Dear Reader

In the glare of Boylston Street the oscillations of our orbit seem exaggerated, warping skyscrapers to feint at each other like Olympians with epees. We walk as if the concrete sidewalk couldn’t possibly crack and drop us into the subway. We watch the skyscrapers duel with each other and the sky, and refrain from pointless irony. Summers in Boston always hurt with poignancies we rarely share. The gloss of shop windows scorches across our bodies as we pass, but that’s not the pain I respect for textual and historic depth. Maybe you recall the woman crying and smashing a bag of groceries on the gray façade of the building on St. Germain where we lay on the roof all night in the deepest part of summer. Boylston offers single point perspective we gladly employ to orient ourselves to the east. Walking with our naked selves held safely in trust, we impress footfall that overlaps footfall we laid down many years ago. The shuddering of the planet, however slight, acknowledges our presence, our

Take me back to the solar system’s edge— I miss the ample flower buds in ice. My friend Peg went, got caught in a gas hedge, a sulphur smell.  It held her like a vice. She got free and insisted that I go— travel is always risky.  Live boldly. At first, I told her that I had zero gumption.  She screamed and looked at me coldly. I packed light, made it past funky Charon, my phone camera forgotten at home. Who needs pictures?  I tasted real moon pies, not missing Earth much, except for barren places where wildflowers burst out from loam on the first warm morning when winter dies. --- Kenneth Pobo won the 2019 chapbook contest from the State Poetry Society of Alabama for Your Place Or Mine.   They published it this May.   Forthcoming is a book from Assure Press called Uneven Steven.

Home scratches at her shingles with tree branch fingers, pulls the air conditioning unit close to her grimy aluminum siding, and keens an empty song of mourning. We found her wandering the tornado snarled wild three months ago, starved and lonely. She doesn’t know how to take care of herself, you see? We fed her shards of dining room tables, kindling for the fireplace, and cast iron bathtubs clawed feet first. She was slow to recover so we gutted her plumbing, ripped out her nerves, and rewired the electricity. She let the water in every time it rained so we put a new roof on her and let her out for regular walks around the wolf pen. Let her mingle with the vultures, I said, let her feel useful and clean up the dead but no one wanted to listen. We found rot an mold in her corners, infused her insulation with antibiotics, and quarantined her for two weeks while she belched ladderback chairs, sofa cushions, wind chimes, and broken bookcases. She still has her bad days. After feeding time

(After Edward Hopper,  Cape Cod Morning,  1950) Eyes like crazed glass, she stares down the empty sun-swathed  avenue, conjuring his return. Her hands clench the table, manicured fingers transfer heat and sweat to antique mahogany. Sirens echo from the foreshore. Blood of someone’s small son seeps from his helmet, bicycle twisted,  under tangled limbs. All he wanted was an ice cream, to be a big boy,  alone, astride his bike. She paces the room, gazes at the clock, feels the tick of time. Her hands itch for purpose. Drawn again to the window, she stands to watch and wait. --- Sheena is Irish but has lived in Nottingham for almost forty years. Following retirement, she began writing and now has an MA in Creative Writing from Trent University. She has been published in The Beacon , Reach, Sarasvati, Dawntreader and Orbis .  Twitter: @weesheenanigan