Weekend Morning. By Alyssa Trivett

I had two coats on my car

as I poured coffee down my

throat after filling the tank.

We stay more local now,

with everything, 

uncertainty is the word. 

So many unknowns in this soppy crossword 

puzzle world as we keep

our heads above water, 

I hope.

I'm much more introverted nowadays and the weather would like for me

to rattle and roll 

back to sleep

but I pony up pocket change

and anything else I have left these days to jam on and away and 

think of better days.

Alyssa Trivett is a wandering soul from the Midwest. When not working two jobs, she chirps down coffee while scrawling lines. Her work has appeared in many places, but most recently at Ex Ex Lit, and Duane's PoeTree site.

Received by Susan Tepper

You have received darkness

in bags and in pieces

the way people picked up

coal near train tracks

during The Great Depression

running home to light the stove

cook an egg shivering wet

the cold as night

splattering the floor

Its fragments of shell

for birds

Susan Tepper is the author of nine published books of fiction and poetry. Her most recent is a chapbook of poetry titled CONFESS published this month by Cervena Barva Press.  Last June her road novel “What Drives Men” was published by Wilderness House Press, and shortlisted at American Book Fest Best Book Awards. Other honors and awards include eighteen Pushcart Nominations, a Pulitzer Prize Nomination for the novel “What May Have Been” (Cervena Barva Press, and currently being adapted for the stage), NPR’s Selected Shorts Series, Second Place Winner in Story/South Million Writers Award, Best Story of 17 Years of Vestal Review, Shortlisted 7th in the Zoetrope Novel Contest (2003), Best of the Net and more. Tepper is a native New Yorker.

Whole Lot Less of Rosie. By John Doyle

They say water and a priest
was all she asked for
that night she died,

it’s a lie - I know
she died alone,
except for that horse she rode saddle-less across

a bolt of lightning,
the hounds of Hell
ever closer - Rosie screaming.

I look in the bookmakers
to make sure she's dead,
no-one’s picking drunks’ pockets,

no-one’s cursing crippled children
laughing underneath the olive tree.
Yes, she's dead -

the syllables of mourning, unneeded -
a perfect walnut, picket-fence
and cider kind of peace sweetens our town

John Doyle became a Mod again in the summer of 2017 to fight off his impending mid-life crisis; whether this has been a success remains to be seen. He has has two collections published to date, A Stirring at Dusk in 2017, and Songs for Boys Called Wendell Gomez in 2018, both on PSKI's Porch.