Shattered

by Lori Corry

The way it breaks is the way it was,
first it pops then it explodes
shattered glass streaming all around 
like covid, shattered glass like covid,
like covid, like the shards you cannot see
streaming all around like sparklers

We freeze, we fight, we live in fear

on the fourth of July.
Broken systems, broken life
cleaning it all up takes discipline,
takes a broom, takes a dustpan, takes a vacuum,
takes a fricking lot of time
to clear your life of invisible threats.
Do not let them tell you it’s not real.
Do not let them tell you its all in your imagination

We freeze, we fight, we live in fear.

Hold on to your broken heart tightly, so tightly
until it mends itself restored, resurrected,
repaired. Find the golden glue,
find the red thread, sew it all up again,
then stop, take a breath, make 
yourself a beautifully truthful mask.

We freeze, we fight, we live in fear.

Lori Corry is a year-round resident of Nantucket Island, MA. She spends time investigating feminine divine energies and gaining creative inspiration from the stories and myths of our world’s many goddesses. Her poetry has been published in Chronogram Magazine, the Lily Poetry Review, and previously on Global Poemic. Arabella Luna Friedland is a visual artist and writer based in New York City. She’s influenced by a childhood with cartoons, a classical education in anatomy and life drawing, and a firm belief that all art — is a portrait.   

Alone

by Tom Barlow

Exhausted, I watch another body bag loaded into the
refrigerated truck outside St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx.

Above me, mourning doves perch on ledges, waiting
for my bread. Masked pedestrians cross to the other

side of the street, and even heathens make the sign
of the cross as they pass. A heartsick daughter stands

with binoculars in a window on the tenth floor across
Third Avenue, probably hoping to see into her father’s

hospital room, but I have closed the blinds in those rooms
against a sun that could only bring false hope.

All over town, ghosts shed their swaddling as they rise,
and the fabric floats down like birds gliding toward

strewn seed. I have never felt so alone.

Tom Barlow is an Ohio writer whose work has appeared in journals including The Stoneboat Literary Journal, Ekphrastic Review, Voicemail Poetry, Hobart, Tenemos, Redivider, Harbinger Asylum, Heron Clan, The Remington Review, Your Daily Poem, and many more. Arabella Luna Friedland is a visual artist and writer based in New York City. She’s influenced by a childhood with cartoons, a classical education in anatomy and life drawing, and a firm belief that all art — is a portrait.   

Fallen

by Elizabeth Jaeger

Four o’clock is the hardest part of the day. If Dad were alive, it would be cocktail hour. He’d make drinks and we’d sit and talk. Or rather, I’d talk. He’d listen. Now, he’s not here, but sometimes I make that drink anyway and go outside — alone. On the deck, I perch in silence, missing Dad. I never knew silence could be so sad or that if you sit still long enough you can hear the leaves falling off the trees. They’re so light, so easily carried on the wind, but when they fall, they sound not unlike rain. 

Elizabeth Jaeger’s essays, short stories, book reviews and poetry have been published in various print and online journals, including The Write Life, Capsule Stories, Watchung Review, Ovunque Siamo, Peacock Journal, Boston Accent Lit, and Italian Americana. Newtown Literary published an excerpt from her novel-in-progress. She is the book review editor at Ovunque Siamo. When Jaeger isn’t reading or writing, she enjoys going hiking and taking road trips with her son. Arabella Luna Friedland is a visual artist and writer based in New York City. She’s influenced by a childhood with cartoons, a classical education in anatomy and life drawing, and a firm belief that all art — is a portrait.   

A Little Before Twelve

by Cynthia Andrews

I saw you today again in my mind
and we made love. You touched my
hand & held it for a very long time,
just as you have always done.  I kissed
your neck and the bristle of your cheek and
you pulled me toward you.  I got out of
the subway a little before noon, still
thinking of you after the long train
ride and surrounded by the smell of roses.
I was your muse, conjured up by your own
mind as a dream filters through a poem like
a goddess of light in a black gauze dress. 
You stroke my hair slowly and softly and make
me giggle and talk poetry long into the morning
hours.  You touch my hand and hold it for a
long time.  I kiss your neck & the bristle of
your cheek.  Your hand suddenly dips into
my blouse and I slap it hard, but you make me
laugh so much that it really doesn’t matter. 
One of my buttons drops to the floor and I
hear it click but I really don’t care what’s happening
around me, except for how good your skin feels
on me.  I feel your wet lips on mine and can taste
the beer you had a moment ago.  I saw you again
today in my mind and we made love again.

Cynthia Andrews is a veteran of the New York City poetry circuit, and has read in such venues as The St. Marks Poetry Project, Mid-Manhattan Library, The Nuyorican Poets Café and the Cornelia Street Café; as well as the radio programs, Teachers and Writers in the Morning, WBAI FM and Cable TV. Her work as appeared in Downtown Magazine, The Voice Literary Supplement, Tribes Literary Journal, Longshot, etc.; as well as the anthologies ALOUD: Voices from the Nuyorican Café, In Heat, The Unbearables, Will Fight for Peace, etc.  She was one of the first to be included in the Spoken Word library of Poets House. Nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 1995 and 1996, she was also recognized by Downtown Magazine for the Downtown Year of the Poet Award in 1996. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing and resides in New York City. Arabella Luna Friedland is a visual artist and writer based in New York City. She’s influenced by a childhood with cartoons, a classical education in anatomy and life drawing, and a firm belief that all art — is a portrait.   

Our son calls me into his room after bedtime again

by Shea Tuttle

Tonight, he is worried, his eyes bright
in the darkness. What’s wrong? I ask.
I keep coughing, he says. Oh, Sugar,
I say, leaning to kiss his forehead.
This is a trick I learned
by accident: it looks like
reflexive affection, idle
comfort, but really
I am taking his temperature. He is
cool. Cool as a cucumber, as my mother
used to say, her hand smooth
against my forehead. You just need
some sleep, I tell our son, also a line
from my mother. Mentally, I measure
pollen counts, today’s degree
of physical exertion, what he ate
for dinner, lunch, breakfast.
I remember the Saharan dust cloud,
the air quality warning in the neighboring county.
I think you’re going to be just fine,
I tell him, kiss him again. I notice
I sound calm, confident. I say
I love you, like always. I go back
to my bed, where my laptop waits,
my browser open to a graph
of case counts, the line falling through
April, May, part of June, then at the very edge
of the graph, the part that meets
the empty space of now, a rise.
I listen, but the house is quiet
except for the dog who, though sleeping,
is snuffling and half-howling,
his own dreams, I imagine, taking him
on walks without leashes,
through yards without fences,
after cats and rabbits, squirrels and blue jays
that always only just get away.

Shea Tuttle is the author of Exactly as You Are: The Life and Faith of Mister Rogers and co-editor of Can I Get a Witness: Thirteen Peacemakers, Community Builders, and Agitators for Faith and Justice. She lives in Virginia with her family. Arabella Luna Friedland is a visual artist and writer based in New York City. She’s influenced by a childhood with cartoons, a classical education in anatomy and life drawing, and a firm belief that all art — is a portrait.   

New York April, 2020

by Alison Stone

Season of blossoms, freedom, bunnies, reborn son.
The devout beam with faith although
there’s so much, and so many, gone.
Muttering in nightmare, my husband grabs my hair.

The devout beam with faith, despite
unclaimed bodies being buried in mass graves.
Muttering in nightmare, my husband grabs my hair.
To soothe himself, he watches The Sopranos.

Unclaimed bodies are being buried in mass graves.
The curve rises like forbidden bread.
To soothe themselves, people watch The Sopranos,
death contained in a screen.

The curve rises like forbidden bread.
No gathering for matzoh or chocolate eggs.
Death broadcasts from our screens,
both science and prayer ineffective.

No gathering for matzoh or chocolate eggs.
Businesses, dreamed and built for decades, lost.
Both science and prayer ineffective.
I’m not betting on resurrection.

Businesses dreamed and built for decades, lost.
There’s so much, and so many, gone.
I’m not betting on a resurrection,
despite blossoms, freedom, bunnies, reborn sun.

Alison Stone has published six full-length collections, Caught in the Myth (NYQ Books, 2019), Dazzle (Jacar Press, 2017), Masterplan, a book of collaborative poems with Eric Greinke (Presa Press, 2018), Ordinary Magic, (NYQ Books, 2016), Dangerous Enough (Presa Press 2014), and They Sing at Midnight, which won the 2003 Many Mountains Moving Poetry Award; as well as three chapbooks. Her poems have appeared in The Paris Review, Poetry, Ploughshares, Barrow Street, Poet Lore, and many other journals and anthologies. She has been awarded Poetry’s Frederick Bock Prize and New York Quarterly’s Madeline Sadin Award. She was recently Writer in Residence at LitSpace St. Pete. She is also a painter and the creator of The Stone Tarot. A licensed psychotherapist, she has private practices in NYC and Nyack, NY. Arabella Luna Friedland is a visual artist and writer based in New York City. She’s influenced by a childhood with cartoons, a classical education in anatomy and life drawing, and a firm belief that all art — is a portrait.   

Profane

by Linda Werbner

Dear old cemetery
Did I profane you
when I danced
like a Deadhead as the acid’s just hitting
spinning and shimmying
Among the long-departed Brahmins of Marblehead and Salem
the city fathers and mothers and their stillborn children
the sober ministers with wooden teeth
all rotted away in their pine boxes
their names barely legible on the granite, the marble
If I did, well, I’m not sorry
You see, there’s a plague afoot
and I needed to dance
Brothers, sisters
Your lives were short and full of trouble
as they say in the blues
But I’m alive!
You see, there’s a plague afoot
and I needed to dance
Sure, I could get cut down just like you
Mary Hart, the minister’s wife,
who died in her 34th year
Or you, Benjamin Craddock, cord wainer,
from some virus, some micro-organism
that resembles a meatball covered in scarlet begonias
In fact, that was the name of the Grateful Dead tune
coming through my ear-buds
as I danced my profane and joyous dervish
in the empty graveyard tonight
as the sun set over Salem Harbor.

Linda Werbner is a Salem-based writer whose day job is providing telehealth counseling to this addled world. Her work has appeared in Quail Bell and Oddball Magazine. To decompress, she plays clawhammer banjo tunes about groundhogs and drinking whiskey before breakfast and makes quilts for friends and family. Arabella Luna Friedland is a visual artist and writer based in New York City. She’s influenced by a childhood with cartoons, a classical education in anatomy and life drawing, and a firm belief that all art — is a portrait.

COVID Wing—Day 97

by Alan Perry

Lines on her face
trace the straps she curls
over her ears, tightening
the medicinal-smelling mask
around her nose, across her cheeks
under her chin. A face shield
tightly banded on her forehead
reflects what lies in front of her.
Hard to breathe, harder still
for her patients, their lines
in the hall grow longer each day.
More tubing to connect, intubations
to perform, rotation of the dead
with the near-dying–hallway
to room to hallway, and again.
Her voice is muffled as she holds
an iPad in front of the patient
encouraging his relatives to say
words she’s heard before.
No one can read her face
under the mask, the turning corners
of her mouth as breath fades
biting her lip when the patient
no longer inhales.
Droplets run past her nose
into the absorbent mask.
Her goggles fog up
from the heat, the heaviness
of what she must wear.

Alan Perry’s debut poetry chapbook, Clerk of the Dead , was published by Main Street Rag Publishing in 2020. His poems have appeared in Tahoma Literary Review, Heron Tree, Sleet Magazine , Gyroscope Review, Zingara Poetry Review and elsewhere, and in several anthologies. He is a Senior Poetry Editor for Typehouse Literary Magazine , and was nominated for Best of the Net. Alan holds a BA in English from the University of Minnesota, and he and his wife divide their time between Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Tucson, Arizona, USA. Arabella Luna Friedland is a visual artist and writer based in New York City. She’s influenced by a childhood with cartoons, a classical education in anatomy and life drawing, and a firm belief that all art — is a portrait.

I like your mask

by Carrie Daniels

What mask to wear tonight
Is my current dilemma
For I have a date tonight,
during a pandemic.
I met him online, in January,
When the virus was still continents away,
To our knowledge anyway.

Regretting not meeting earlier, we made a plan:
To meet at a park, staying six feet away.
We want to be closer but also fear each other.
We have video chatted; he’s seen my lockdown hair.

Does a solid-colored mask make me look boring?
Maybe this one with stars or this one with cats,
Is this striped one unflattering?

At the park he walks toward me,
Tall with broad shoulders; his eyes so blue.
“I like your mask,” he says with a smile
(or so I imagine)”
And I like yours too,” I said 
From six feet away.

Carrie Daniels lives in Oklahoma where she works in the public health field. She started writing poetry for her blog on a semi-regular basis two years ago and has recently taken up writing lyrics. Her dream is to write a book and collaborate with someone to turn her lyrics into a song. Besides writing, she enjoys attending church (mainly virtually now), hanging out with her pets, and reminiscing about the time when it was easy to find bleach wipes and Lysol. Arabella Luna Friedland is a visual artist and writer based in New York City. She’s influenced by a childhood with cartoons, a classical education in anatomy and life drawing, and a firm belief that all art — is a portrait.

Prince Henry Hospital and Nursing Museum -virtual tour

by Marjorie Maddox

In Little Bay, Australia: the injured, the isolated,
the highly infectious, and now, you, Dear Reader,

unrolling the bandages, passing the scalpel,
wiping the brows, stacking the bedpans,

pushing the wooden wheelchair down the long hall
toward the next century’s death and disease,

which is today, Memorial Weekend, 2020,
the museum’s smiling mannequins unable to say

which way to turn to escape the vast array
of scales, the showcased skeletons, the inevitable

interaction with grief, and what the typed captions
will read after next decade’s renovations make room

for this year’s tallies of loss and sorrow. Go now
out the unlocked side door and onto the wide front porch.

The ocean is still there: crashing or cleansing? Listen.
Decide whether or not to breathe.

Marjorie Maddox is the winner of America Magazine’s 2019 Foley Poetry Prize and Professor of English and Creative Writing at Lock Haven University. She has published 11 collections of poetry, including Transplant, Transport, Transubstantiation (Yellowglen Prize); True, False, None of the Above (Illumination Book Award Medalist); Local News from Someplace Else; Perpendicular As I (Sandstone Book Award); the short story collection What She Was Saying (Fomite); and four children’s and YA books, including Inside Out: Poems on Writing and Readiing Poems with Insider Exercises and A Crossing of Zebras: Animal Packs in Poetry, Rules of the Game: Baseball Poems, and I’m Feeling Blue, Too! Arabella Luna Friedland is a visual artist and writer based in New York City. She’s influenced by a childhood with cartoons, a classical education in anatomy and life drawing, and a firm belief that all art — is a portrait.