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“Exponent:”

June 12, 2024

1. a person who believes in and promotes the truth or benefits of an idea or theory.2. mathematics: a quantity representing the power to which a given number or expression is to be raised my first home away fromhome: . welcome table where. gospel. of man multiplies by gnosis:woman words, worlds, whorled . into inclusion: numberless ways of. being. alive: luminous, levity, leaving homefor good, for better or worse: . equal. equation: infinity raised to the power of. loveMelody, who has blogged and served as poetry editor, works as a nursing supervisor at Huntsman Cancer Hospital.Salt Lake City, Utah

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“Cambridge, 1974”

June 10, 2024

After William Carlos Williams

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“No Need to Knock”

June 8, 2024

I.Imagine dark woods and all the starssnuffed out. Imagine you, alone on the road,following a seam of restless thought. Where will this lead?No moon. No coat. Icicle bones.Not lost, exactly, though some might sayyou’ve taken all wrong turns. Right and wrong are heavystones you droppedin a blue rain barrelback in your hometown, at the old house,watched the wrung skyslosh over the edges. You, too,have edges, havebrimmed with troubled water,have weighed those stonesin your gut. Not another soulon the road tonight.II.Tug of porch lightahead. Ease closer till you smell woodsmoke, cinnamon and cloves, spya cottage, a window, a room full of womenwith steaming mugs […]

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“Cephalanthera austiniae”

March 16, 2024

First Place Poet, “Road Not Taken” ContestQuiet trumpet of moonlight, soft gramophone of forest sun. Snow orchid. Phantom bloom. Ghost of a flower, no chlorophyll to green you. We lean in to smell your smell. Surprise: vanilla, like your common cousin. If wonder had a face, a name, would it be your petals that aren’t petals, but bracts, sheer and shimmery, even under fir trees’ shade. Lobed labellum. Yellow tongue. When a friend leads us to your growing place, we don’t know what we expected. Not this: someone’s backyard fence edging a trail of city greenery, your white flames in […]

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“Strawberry Wine”

March 14, 2024

Finalist, “Road Not Taken” ContestDesire is something I keep behind my teeth, left to roil in my stomach alone. Secret and safe, sweet strawberry wine. I worry it’ll bitter. Sour, for being bound. Desire for another, a soft (feminine) hand in my own, a body beside me at the bedside . . . It is a lonely watch, mine. I, a sole figure, closed-mouthed, weighed down in the moonlight. Lord, to you, I loosen a tongue fat, heavy, and swollen. Bit back. I wonder, worry — is the bitter better than the sweet? Oh Lord I would have you take […]

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“Beanboozled in Sharing Time”

March 12, 2024

After Stephanie BurtHonorable Mention, “Road Not Taken” ContestStand up front with jelly beans the chances of our choices Stinky socks or tutti-frutti Licorice or skunk spray What will become of us is here in the building Booger or juicy pear Coconut or baby wipes and nearly always stronger for two-factor identification nuclear, intact, spilled out across the pews Moldy cheese or caramel apple Pretty peach or vomit barf Picture the eaglet whose treeline nest is nearest the stench of the landfill Think how the orphaned cub scavenges bursting blisters of parasite gall Nothing here is certain so when Bethany, almost […]

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“What I Mean When I Say Las Vegas”

March 10, 2024

after Jeffrey DavisFinalist, “Road Not Taken” ContestWe had no dark leaves of longing, instead we held the Mojave, its sand singing through our fingers. Memories close enough to the sweet sage and mesquite, road runners lightning after a desert rain. I’m back among sand dunes back inside that small space spent searching for talismans, fall a shrug away. And the sun at the window, scrying. Each bright sky of memory silvers, like pieces of a broken mirror, immediate again. Encircled by amethyst mountains, remembered for their refusal to fall. If only I could settle on the patio of hope and […]

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“The Hill Not Climbed”

March 9, 2024

Honorable Mention, “Road Not Taken” ContestHalf a lifetime ago, newly wed, we shopped for a new car — a white Mazda Protegé; the saleswoman led us from the lot to her office, said she would give us a loan that was right for our budget; we’d have low payments for that unsexy car, but it was no fun to drive; my husband could not be content with economy for he had dreamt of more than basic transportation. We walked away, and although we couldn’t afford it, bought a Volkswagen that cost a hundred more per month. He seemed at peace […]

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“Take me back to her tomato-faced shriek”

March 2, 2024

First Place Poet, “Road Not Taken” Contestvernix-smeared kick take me back to the sear of severing my thighs quivering harnessed wide apart like two mountains two ranges two tectonic plates diverging spewing magma take me to her round red gasp blood-streaked rage whisked away to a first feast of sugar water in a bottle and not-my-breast but how could I complain my body volcanic my womb a hurricane my brain a wildfire my limbs a flood this was an act of body charged give me that lightning again I’d save the placenta this time an island oasis I grew for […]

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