By Ashley Parker Owens Ashley Parker Owens is an Appalachian writer, artist, and spiritualist living in Richmond, Kentucky, USA. Her previous published poetry collections include Euphoric Drift (2018), Retrospecter (2019), Unruly Spirits (Dancing Girl Press, 2018), Puppet (Rinky Dink Press, 2018), and Territorial Misfortune (2017). See video poems at https://www.youtube.com/@visual_poems   https://www.ashleyparkerowens.com

I never heeded the squeaks of the half-opened gate nor the kitchen clock tchhing that you were late.

The ferry gave way to a taxi and Led to a grubby room in yellow.

I first learned that my father was the Messiah in 1989, just days before my 20th birthday. The two of us were in a coffee shop, not far from Tel Aviv University, where he was a professor of statistics and I, a second-year student of philosophy.

Pearls of sweat trickle down my forehead onto my nose and along the wrinkles of my mouth.

The wind coursed through my hair as I seared down the highway at night. The green light of billboards was in my eyes and...

Arriving home he found her baggage gone And his three young children upon his hands.

I sit in a spot where the old Barn cuts out the least sky.

All the rage on the lake: supping. But it’s not my cup of tea, really.

The car shakes. Rocks dot the road like appointments.

Throughout life we have mossy wings, but no choice of the branch...

You were the gentle one. The one we could always count on, go to, and trust. But now we say that we did not know of the suffering...

What people say when you’re not around, parading their overturned trees like candles in hand, sparkle explosions

I painted still lifes-- peonies and roses, until a romance blossomed, and I stepped into that ring of marriage when I stopped

By Dawn Bratton

Wild creatures flash stiletto hooves through the forest, glossy wings catch indigo light as night falls. At a dinner party submerged in leaves,

To stand barefoot upon the stoop takes nerve, When winter paints the land in frigid white.

Down by the lake, fireworks disturb the night, The bursts recall the bombs in desert lands;

I hear my children laughing in the garden, gazing at the moon, though years have faded away and only I remain here gazing at the moon.

It was a love come undone, no more heart cards in red. She would need to explain, fold story in a neat box.