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Touching
by Judy Kukuruza
 
Had to go to the store for milk.
Mask on, mentally psyching up.
Straight to the milk – grab it.
To the checkout, staying six feet back, waiting.
 
Cashier, tired eyes—“Is this all?”
“Yes.” Smiling beneath the mask, I add,
“Thank you for coming to work today.
Be safe.”
 
Her tired eyes overflow.
A tear wets her mask—“Thank you” I hear.
I look away, my own mask now wet.
Don’t want to embarrass her or myself.
 
Then I turn back—
Why not?  Let her see my tears,
As she showed hers.
Let our compassion show.
 
We have touched.
Heart to heart.
Maybe not physically,
But we have touched each other.

Judy Kukuruza ~ Retired college instructor from CSUB and Bakersfield College.  She published her memoir One Body/Many Souls in 2018, and later Poems to Ponder, Little Stories to Play with in Your Mind, and Letters.  She publishes her blog, “Our Spiritual Journey” through Word Press, participates in the WOK blog challenge and is published in both the WOK Anthology 2018 Reaching for the Sky and the CSUB poetry antholology, Writing Sound. 

WE FIND HONEY OTHERS MISS
By Catherine Abbey Hodges
 
reads the H&R Block sign.
It’s April of course and I’m charmed
by this as I am by the scrawl of early lilacs
 
in the alley. Even when I realize
I’ve mistaken an M for an H, it’s a slip
neither Freud nor I mind, a mistake I’m
 
happy to have made.
Decades, really, of error and blunder
are how I’ve found honey
 
in the least likely places,
where bees had no business, and how,
eating it raw by the spoonful
 
or sucking it straight from the comb,
I’ve gone places I had no business going.
My dear
 
mistakes are how I found my life.

Catherine Abbey Hodges’ most recent book is In a Rind of Light (Stephen F. Austin State University Press 2020). She is the author of two previous full-length collections: Instead of Sadness, selected by Dan Gerber as winner of the 2015 Barry Spacks Poetry Prize, and Raft of Days (2017). www.catherineabbeyhodges.com

Full Circle
by Shawn Anto

they buried a boy
they never really knew
sprinkled salt around
the resting place
to prevent desecration
in their grief.

did I ever come full circle
like they wanted?

would you say
the redemption
of my life is complete?
 
if the dead want something:
have a face cut it in half
one for happiness
one for guilt
disregard any expectations
and wait for answers after
you pour the gasoline all over.
 
I never asked you
to set yourself ablaze
to keep me and my brother close.
 
the body settles in
somewhere you can hear a lullaby
a mother sings as she calls out to angels
dirty wings still territorial
caked with soil, uprooted.
 
even in death you sing
to enrapture and console me.
 
will they even listen?
do the dead want to hear—
 
maybe they will this time
as they begin their song too.

I walk closer to the fog
for I was closer to the devil.

Shawn Anto is from Delano, California. He was originally from Kerala, India. His writing has been featured or is forthcoming in Reed Magazine, The Decadent Review, Sierra Nevada Review, and elsewhere.

AHH, THE RAIN…
by Shelley J. Evans
 
 
            …the mellifluous sound
of raindrops splatting onto ground
and falling softly down;
forming puddles all around;
pellets pounding in the street.
So rare is rain, it’s quite a treat!
 
The grass and fields are turning green.
Before long wildflowers will be seen
in vivid colors like aquamarine,
violet, yellow, red, tangerine.
In spite and because of this rainy day,
even superbloom memories take my breath away!
 
Oh, the smell of rain is indescribable…
Fresh, clean, unbelievable;
an absolute delight to inhale,
it makes my lungs feel clear and well.
Dropping from heaven, it’s simply divine.
I like to call it liquid sunshine!

Named after poet Percy Shelley, nature inspires Shelley Evans; several poems are published, and she’ll publish a book soon. Shelley’s a wife, mother, secretary, WOK member, participates in open mic nights at Dagnys, CSUB’s poetry readings, and has entered poetry in the Kern County Fair. Rhyming is breathing to Shelley.

writing
a tanka poem
by cyn bermudez
 
candlelight flickers
illuminating my room
stacks of paper swish
they flutter and flap and fall
until they land on my desk

Cyn Bermudez is a writer and artist living in California. She loves astronomy and speculative fiction. She loves music, reads comics, and bakes chocolate cakes for her family. She writes in multiple genres, writes poetry, and illustrates.  Sign up for her newsletter to receive a free e-book copy of To Dream in Color.