by Josh P. Cohen
Before corona stole my crown,
I was still the king of Prince Street,
with my bag full of books and medicine,
my brow, furrowed only by the hacky,
drip-drop cough that always lingers
in the winter months and nags
at the back of my throat ‘til spring— Continue reading
by Susan J. Wurtzburg
Old patched quilts hanging over a ladder in a sun-filled corner of the bedroom.
The most colorful one, perhaps a hundred years old, is surprisingly intact.
Its white background interspersed with patterned fabric vibrantly abloom,
delicately repaired by my grandmother, whose tiny stitches can be tracked.
Sewn by hand, a dying skill, women gifting their eyesight to a family’s warmth.
In this manner, heavy cotton quilts map the genealogy of relationships in the north. Continue reading
by Peter Grandbois
There is only this hollow
tree shaped from fear Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
by Susana H. Case
On vacation in Niagara Falls,
he rips feathers from pillows
in the middle of the night, rains
white birds all over the bed.
This is not the first time Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
by Rob Vance
Race day started with smoke, a wad of gumbi gumbi leaves
smoldering in rough hands. A shaman, face painted white
as the sand on which we stood, blessed us by the azure waters
of the Indian Ocean. The sound of digeridoos vibrated
the way the breath of 1200 athletes resonates at the sound
of the starting gun, a signal to all with a warrior’s heart. Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
Hawaii Pacific Review 