I thought I lost a thousand years,
turns out I was just blinking
What I thought a ruptured volcano
is just what I’ve missed in aching
Hanging out the window sill –
is even half of me worth saving?
I never made it to the church,
but held my faith in breaking
Why rebuild this house when it’s the land that’s cursed?
I hear it, I hear it, I hear it
I got nowhere by acting low –
even my shadow overheated
What’s a rhapsody within myself
when all I did was stay seated?
Forge anything and hope it grows
to shed a weight only Atlas knew
I calculate I’m nothing special
because entropy does what we already do
There’s a wave so big I can’t see its crest
But I feel it, I feel it, I feel it…
Joe Albanese is a writer from New Jersey. His work can be found in publications across the U.S. and in ten other countries. Joe’s novel, Caina (Mockingbird Lane Press), and his novella, Smash and Grab (Books to Go Now), were both published in 2018.
Claire Sexton is a forty something Welsh writer who has previously been published in Ink, Sweat and Tears, Peeking Cat Poetry, The Stare’s Nest, and Light – a journal of photography and poetry. She often writes about her struggles with her mental health and loneliness.
or a novella (Press 53) and a chapbook of flash fiction (Conium Review). A memoir, Surviving Susan, was published in 2012. Jackie teaches at City College of San Francisco.
Sharon Todd was born into a family of seven in Birkdale, Southport on the North West coast of England. She has had a wide range of jobs and has travelled around the UK but is now back in the North. Sharon loves coffee with friends, line-dancing and writing poetry. Much of her writing is inspired by her Christian faith.
Foxglove Journal 