Richard Widerkehr
Richard Widerkehr’s third book of poems is At The Grace Cafe. He taught writing in the Upward Bound Program at Western Washington University and, later on, worked as a case manager with the mentally ill. He reads poems for Shark Reef Review.
The following work is Copyright © 2022, and owned by Richard Widerkeher and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
Late Afternoon In August: 1970
– after our grandmother’s death
Under dusty elm leaves in the heat, we walk
to the railroad station—lawn sprinklers
back and forth in the sun.
We’ll meet in mirrors, says Chloe.
It’s all possible. She means we come back
after death? Almost as if asleep,
the evening deepens on wide porches.
Dust and sunlight, half-deserted streets—
she hears no voices, doesn’t yet call me bro.
Emily Arnold-Fernandez
Emily E. Arnold-Fernández is the founder of Asylum Access, a global refugee human rights nonprofit (asylumaccess.org). She is also a writer, with work in a wide variety of genres from academic articles and OpEds to poems and middle grade fiction stories. Some of her short work for children and young adults can be found at esmeraldacardamom.wordpress.com.
The following work is Copyright © 2022, and owned by Emily Arnold-Fernandez and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
Loss
That year the spring smelt of decay. I put
my mother’s bones under my pillow, one a week. At night
a sharp-toothed fairy came to knaw and suck
chupando
until the marrow and memories were weathered like sea glass.
I could not remember the smell of her skin, or feel
the prickle of past quarrels.
In my dreams
I lit candles
went to the santera,
a stranger who told me desperation looks the same at all latitudes. Waking
I went to the attic. My mother’s
sealskin was musty and motheaten.
The stench of low tide hung in the air beneath the fecund moon.
