A watercolor drawing of a suitcase with a white bird painted on it

This month we offer shy smiles and the mane of a fish.

Next month we still

DREAM

Submission guidelines can be found here.

Still Mornings

I loved my mother in the early morning
when she sat in her housecoat at the Formica table,
sipping her first cup of percolated coffee, lighting
her first Parliament before anyone else in the small
crowded house got up.

Her sharp edges softened in the morning light.
Wherever her mind went, her heart, were the hidden
tender places she kept to herself. You could say she was
praying the prayers of a lapsed Jew, a false Catholic:
A sip. An inhale. An exhale.

I hope she was thinking: I am glad for the choices
that brought me to this table, this house, this man,
these children. I hope so.

Some mornings later in my life, I rose early
and joined her, my own child still dream-entangled
down the narrow hall. Cigarettes long gone, but
the same coffee. Across the table, the smiles shy.
We had so little practice.

Lenore Balliro lives in Dartmouth, MA where she makes art, takes care of dogs, and works in a native plant nursery. She has been published in Rough Cut PressAtlanta Review, Louisville Review, Prose Poem Projectminnesota review, and many other journals and anthologies. She is a former recipient of the RI State Council of the Arts award for poetry, the Gloucester Writers Center Bianchini Flash Fiction award, and the Alms House Press chapbook award.

A cup of coffee on a table in front of a yellow morning sun, highlighting the steam

Volatile

On a nameless day,
when I was an exhibit
at a musical flower shop
a sparrow gave me a suitcase
filled with poems.
Careless, as I am,
I lost the suitcase.
Yet, from time to time,
it reappears in my dreams
and then, the following day,
my right hand starts to act
of its own volition
scribbling notes
on paper money;
jottings that feel like
matchsticks
pillowed
in the mane
of a fish.

Réka Nyitrai is a spell, a sparrow, a lioness’s tongue—a bird nest in a pool of dusk. She is the recipient of a Touchstone Distinguished Books Award for 2020 for her debut haiku volume While Dreaming Your Dreams (Mono Ya Mono Books, 2020). Her debut full-length poetry collection, Moon flogged, will be out in September 2024 with Broken Sleep Books.

A close up of a match and it's flame as it's being lit on a matchbook
A watercolor drawing of a suitcase with a white bird painted on it

This month we offer shy smiles and the mane of a fish.

Next month we still

DREAM

Submission guidelines can be found here.

Still Mornings

I loved my mother in the early morning
when she sat in her housecoat at the Formica table,
sipping her first cup of percolated coffee, lighting
her first Parliament before anyone else in the small
crowded house got up.

Her sharp edges softened in the morning light.
Wherever her mind went, her heart, were the hidden
tender places she kept to herself. You could say she was
praying the prayers of a lapsed Jew, a false Catholic:
A sip. An inhale. An exhale.

I hope she was thinking: I am glad for the choices
that brought me to this table, this house, this man,
these children. I hope so.

Some mornings later in my life, I rose early
and joined her, my own child still dream-entangled
down the narrow hall. Cigarettes long gone, but
the same coffee. Across the table, the smiles shy.
We had so little practice.

Lenore Balliro lives in Dartmouth, MA where she makes art, takes care of dogs, and works in a native plant nursery. She has been published in Rough Cut PressAtlanta Review, Louisville Review, Prose Poem Projectminnesota review, and many other journals and anthologies. She is a former recipient of the RI State Council of the Arts award for poetry, the Gloucester Writers Center Bianchini Flash Fiction award, and the Alms House Press chapbook award.

A cup of coffee on a table in front of a yellow morning sun, highlighting the steam

Volatile

On a nameless day,
when I was an exhibit
at a musical flower shop
a sparrow gave me a suitcase
filled with poems.
Careless, as I am,
I lost the suitcase.
Yet, from time to time,
it reappears in my dreams
and then, the following day,
my right hand starts to act
of its own volition
scribbling notes
on paper money;
jottings that feel like
matchsticks
pillowed
in the mane
of a fish.

Réka Nyitrai is a spell, a sparrow, a lioness’s tongue—a bird nest in a pool of dusk. She is the recipient of a Touchstone Distinguished Books Award for 2020 for her debut haiku volume While Dreaming Your Dreams (Mono Ya Mono Books, 2020). Her debut full-length poetry collection, Moon flogged, will be out in September 2024 with Broken Sleep Books.

A close up of a match and it's flame as it's being lit on a matchbook

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