship of Winds. She resides in Cherokee County, Texas.

Two Poems by Shontay Luna

Chicago (in the early ‘90s)

I. North Side – A Yuppie and Generation X
potluck constantly battling each other as they
sit between streeted throngs of decapitating
movie theaters, army surplus and fetish shops.
A full day’s shopping on Belmont from the Red
Line; two blocks from west to east you can get
a burger, tattoo, condoms, and a doughnut in all
in one swing. Baseball’s most disillusioned fans
in their red and blue regalia, herd themselves
bleary eyed with Pabst in hand four blocks
north of the urban jungle.

II. South Side – Baseball’s flip side, slightly more
civilized but still hungry~ Chinatown a world by itself
within another windy one. Walking down it’s on avenue
encompassing; like passing through an avenue of
time. Bronzeville used to be a glistening as it sounded;
the ensuing decades dulling it’s former polish. Former
middle class turned buppieville Chatham reigns further
south while Hyde Park gives off Greenwich Village
vibes while providing a landscape for a generation x
stomping ground to the east.

III. West Side – Mexico’s a Little Village and a modernized
time travel trip upon the twenty and the 6. Helplessly dotted with
year – round molasses ass traffic before disappearing into
the realms of Cicero and Berwyn. Beyond that, the Spindle
and the mall. Commercialism a beer belly in a too-tight shirt.
Northeast of that, urban poverty simmers and reeks while
suburban spectators cheer for the Bulls.

IV. East Side – Waltzes with Indiana’s frontier, hugging the
farthest curve of Lake Michigan. Beaches of rocky shores
and outlines of warehouses that billow smoke in the not too
far distance. Ten miles south of downtown, it once was an
area of factories: its hardworking streets lined with rows of
homeowners who worked at any of the five steel mills in
the area. Offering anything along Commercial Avenue
so as not be bothered with making the lengthy trip downtown.
For a taste of aged cornucopia, come to my home, Chicago.

Typical Chicago Weather

The gentle
branches
flutter in
the early
Autumn
breezes
traveling
in July.
Weaving
through
pavé glass
vases
embellished
in color
crepe squares,
jumbled into
pixelated
rainbows.

Chicagoan Shontay Luna is a poet, blogger and fanfiction author. Her work first appeared in Anthology and Capper’s and her most recent appearances include The Crucible, Press II Press and Blue Lake Review. Her newest book is ‘The Goddess Journal – a tool for unlocking the Goddess within every Woman.’

“Big Talk” by Mari de Armas

Whenever prompted, I provided my new address, followed by a forceful pronunciation of ATT-LANT-TAH. I said it this way to the movers, the insurance agent, and the post office until I heard my friend Lisa, an Atlantan herself, say, “Ahlannuh,” in one-and-a-half syllables.

We were catching up over drinks at a sandwich shop called Victory. Being new to the area, I asked her to pick the place and was a bit taken aback when she suggested it. I envisioned a Subway restaurant with a liquor license, but I was pleasantly proved wrong. It was a lively establishment with a smattering of booths and tables anchored by a busy bar. Two women with murals of ink tattooed on their arms bounced from table to table, taking orders and delivering mason jars of colorful drinks. Our beverages had just been delivered, mine a Victory Libre cleverly served in a glass Coke bottle, and hers a whiskey-coke slushy that made me wish I had a tolerance for Jack Daniels. Lisa, a writer, an amateur sailor, and a roller derby girl, could easily drink me under the table, so I was fairly certain that a few sips of her slushy weren’t enough to cause her to slur.

“Say it again,” I demanded.

“What? Ahlannuh?”

I had gone through this song and dance in Los Angeles already, running around town mispronouncing everything from street names to neighborhoods. I wasn’t about to make that mistake again, so I asked Lisa to listen and correct my pronunciation as I rattled off every landmark I could possibly remember from my guidebooks. She stopped me at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights.

“Everything is pronounced the same,” she said, waving her hand. “There are only three or four names that might be confusing.”

For those, she provided solutions apt to my maturity level. She explained that the first syllable in Piedmont Park is pee because you may need to do that in the bushes. The city of Decatur is pronounced ‘dick hater’ due to the prevalence of lesbians. Krog Market is not pronounced like Kroger Supermarket, but instead, it rhymes with hog because you go there to pig out. She said to resist the urge to pronounce anything in Spanish. Ponce ends in a silent ‘e’ like the word pounce. When Atlantans want you to pronounce the ‘e’, they add a ‘y’ to the spelling as evidenced in the name of a neighborhood called, Poncey-Highland.

I thanked her wholeheartedly for the lesson.

We were nearly done with our respective drinks when I asked the inevitable question former smokers raise when they’re out drinking and reminiscing: Do you have? and then put two fingers up to my lips because uttering the word cigarette is too disgusting.

She didn’t have any, but I wasn’t too disappointed. It was a long shot. I mean, who smokes anymore?

“Let’s go outside and see if anyone has an extra cigarette,” she said, already standing.

Her plan sounded ludicrous. In Los Angeles, the closest smoker you’d find was in Nevada.

“Should we tell our waitress that we’ll be right back?” I asked, certain that I was going to get hip-checked by present-day Rosie the Riveter for walking out on my tab.

Lisa waved me off again.

Miraculously, we found not one but several smokers of the nicotine type.

“I hate to ask,” Lisa announced, and before she finished her question, a young woman with sunglasses propped on her head heeded the call.

“Camels okay?” she said, holding open her pack for Lisa to pilfer.

“Do you need one too?” she asked me.

“Oh, no, thank you,” I said, falling over myself. “We’ll share,” I suggested humbly.

“Don’t be silly,” she said, holding out her box for me.

“I’ve got Parliaments, if you prefer,” a man’s voice boomed from the corner.

I gasped. That was my brand. And like a child being lured into the back of a van, I walked right over to him.

I was really out here bumming cigarettes like it was the late nineties.

His cigarette hung from his lips precariously over his lengthy beard as he lit mine. Before I could say thank you, I was somehow swept into a conversation. Sure, smoking is a social activity where chit-chat is exchanged between participants. Someone mentions the weather, and the other person replies in agreement. Then, the replier is compelled to say something else to not make the person who initiated the conversation feel bad about breaking the ice. You know, your standard, textbook small talk. But this was not that. If anything, this was big talk.

“Y’all know these two parking lots have different prices, and they’re right across from each other, right?” he said.

“Yeah. That lot is a rip-off,” Lisa said.

“Seriously? That’s where I parked.”

“That’s the most expensive lot in all of Decatur,” he said, pronouncing it the way a lesbian would.

“She just moved here,” Lisa said in defense of my ignorance.

“Well, that’s a tough first lesson to learn,” he said before taking a drag.

“Where’d you move here from?” asked the Camel smoker.

“L.A.,” I said, thinking that would suffice, but all it did was spark up a conversation about me that didn’t really include me.

Guy with the Parliaments: “It’s so expensive out there…”

Girl with the Camels: “And so many people are moving over here…”

Guy with the Parliaments talking about me when I’m standing right there: “She’s probably with the movie business…”

Girl with the Camels: “Did you rent or buy a place? Well, it doesn’t matter, really. It’s really driving prices up…”

The door of the establishment flung open, and our waitress appeared. Oh, here we go, I thought, bracing for the tackle.

“Another round?” she hollered.

Lisa and I responded in the affirmative.

“Should I buy these people drinks,” I said, pointing at our cigarette benefactors.

“No, that’s creepy,” she said.

That’s creepy? These people knew more about my life in two minutes than my blood relatives had in three decades. I shrugged my shoulders and took slow, methodical drags, enjoying what remained of my taboo habit and making note of the lessons learned.

There were other curiosities that Lisa left out in my orientation. For example, Atlanta’s elevator problem. I suppose it wasn’t a purposeful omission but one that has to be experienced. The first time it happened to me, I was sharing an elevator with a group of overly polite men who, upon the doors parting to reveal our floor, turned into adorable toy soldiers. They performed a choreographed about-face to allow me to egress, even though I was standing in the back corner. I didn’t understand what was happening until one of the men extended his hand outward to usher me out.

“Oh, gosh, thank you,” I gushed like a fourth runner-up at a beauty pageant.

Half a dozen more of these exhibitions of impractical chivalry later, and I was ready to lobby for gender-neutral elevators. I got into a few ‘you first, no you first’ bouts and when my outfits bordered on androgynous, it created a lot of consternation. I could see the machinations behind their eyes. They were horrified to offend me but more scared to dishonor their mothers, who made them promise to always let the lady go first. More than once, I missed my exit because men couldn’t create a pathway fast enough to beat out the doors. I started to add an extra five minutes to my commute if I knew the location of my appointment was taller than a two-story building. An effort that meant nothing, as time is arbitrary here. Another interesting aberration.

Every city has its own tempo and Atlanta’s hovers in the realm of Jazzy Muzak. Citizens butterfly around like a lovely alto sax solo without urgency to make it to where they need to be. Why would they? Dinner can be ordered at 3 a.m. and breakfast at 3 p.m. You can watch exotic dancers perform in darkened rooms when it’s broad daylight outside and play carnival games under the stars on the roof of the old Sears building.

There are only two things, and two things alone, that you can count on being on time. The first is 5 o’clock rush hour, and the second is lesbian kickball games. Equally intense, both feature moments of elevated frustration, immense fear and tons of drama, but neither is ever tardy.

When I realized this phenomenon, I made an effort to be late to social gatherings, but as hard as I tried, I was always the first to arrive. On one particular evening, our group had 7:15 p.m. reservations at a Midtown Mexican restaurant called Zocalo. Restaurant is generous. It’s really an open deck shack without doors or windows that looks like it was transported directly from the sands of Acapulco onto the pavement of Piedmont Avenue. I arrived twenty minutes late, and even the hostess was surprised to see me.

“We don’t have your table ready just yet,” the hostess said, looking down at a sheet of paper.

“No worries,” I said, completely worried. “I’ll be at the bar.”

“Ok, I’ll come get you when it’s ready,” she said, fully knowing she wasn’t going to remember to get me.

This was not an ideal situation because it was a busy bar, and in order to keep my seat, I was going to have to order and re-order until my friends arrived. There’s nothing more unpleasant than being the first one of the group to get drunk, especially when there’s no group. I didn’t want to be out of sync with everyone else because I hit the pre-game too hard, so I decided my stop-gap measure to avoid this problem was to order beer. I figured I could have one or two and still maintain my composure.

I sipped slowly and lifted my gaze to people-watch. The demographics of the patrons skewed more than a decade younger than me. They were so beautiful, without laugh lines or wrinkled foreheads. Drinking salted-brimmed margaritas and baskets upon baskets of chips and salsa without worry of acid reflux. To be twenty-something again. I would be doing shots of marinara sauce and snorting lines of collagen in the bathroom.

“Hey Mari!” I heard a man’s voice say.

I searched the room, but no one was looking in my direction. If someone said ‘Mari’ in a crowded Miami bar, 17 women would activate like a Sims character, but hearing it in Atlanta was remarkable. Not to mention pronounced correctly. None of this Maury bullshit that I had to contend with in Los Angeles. It was a proper Mari with a rolled R. Through the cluster of people squeezed into this tiny space. I saw a man embracing the presumed Mari. She was petite with long, dark brown hair. Latina, from what I can see. My bartender and her black lipstick snapped me out of my rubbernecking.

“Another one?” she asked. I smiled nervously and looked at my phone riddled with texts that claimed things like ‘almost there’ and ‘in the Uber’ and ‘traffic is bad’.

“Yes, please,” I answered.

While she fished out my second beer, I once again turned my attention to my namesake to see a smartly dressed young woman with short, blondish hair trying to get Mari’s attention.

“Hi! I’m sorry to interrupt. I hope you don’t think this is weird. Is your name Mari?”

I gasped in ecstasy at the thought this was going to be one of those ‘that’s my man you’re with’ situations. I turned back to grin at the bartender as she placed the bottle on a coaster and went right back to eavesdropping.

“Yeah,” Mari answered cautiously.

I positioned myself to get a better view of this soon-to-be dinner and a show.

“This is crazy. My name is Mari, too,” the second Mari said excitedly.

I nearly spit out my beer.

“Wait. How do you spell it?” the first Mari asked the other.

“M-A-R-I” answered number two.

“Oh my God, me too!” They both squealed.

Was I being punked? I looked around for hidden cameras.

“I heard someone say my name,” number two continued, “And I looked up to see your friend, but I was like, I don’t know that guy!”

“This is my friend Brian,” number one said, now bringing in the guy that sparked this Abbott and Costello routine.

I sat fascinated. As members of their respective parties arrived, they repeated their meet-cute story; all the while,
I sat quietly, debating whether or not to say something.

“I’m over here waiting for you to get here, and I heard someone say my name, but it wasn’t you,” Mari said to a friend who had just arrived. And then the first Mari added, “It’s spelled the same and everything,” to the person listening.

After the third rendition, I was done being an observer. I mean, how could I not insert myself into this story? I drowned the voice telling me to stay out of it with a few more gulps and then took the plunge.
“You guys are not going to believe this,” I yelled across the bar. “My name is Mari too.”

From the commotion we caused, the diners in the main room must have thought someone dumped a bag full of hundred-dollar bills on the bar. We clustered together in one corner, and, like good Atlantans, we engaged in “big talk.”
One of the Maris shared that she was adopted, the other one invited us to do bumps in the bathroom, and I confessed that when someone calls me Maria, I fantasize about murdering them. You know, casual.

Somewhere between the first and second tequila shots, it dawned on me that, well, that I was very drunk, but most importantly that the reason Atlantans chat so much wasn’t that they’re extra talkative, but it’s that they’re bored from waiting for their friends to show. Maybe those smokers back at Victory were so happy to share their cigarettes and their opinions because they had mistakenly arrived too early.

“Where are your friends?” Mari number two asked me, with her arm around my neck.

“I think they are stuck in an elevator going after you, no after you.”

The Maris knew exactly what I meant, and I had never been more seen.

Mari de Armas was the first of her family not to hail from the island of Cuba. She is a content strategist for a glitzy client list of cruise lines and hotels and blogs at ALittleCubanGoesALongWay.com. She holds a Bachelor’s in English and resides near Washington, DC, with her wife.

Three Roman Poems by Carlo Rey Lacsamana

Please note: Poetry is compressed to fit smart phone screens. If you are reading this poem on a phone screen, please turn your screen sideways to make sure that you are seeing correct line breaks for the poem.

I
Morning is laid out like a tablecloth
over the gardens of Villa Borghese
the whole of existence sparkles like the trumpet
moaning in full blast at the piazza overlooking Piazza
del Popolo
how the winter clothes bite the warm crust of sunlight like bread
how the ears drink the never-ending songs of fountains like wine
-songs of return songs of leaving-
and as I step into the shadows of trees
I remember what brought us here
to feast on this mystery like sheep that feed on grass
stuff our mouths with marvel and green air fill
our bellies with gratitude and poems
we stay close to each other listen to the wind
play with our hair our good intent for the world
reunites with our sorrow in the freshly cut grass
to love what is left to love in this loveless world
we lean back our heads in the light with eyes closed
as though we carry the answers

II

Temporarily on display
at the Galleria Borghese
is Rubens’ Risen Christ from 1615

to rise like the Christ in Rubens’ painting
waking up from death with a face washed by forgetfulness
not of indifference but of surrender
a face that says “it could not have been otherwise”
the dignity of the wounded
his body looks healthy and fresh
as though it has forgotten the wounds and the injury
it has suffered
even the stab hole on his lower right chest does not speak of pain
but like a tiny mouth that wants to sing
his feet longing to touch the warm earth again to walk all over again
pass through fatigue and thirst and hunger all over again
the angel lifting the shroud from his head with a surprised look
to see in Christ’s eyes the love of life as great as the suffering endured
dying indeed is the beginning for this is what Resurrection is
we are summoned to live again to love again to be hurt again
to die again

III

As old as Rome is my love for you
as chaotic as the tourists in Fontana di Trevi
is my desire for you
the way Bernini grasped chisel and hammer
I grasp you in my heat to shape this desire
to make a body of this wanting give it head arms and legs
miraculous as marble
maybe along Trastevere our glance will meet
when everyone is on his way to work when every fucking tourist
returns to his hotel when the sun grants refuge to the cold
and brokenhearted or in some corner in Piazza Spagna
where people show off their clothes or in some bar at
Piazza Navona where the fountains say your name all the time
over a cup of coffee our glance will meet
because your eyes are the city
that I feel enclosed engulfed enveloped like a gladiator
in the Colosseum but I do not fight there are no cheers
no rewards no condemnation
I am only a poet whose weapon is a flock of sparrows in his throat
whose appetite for loneliness runs further that the Tiber River
whose longing is as steadfast as your seven hills
I would rather be punished if punishment means
to be devoured by your touch
who can I make friends with here but the wind passing by like myself
sighing through neighborhoods razing the palaces and squares
with its cold breath of nostalgia
she keeps me company like a mother leading me by the hand
taking my heart to all the places where metaphors
lead to another existence where every line of a poem leads eventually
to you
yes, the wind whipping against my face exposes my heart
the heart which has too many secrets intrigues dark passages
like the Vatican but its walls crumble when it hears your footsteps
when the fragrance of your hair invades my body with tremors
and my voice is silenced like the paintings I survey for hours
at the museum searching for your face sometimes I dream of entering
the paintings of me becoming Christ crucified and you embracing me
like the Madonna weeping or me becoming Saint Sebastian
tied to a pole and you the arrows entering me without mercy
I loving the pain or I want you to be the nude like those of Rubens’
so loved by the painter you can tell by the folds and softness of their flesh
outside of these art galleries the moon wells up brighter and wiser
the lampposts flicker the river flares up the burning waters
carrying your reflection the rumble of cars over the road
the dying civilization words pile up in me like the dreams of immigrants
along the roadsides
the ghost of Anna Magnani appears in Piazza del Popolo dancing like
a madwoman
I dance with your shadow while the Neros of this world
set the temple on fire
maybe civilization is a bad idea who can tell
all these noise and madness tearing us apart
what about this dancing beneath the winter stars
the smoke-signs above the railways there is another road
we can turn into and the secret you impart in my ear
there is still a reason to live

Carlo Rey Lacsamana is a Filipino writer, poet, and artist born and raised in Manila, Philippines. Since 2005, he has been living and working in the Tuscan town of Lucca, Italy. He regularly contributes to journals in the Philippines, writing politics, culture, and art. His works have appeared in Esquire Magazine, The Citron Review, Mediterranean Poetry (Stockholm), Amsterdam Quarterly, Lumpen Journal (London), The Berlin Literary Review, Literary Shanghai and in other numerous magazines. His short story Toulouse has been recorded as a podcast story in the narrative podcast Pillow Talking (Australia). Follow him on Instagram@carlo_rey_lacsamana

“The Same Songs” by Frank Modica

Please note: Poetry is compressed to fit smart phone screens. If you are reading this poem on a phone screen, please turn your screen sideways to make sure that you are seeing correct line breaks for the poem.

A Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
song blares from my car speakers
while I drive to my mother’s
west suburban bungalow
after a short trip to Aldi’s.
The lyrics about lost
loves ring out
unexpected, streaky
tears on my cold,
wrinkled cheekbones.
“Life is so unfair,”
I shout at the radio,
“Too many wasted days and nights.”
I don’t stop to consider
whether this same
soundtrack disturbs
the quiet daydreams
of other restless drivers
who drive around Chicago
trying to forget the loves
they lost in all
the same places.

Frank C. Modica is a cancer survivor and retired teacher who taught over 34 years. Frank’s first chapbook, “What We Harvest,” nominated for an Eric Hoffer book award, was published in 2021 by Kelsay Books. His second chapbook, “Old Friends,” was published in 2022 by Cyberwit Press.

Three Poems by Jeffery Allen Tobin

Please note: Poetry is compressed to fit smart phone screens. If you are reading this poem on a phone screen, please turn your screen sideways to make sure that you are seeing correct line breaks for the poem.

Life Through a Transom

From the transom above my grandparents’ door,
the city stretched like a secret,
half-glimpsed, half-dreamed,
a mosaic of rooftops and smokestacks,
where stories rose and vanished
in the smog-filled air.
I watched it from a distance,
my childhood framed in glass,
the world a silent play
performed on dusty streets.

Every afternoon, I climbed the stairs,
stood on tiptoe to peer through the pane,
my eyes tracing the lines of buildings
that seemed to touch the sky,
each window a portal to lives
I could never enter,
each alley a whisper
of adventures just out of reach.

The city sang a muffled symphony,
horns and shouts a muted hum
beneath my grandparents’ gentle voices,
their stories blending with the distant din,
an undercurrent of life
I could never quite hold.
I saw children playing in the park,
their laughter a faint ripple
across my glass-bound view,
their games a choreography
of innocence and escape.

I imagined myself among them,
running through the maze of streets,
feeling the pulse of the city beneath my feet,
but always, I remained
behind the transom, a spectator
to a world that moved on without me,
each day a reflection
of what I could not touch.

The city was both near and far,
a heartbeat away and a lifetime apart,
its secrets tantalizingly close,
yet always slipping through my grasp.
I grew older, my visits less frequent,
the view through the transom unchanged,
yet somehow different,
a reminder of dreams
that faded with time.

Now, I see the city in my mind,
a distant memory etched in glass,
its streets a labyrinth of longing,
its lights a constellation of loss.
The transom remains, a silent witness
to my yearning, my small rebellion
against the confines of home.
I wonder if the city remembers
the boy who watched from above,
if it holds his dreams in its concrete heart,
or if they are scattered, like leaves in the wind,
carried away by the currents of time,
lost in the endless rhythm of life.

King of the Trestle

He reigned over the trestle,
a monarch of forgotten dreams,
his kingdom stretching beneath the steel arches
where trains thundered above,
their rumble a lullaby
to the man who made the rails his throne.

Every morning, I walked to school,
passing his domain with a mixture
of curiosity and fear,
wondering about the stories etched
in the lines of his weathered face,
each wrinkle a sign
to battles fought and lost.

His eyes, clear and piercing,
held a depth that spoke of places
far beyond the bridge,
yet he chose this spot,
this concrete refuge
from a world that turned its back.
I never knew his name,
but to me, he was royalty,
a king without a crown,
whose court was the pigeons
that fluttered and cooed
like restless courtiers.

Some days, I’d see him muttering
to the ghosts of his past,
his hands gesturing to the air
as if shaping the memories
that kept him company
when the nights grew long
and the cold seeped in.

I wondered what brought him here,
what dreams derailed on the tracks
that led him to this place.
Did he once have a family,
a home filled with laughter?
Or was the trestle always his destiny,
a final stop on the journey
through a life less kind?

I never spoke to him,
fearful of crossing the invisible line
between our worlds,
but his presence left an imprint
on my young mind,
a lesson in the fragility
of human existence,
the thin veil that separates
those who have from those who don’t.

Years passed, and I left the neighborhood,
the trestle a distant memory,
its king a shadow in my thoughts.
I often wonder if he’s still there,
if the trains still sing him to sleep,
if the pigeons still gather
to hear his silent proclamations.

Sometimes, in the quiet of the night,
I imagine him sitting on his makeshift throne,
looking out over his kingdom
with a dignity that defies his plight,
a king of the trestle,
lost in the symphony of the rails,
his legacy etched in the rhythm
of wheels on steel,
a life lived on the edge,
a story untold yet profoundly known.

Milk Bottles

Grandmother’s stories poured like milk
from bottles left on doorsteps,
each tale a glass of yesterday,
frosted with the mist of memory.
I listened, enthralled by the clink
of the delivery man’s cart,
the early morning ritual
of fresh starts on silent streets.

She spoke of mornings when the city
still slumbered, when fog clung
to the corners of buildings
and the world felt softer,
as if wrapped in wool.
The bottles stood like sentinels,
gleaming in the first light,
promising nourishment
in their fragile embrace.

I imagined the sound,
the gentle thud of glass against wood,
a symphony of routine and care,
each bottle a message
from a simpler time,
a time when life was measured
by the rhythm of deliveries,
the certainty of small gestures.

Uncle Jim’s voice added a different hue,
recollections tinged with the scent of coal
and the hum of streetcars,
each memory a brushstroke
on the canvas of our family lore.
He spoke of neighbors chatting
over fences, of the milkman’s smile,
a fleeting moment of connection
in a city that never stood still.

I longed for that world,
the tangible comfort of glass and cream,
the predictable cadence of daily life,
unbroken by the chaos
that seemed to seep
into every crack of the present.
The stories were my refuge,
a window to a past
where people knew each other’s names
and the milk always arrived on time.

The tales have since faded,
their edges blurred by the march of years,
but the image of those bottles remained,
a symbol of something I could never grasp,
a time I could never touch.
I find myself yearning for that simplicity,
for the solidity of glass
and the certainty it contained,
even as I navigate a world
where everything feels transient,
where nothing seems to last.

Now, I hold these stories
like those old milk bottles,
delicate and clear,
filled with a substance
that nourishes my soul,
yet always just out of reach.
I wonder if the past ever truly leaves us,
if we are all custodians of memories
delivered from house to house,
each story a bottle waiting
to be opened, to be savored,
to remind us of the ties
that bind us to a time
when life seemed simpler,
and the milkman’s visit
was the highlight of the day.

Jeffery Allen Tobin is a political scientist and researcher based in South Florida. His poetry, short stories, and essays have been published in many journals, magazines, and websites. He has been writing for more than 30 years.

“Moms’ Night Out” by Raya Yarbrough

A study in social discomfort and expensive toast, with explanatory footnotes, to be read at the end

Tonight I went to “Moms’ Night Out” at a pseudo-posh bar in Santa Monica. This was an extra-curricular event through my daughter’s preschool, organized by Sam, a mother who is far more involved and organized than I am. I’m not an un-involved mom, but when I have time to myself, away from the task of keeping another human alive, my first thought is towards my work or a hobby, like running screaming out into the night.2 I went to prove to the other moms, and to myself, that I can be a person.

In the Lyft, I ruminated on my discomfort about social events. I just don’t know HOW to people. What do people talk about?3 On stage, life makes sense. I know where and when things are supposed to happen. I guess my point is, after getting past “Hello fellow human female. I see you have spawned as well. Yes, we all drink more now,” what do I talk to a bunch of effectively random women about? But still, I wanted to give it a chance.

My Lyft pulled up to the curb. I got out. I went into the bar.

Inside the bar, it was dim, but not sinister-dim, like sex-den dim. You know. A heavy, dark, toile curtain hung close to the entrance, obscuring half my view. I took two steps toward the toile, then panned left to right: a table with two women I did not recognize, two women and a man at the bar, also foreign to me, some empty couches and low accent tables, and then there was Sam, the classroom rep and event organizer. I see Sam every week when she volunteers to set up lunch for the teachers, and/or to do other devoted tasks. Sam has three children and does all this. Did I mention she’s also skinny and beautiful? I am automatically a disheveled, out-of-shape, one-kid-having wuss in her presence. Not that she projects that—she’s actually lovely—this is all in my head. Loudly. In my head.

Sam hadn’t seen me yet; she was checking her phone. Seemed confused. She was the only one on the couch. I turned on my mental “extrovert app,” and the mask appeared.

“Hi Sam!”

“Oh hiiiiii!”

She had a half-empty glass of sparkling wine. I sat down on a dark blue, velveteen, tufted couchlet. I didn’t see anyone else I recognized.

Fucking hell. I was the first one there.

We both made sounds at each other, reflecting the situation. We recounted the facts, as if we were reminiscing about the events of five minutes ago. Almost nostalgic for a distant past, ten minutes ago, back when it was Schrodinger’s Party in our minds, both alive and dead.4

The waiter came by to ask if we’d like to look at the menu. We said yes. We required new activity and stimulation.

Sam said the food at this bar was actually very good, and she put in an order for sliders. I went for the avocado toast. The waiter was patient while we decided how many orders of each we should get. I also ordered an Old Fashioned.

We did mom talk, while the waiter took our orders to the kitchen. Nap strategies, bedtime routines, what do they eat, finding “me time,” and teaching small humans where to poop. My Old Fashioned arrived. I stopped midway to my sip, catching sight of the artisanal-looking orange rind, which set off an overall tangerine effect in the glass. It looked like Dayquil.

Then, Sam asked the introvert’s nuclear question. “How are you?”

It sends me into existential paralysis. How are you physically? Emotionally? How are you finding this incarnation on this plane of existence?10

I told her about my recording project, my album. That’s a thing.

“Mmmm,” she said, and raised her eyebrows, like the information tasted good. There was full eye contact, without a side-glance, and I know that means a human is engaged. Good so far. I told her my husband had been out of town and would be most of the month.

“Mmmmm,” again, but this time with furrowed brow, indicating recognition of the potential hardship of the situation. That’s an empathic facial response. Even if faked, she took the trouble to make it.

I paused, searching for another “thing.” I got distracted because her eyebrows were impeccable. I started wondering about her skin-care regimen. Side-glance. Shit, I’d waited too long to say a thing, and now my presence had become burdensome. She checked her phone. Oh God, I’m an alien. An alien she’s having to babysit, alone, in a bar.

Our conversation was in syndication now, pure re-runs. She had already told me when her kids went to sleep, but I asked again, as if I needed clarification about the specific meaning of 6:30pm. She asked what I was recording. I told her, “my album.” She repeated her face. She apologized about the confusion and tapped on her phone. We alternated head swivels towards the entrance whenever somebody new came in. We repeated the conversation where we told each other what time it was, and how we thought people would’ve been here 30 minutes ago. We confirmed for each other that it was now five minutes later than the last time we checked.

Then silence.

Sam ordered a margarita.

Sam’s margarita arrived, salted.

The table was an embarrassment of sharp-cut, Himalayan salt-crystalled, conically wrapped French fries. In baskets. We ate the sliders and avocado toast. So there we were: two jilted, awkward, skinny-pants-wearing moms-in-a-bar, drinking and scarfing fries, because what the fuck at this point.

If we had chosen, intentionally, to hang out alone together, it wouldn’t have been as awkward. It was only because we had expected a night of perfunctory chit chat, with many people, that we ended up unprepared for genuine social interaction.

Sam looked with concern towards the kitchen. This is when I found out that she’d told the establishment to expect 20 people, and to reserve seating and staff appropriately. This was the social-let-down motherload—when the people you invited aren’t there, and the people you paid to be there are pissed off and glaring.

8:30pm rolled around, and Sam asked how long I had planned to stay. It was clear that truly, nobody else was showing up. I made words about the babysitter. I suggested we have plans with our husbands sometime, maybe a playdate, something intentional.

“Yeah totally!”

“Yeah we totally should!”11

Because the rules are that you must reverse an unintentionally awkward evening with an intentionally awkward one.

So that was Moms’ Night Out—which seemed like a very specific and reductive title, now that the night had passed in the way it did.

So, did I learn anything about how to be a person? Did I prove to myself that I’m a person?13 I learned that sometimes the discomfort goes deeper than me. And sometimes the most prepared, together, responsible folks can still get tapped by the wand of the awkward fairy.14

Footnotes:

2 For the record, “running screaming into the night” is not my hobby. My hobbies are: free-floating anxiety and delusions of grandeur. And watercolor.

3 Aside from Steely Dan, Dark Matter, good/bad use of crash cymbal, Dark Energy, sex, the dishes, more sex, why my software isn’t working, The Singularity, politics, “are changes in emotion metric modulations?”, weird sex, Black people stuff, “where are my earbuds?” Jewish people stuff, Fminor6/9, guys wearing eyeliner, “what are those tiny red spiders called?”, and Star Trek.

I may have digressed.

4 “Schrödinger’s cat” is a thought experiment devised by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935. The scenario presents a cat that may be simultaneously both alive and dead, a state known as a quantum superposition. As the story goes,5 there is a cat in a box in the room next to you.6 You do not know how long the cat has been in the box, if the box is ventilated, if the cat has been fed, if the cat has been listening to Joe’s Garage7 or the Best of Celine Dion.8 Any of these variables could render the cat living or dead. Some more than others.9 Until you enter the room and open the box, in your mind, the cat is both alive and dead. Like the party. Before I got there. Get it?

5 Basically.

6 With soundproofing.

7 A three-part rock opera recorded by American musician Frank Zappa in 1979.

8 Please refer to 9

9 Please refer to 8

10 Fine. Needs salt.

11 Scientists estimate that people who suggest “making plans” in Los Angeles have, statistically, a 10 percent chance of actually seeing those plans become reality. Experts theorize that this behavior is due to several common circumstances, such as:

1) Some shit I’ve got to do.
2) “My girlfriend/boyfriend/spouse is sick/a dick/a bitch/in town/out of town/imaginary”
3) Plans with more professionally important people.
4) “Oh, shit I forgot!”
5) Something to do with kids.
6) Having to drive from West side to East side and vice versa, but usually the prior.
7) Having to drive between the hours of 2pm-7pm.
Recent studies have shown that Los Angeles people making good on “we should hang out” is less likely than the 405 receiving a hovercraft lane, or a frozen daiquiri blizzard naturally occurring over the Grand Canyon. Though there are differing opinions on how to deal with this social epidemic, 95 percent of experts12 agree that the situation is totally bullshit.
12) The other 5 percent of experts were not available for comment because they “Had a thing, but totally want to get together soon.”
13) No.
14) Different from the Absinthe Fairy, which is a story for another time.

Raya Yarbrough is a writer and singer-songwriter best known for singing the opening song of the TV series Outlander. Her creative nonfiction has been published in Frazzled and MUTHA Magazine. Raya is finishing a humorous memoir about being a parent in a multiracial family while also being a working artist.