Poem November 2026

Poem

Dish Towel

By erri Kirby Erickson

One of my parents’ dish towels

hangs on the handle of our stove.

It is aqua-blue, covered with red

and yellow poppies. How many of

their dishes this towel must have

buffed, plus silverware, glasses,

cookpots and pans. For decades

Mom washed them and Dad did

the drying. But after he died, she

stood alone at their sink, letting

the water grow cold — soap suds

like glaciers slipping into the sea.

Six months a widow and she, too,

was gone, leaving a lone bowl in

the drainer, a single spoon, a fresh

dish towel draped just so on a ring.

Terri Kirby Erickson is the author of eight collections of award-winning poetry, including The Light That Follows Us Home.

Poem October 2026

Lenard D. Moore

Like Windblown Sand

No favorite fictional character comes

to the forefront, though feature films

open doors to other places

open doors to other cuisine

open doors to other rhythms.

I do not long to list characters,

because some actors could be left off

like a burst of milkweed

like the last unpicked apple

like a raw peanut in the sun.

I imagine watching the films —

decades of them unwinding

and rewinding over and over again.

Who would not be remembered?

Would the name be streaming

on the wind like a movie?

Now I offer these lines

as an aching to know

before too many minutes tick away

like windblown sand.

2026 Feature Poem

Poem September 2026

POEM

Proto-Indo-European Speakers

Those steppe-dwellers had words for apple

and bee, so we can guess at where they were

and weren’t, can guess at the wheeled wagons

and lactose-tolerant mutations and skills

on horseback that helped them spread the tongue.

I love learning how thick forests kept languages

isolated, how textiles weren’t possible until sheep

ascended mountainous terrain in western Asia

and evolved longer wool, and all these factors

led to a family of shared sounds reaching

across continents, across time. Our words

for mouse and mead and star and new

aren’t so different from theirs, and I can’t help

thinking that they looked drunkenly

at the night sky and felt the same wonder

and renewal that I do when I stumble

into the darkness and am swallowed by a night

whose constellations form the same shapes

those nomadic herders would have seen —

bear, serpent, warring god — each a light

from someone else’s sun, so distant

it might as well be eternity. And someday,

my human descendant may reach

one of those planets and may have on the journey

a record of the words I spoke during this time

of ignorance, and he may see in his own words

some parallel to mine: remember or solace or joy.

— Ross White

2026 Feature Poem

Poem August 2026

POEM

Day at the Beach

I’d like to feel again, my six-year-old self

skimming a long, sea oat-surrounded trail

to the ocean like a skipping stone, the wind

in my dark hair, legs pumping like pistons.

And oh, that first plunge into the water, the

squealing — how it felt to be hit by a wave

and tumble to the shore, as light as a shell.

Now, it’s hard to walk the trails to the beach.

Each step works my calf muscles, my bare

feet sinking deep into hot sand. And the sun

is like a blowtorch, not the gentle source of

warmth that I remember, the ocean rife with

dangers I knew nothing about as a child. So

I settle into a folding chair with a book, my

aging body slathered with the highest SPF,

and watch a couple of kids scoop wet sand

into bright plastic buckets while others splash

in shallow pools, their faces the definition of

delight. If only I could snap my fingers, step

out of a body that has become too weary and

cumbersome, and run to the water like I used

to — limbs weightless as a plover, my thoughts

no heavier than a beach ball, a paper kite rising.

— Terri Kirby Erickson

2026 Feature Poem

Poem July 2026

POEM

Fourth of July Night

The little boat at anchor in black water sat murmuring to the tall black sky.

A white sky bomb fizzed on a black line.

A rocket hissed it’s red signature into the west.

Now a shower of Chinese fire alphabets,

A cry of flower pots broken in flames

A long curve to a purple spray, three violet balloons —

Drips of seaweed tangled in gold, shimmering symbols of mixed numbers,

Tremulous arrangements of cream gold folds of a bride’s wedding gown —

A few sky bombs spoke their pieces, then velvet dark.

The little boat at anchor in black water sat murmuring to the tall black sky.

— Carl Sandburg

Drips of seaweed tangled in gold, shimmering symbols of mixed numbers,

2026 Feature Poem

Poem June 2026

POEM

A Swift Thought

A car engine rattling.

A busted radio preaching the end

of the world. That soft, hazy sun racing

behind the horizon, peaking only for the

thought of crashing. The Earth’s breath,

hot and fast, blowing the trickled sweat

from my hairline to my forehead. A swished

whiskey hits the adrenaline, causing

a swerve left, then right. The radio speaks,

“Blazing temperatures bring hysteria!” I turn it

off without a care in the world and without a

second to spare.

— Joi Floyd

2026 Feature Poem

Poem May 2026

POEM

FLOATING

A hawk drifted over as I backstroked

through the neighborhood pool.

It glided more effortlessly

than I’d imagined possible,

circling and diving on the breeze

without thrash or beat of wing,

so I puffed up my chest

and floated awhile, wondering

if he’d spy me and swoop down

to make a meal of my laziness.

Maple seeds helicoptered

into the depressions

between ripples, bobbing expectantly.

Drowned, fat caterpillars

littered the blue between lanes.

There are graveyards

where the bones rest

less tranquil than that afternoon,

but I ripped it into lines,

and still I am ripping it into lines,

looking for sad, explosive meaning,

proof that I skimmed

that particular magnificence

and didn’t go under.

— Ross White

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Poem April 2026

POEM

2026 Feature Poem

Poem March 2026

POEM

Poem

Julian

In christening gown and bonnet,

he is white and stoic as the moon,

unflinching as the sun burns

through yellow puffs of pine

pollen gathered at his crown

while I pour onto his forehead

from a tiny blue Chinese rice cup

holy water blessed

by John Paul II himself

and say, “I baptize you, Julian Joseph,

in the name of the Father, and of the Son,

and of the Holy Spirit.”

Nor does he stir when the monarchs

and swallowtails,

in ecclesiastical vestments,

lift from the purple brushes

of the butterfly bush

and light upon him.

— Joseph Bathanti

2026 Feature Poem

Poem February 2026

POEM

February 2026

Past Life

On the night you read my cards,

you told me the spiraling moth

was my dead grandfather but you did not

tell me we’d be lovers, had been lovers

since the first sound waves collided

on the ocean floor.

Now I know why I felt like crying

when you traced the lines across my palm.

Why you looked away when the fire hissed.

If you’d kissed me, I would have kissed back.

When I left the dead moth for you

in the morning, paper wings outstretched

like a faerie scroll across the Three of Swords,

I did not know I was seeing my future,

spiraling toward your light until the end.

— Ashley Walshe

2026 Feature Poem

Tag: Poem

Poem

Dish Towel

Poem October 2026

Poem October 2026

POEM

Proto-Indo-European Speakers

POEM

Day at the Beach

POEM

Fourth of July Night

POEM

A Swift Thought

POEM

FLOATING

POEM

POEM

Poem

Julian

POEM

February 2026

Past Life