by Ace Boggess
Question asked by Sarena Fox.
At night, I can
turn the world
to darkness
with a twist,
no having to
tie a sock
around my eyes.
Friday, I walked a lap
of the yard. Just one.
It wasn’t the same. Continue reading
When You Got Out of Prison, Did It Take a While to Adjust?
Filed under Poetry
Spasghetti
by Lynda Scott Araya
Inspired by Mary Ward
In China, they eat birthday longevity noodles,
Lo mein, pulled thinner than my nerves,
cat-cradle looped over a mother’s hands like a girl’s
primary school game. Koru shaped,
they lie on a floured board,
eight metres long; perfect.
They spiral universes of possibilities, smell of warm milk,
a young baby’s neck.
Later, they are ladled abundant onto plates
and slurped unbroken for a long life to come. Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
Renters
by Desmond Everest Fuller
To our left, the neighbors we never see keep an immaculate lawn. Grass that’s beveled. A resentful neatness in their flowerbeds, while dandelions strangle our yard in yellow.
At the old green house to our right, the rhododendrons and the camellias receive tender care. In five years, we barely receive eye-contact. The fence between our yards is decomposing. We have, on occasion, wondered about shame. Continue reading
Filed under Nonfiction
A Sestina for the Death-Steeped Rivers During the Pandemic
by Debasish Mishra
Carcasses float in rivers
a head here and a torso there
like offerings in Tibetan sky
burials harpooned by hungry
vultures that splash the air
with blood and fear of death
The pulsating ripples of death
dance in the blood-steeped rivers
and scatter in the venomous air
like smoldering corpses. There
is little hope for the hungry
hapless eyes that gaze the sky Continue reading
Hawaii Pacific Review 