By LaDeana Mullinix

The barricade was built on my car 
dashboard during my daily drive, 
petit Gavroche shot
in the forty-fourth CD.

I left the battlefield of 1832 spinning, 
my eyes dampened by Hugo’s words: 
The sound of the child hitting the pavement. 

Heart-pierced,
I crossed the hospital parking lot
to confront the work day.

Like a giant touching the earth,
Hugo’s phrase distorted my orbit of ordinary – 
Now

every door slammed, 
every box dropped,
every heavy footfall
and the child fell again.

Against propriety, I touched
a gentleman’s face in our therapy room.
I stared in a baby’s eyes 
and briefly forgot where I was.

I adjusted the magnet holding Dave’s youngest,
secured the photo to his locker,

and told him twice
on this day of great battle that his boy is beautiful.

---

LaDeana Mullinix is a Quaker, a retired occupational therapist, a native Kansan, a Master Gardener and a Master Naturalist. Her poetry and essays have been published in Friends Journal and Slant. Her poetry has been published in one anthology, and two were recently accepted in a forthcoming anthology featuring Ozarks poets, from the University of Arkansas Press.      

By Duane Anderson

They turned off the lights
in the hallway and area where I was seated.
The maintenance man was working
on some problem he
was having with the lights,
so there I was,
in the dark,
once again,
like I had been my whole life.
Go ahead; just ask some of the people
I used to work with
or ask my brother or my wife.
It was nothing new.

Each morning I read the newspaper
and watch the news on television
several times each day
trying to stay current with what is
going on in the world,
though some things I will never understand.
It was just meant to be.

The lights come back on
then go back off two more times.
Maybe on the third try
he will get the lights fixed,
after all, isn’t the third time is the charm,
but as I wait for the next donor,
here I am,
once again,
forever in the dark
in more ways than one.

---

Duane Anderson lives in La Vista, NE. He is retired after working 37 years at Union Pacific Railroad, and now volunteers as a Donor Ambassador with the American Red Cross on their blood drives, usually volunteering once a week. He has had poems published in The Pangolin Review, Fine Lines, Cholla Needles, Tipton Poetry Journal, Poesis Literary Journal, and several other publications. He is the author of Yes, I Must Admit We Are Neighbors, On the Corner of Walk and Don’t Walk, and The Blood Drives: One Pint Down.

By Nick Zaller

Light refracted to reveal our thoughts and fears
Perhaps too much so.
We are naked to one another’s stares
As if we can no longer conceal the vulnerabilities within.
A glance becomes a whisper,
A gaze a scream
Daring one another to look away.
I can see within you the same fears
That I thought I buried from the world long ago.
We walk past one another as shadows in the night
Fixing our gaze on the reality that lies ahead.

I cannot see the unseen
Though I feel it calling my name.
Look up, the distant voice calls
For me to open my eyes wider
To take in the light I cannot see.
Will you meet me there,
In that place where our souls lack comfort?
Or will you look away, and leave me
To stumble in the darkness?
If I could only summon the courage
I might look a little longer.

Life and death all around us
Blinding us like a thousand suns.
Points of light darkening our vision
Of who is standing right beside us.
Our mouths muted while we
Bow to the deafening roar 
Of words unspoken.
I cannot touch you
But I know you are there.
Reaching across both time and space
I grasp for the star twinkling in the distance.

The beauty of what I see
Defies my other senses.
Windows that cannot be closed
Revealing hidden mysteries within.
I cannot help but look
Into the places I am not supposed to see.
Waiting for a sign that it is ok
To linger at the precipice of knowing.
An invitation to come inside and rest.
But I am only given a warning
That I am not ready to see.

---

Dr. Zaller is a Professor at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health. His research focus has been on the overlap between behavioral health disorders, including addiction and mental illness, infectious diseases and incarceration both in the United States and internationally. Dr. Zaller earned his bachelor’s degree in microbiology and East Asian Studies from Kansas University in 1999. After graduation, he lived in China for a year as a Fulbright Scholar before completing a doctorate in public health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2004.  

By Kate Meyer-Currey

when you got with me I had no idea 
it could be a life-sentence you’re an 
armed robber holding me under false
imprisonment in my own body until 
I get your bally off and see if you’re 
just a mosquito, a runner fake cancer-
gangster or a real big OC man tumour 
ready to take me down you’ve gone OT 
in my left boob conch among its lumps 
cuckooing my cells feeding my veins 
like county lines waiting for reload so 
I’ve handed myself in to the hospital to 
get your mammogram mugshot and 
radiography recognition so you stand 
out in a microscope line up plus the 
biopsy of tissue you left at the crime 
scene every contact leaves a trace so 
either it’s a case of mistaken identity
wrong boob wrong time or you’re bang 
at it either way you’re the snake that 
grassed me up so when they send a 
shank team in to get you out I hold you 
to account for wrecking my gaff right 
now you’re bailed to my address and
I’m waiting on recall to hospital while 
you cook up more dodgy cells to make
me your cancer crack whore roll on
sentence date hope you go away for 
good for possession with intent to supply
and I get out on tag with breast care 
nurse probation to scare me straight
got a restraining order so stay in your 
dead pool breach my chest wall again 
and it won’t be double jeopardy no 
you’ll be dead man walking because
I’m living my Shawshank Redemption
fantasy, baby no word of a lie. 

---

Kate Meyer-Currey lives in Devon, UK. A varied career in frontline settings has fueled her interest in gritty urbanism, contrasted with a rural upbringing, often with a slipstream twist. Since September 2020 she has had over a hundred poems published in print and online journals, both in the UK and internationally. 

Her chapbooks County Lines (Dancing Girl) and Cuckoo’s Nest (Contraband) are due out in early 2022.

By Paulette Guerin

At 3:00 a.m. a storm whips the trees.
I roll over, breast aching.
I’ve weaned, am back on birth control. 
The pill has a warning label 
three pages long. Is the stab
a side effect of the hormones 
flooding into me to keep a baby out,
or is this phantom pain?
There’s no duct swollen with milk.
Maybe thrombosis, a favorite side effect. 
Or old tissue trying to be useful
for more than sex appeal. 
Do I wake my husband, 
ask for his familiar touch? 
The wind dies, day breaks. 
Outside, all the leaves have been stripped.

---

Paulette Guerin is a graduate of the MFA program at the University of Florida. She lives in Arkansas and teaches writing, literature, and film. Her poetry has appeared in Best New Poets, ep;phany, Contemporary Verse 2, and others. Wading Through Lethe is her first full-length poetry collection. She also has a chapbook, Polishing Silver.

By Mitchell Benton

A hungry stomach
When I finish morning rounds
I’ll take one box please

---

Mitchell Benton is a fourth-year medical student. He is a Little Rock native, and feels a special connection to this city. He felt compelled to write this poem because he feels poetry is a beautiful, yet effective means of communicating elements of everyday life. Box lunches are often a favorite topic of conversation, and he felt that a haiku could best communicate this element of life at the Little Rock VA. He would like to thank his parents and especially his sister, who initially inspired his love of literature. He would also like to thank his friends, Thomas Harkey, Clayton Davis, Luke James, Tony Chacko, Alex Cranford, Will Mitchell, and Jack Hagan.

By John Redman 

Mid afternoon, bright winter’s day
A string of headlights coming my way
The deliberate solemn caravan gives pause for reflection 
I am so glad to see him so quickly pass
His body going to a resting place beneath the grass
Mine swiftly moving in the opposite direction
I inwardly smile, our paths are increasingly divergent
But the thought is there again emergent
Time is all that separates their ultimate destination 

---

John Redman is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Urology, University of Arkansas College of Medicine. He was a longtime Chairman of the Department of Urology and Chief of Pediatric Urology at Arkansas Children’s Hospital.

By John Grey

I didn’t think she’d be here
for the birth of her first grandchild,
but you never know what a ghost will do,
not when it’s the eggs of her eggs
that have ripened into a tiny red-skinned boy
with a squawk like a gull and hair the color
of new radishes.

But it’s not her phantom
haunting the delivery room.
It’s memory, not quite as gray-haired,
as rickety on its pins
as that last image of her.
Her head looks over the doctor’s shoulder.
Her arms reach out to steady the nurse’s hold.
She helps wipe the blood,
soothes her daughter’s brow
with nothing but the palm of her hand.

We figured she was buried so deep
that the family hierarchy
began with the woman in the bed,
the man pacing in the waiting room.
But she’s here for one touch
of new human flesh,
a tap on the back
to get lungs moving,
a gentle rocking of a crib,
maybe a kiss on the cheek so light,
the baby thinks it put it there itself.

Of course, it’s only right she should be here.
For she never believed death was the end.
She wasn’t even sure it was the beginning of anything.
And she always dreamed of being a grandmother.
So maybe it’s a dream
that’s bringing the baby home.
And if it’s a dream,
then there has to be someone,
as close as breath,
dreaming.

---

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Sheepshead Review, Stand, Poetry Salzburg Review and Hollins Critic. Latest books, Leaves On Pages, Memory Outside The Head, and Guest Of Myself are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Ellipsis, Blueline, and International Poetry Review.

By Laine Derr

She ties a string around my shoe
to remind me what day it is, 
I try to hold on, 
knowing right from left – memories.

She ties a string around my shoe, 
bows it slightly, in a bow,
sometimes I’m not sure of my memories, 
today or yesterday. 

When looking down 

what I know 
is there’s a string 
tied to my shoe, 
tied to this earth,
tied to her love.

---

Laine Derr holds an MFA from Northern Arizona University and has published interviews with Carl Phillips, Ross Gay, Ted Kooser, and Robert Pinsky. Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming from Antithesis, ZYZZYVA, Portland Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere.

by Sean Young

Through long dog days of summer
Through sleepless winter nights
Through years of tireless care
Through sorrows and delights

Those shoes have traveled far
And borne their wearer well
To tend to newborn cries
And lift where others fell

They’ve willingly stepped in filth
When helping hands were asked
They’ve walked in solitude
At times they’ve even danced

The soles are wearing thin now
In places, the leather is peeling
The toes are rough and scuffed
From standing after kneeling

‘Ere long they’ll be replaced
Like those that came before
But for now they still serve well
At least a while more

---

Sean Young is a medical geographer and assistant professor in the College of Public Health, father of seven miscreants children, and burgeoning bard.