Don Hogle
"Lean forward, please, just a bit into the not- / so-far-away future where your car drives itself / and the fridge knows the milk has gone bad."
Laura Kasischke
"My son makes a gesture my mother used to make, the sun in their eyes, fluttering their fingers over their foreheads as if to disperse it. The sun, like so many feverish bees."
Marjorie Maddox
"No matter the neighborhood, / you find me, your rough song of clacks / inches above the bed I’ve hauled / from trailer to condo to suburb"
Jason Mott
"So I’m out and about one day / when this priest walks up to me and says, / 'Beloved bard, my mother has died / and my father is ill and I’ve lost my faith.'"
Harry Newman
"what brought you to me / what fine soft wind / more like a breath / led you this way"
Perry S. Nicholas
"I love listening to the comforting cadence, / pulsing conversation of the Russian family / next door when they entertain friends, / let fly their clustered consonants."
Pushcart Nominees
Anna Scotti
"I held hands with a stranger today, just reached across the aisle and tucked my clenched fist into his; his wedding ring pressed a mark into my bare knuckle. My right, his left, for the moment we were promised."
Matthew King
"The first time / I held my child / in my arms / he was eleven / years old and / the fragility / of his body / reminded me / of the pneumatized / bones of birds"
Michael J. Grabell
"What now now that justice / in some small way was done / after the “collective catharsis” / what solace in knowing / it will happen has already / happened again / the sun goes down in a rust belt city / a mom calls to report a crisis / and police shoot her son"