By Debbie Baxter

I watch my mom for signs she’s going to be leaving me soon, even as she’s still here. She looks more fragile. A little more lost. Is she? Is she between two worlds now? Who is it she reaches for when she’s sleeping? Is it her mother or maybe my dad? She told me he was sitting on the love seat, and when he didn’t speak to her, she thought he was dead, and then she said she knew it was a dream, a bad dream.

There are people in her room these days, but she says she knows they’re not real. She’s stopped talking about them like she once did, but she thinks they’re sitting on her sofa, sleeping in her bed, or having picnics in the floor with their children, waiting for her to join them. They don’t speak, but they smile, gather around her, and sometimes, when she thinks I’m not looking, she smiles and waves at them.

Other times, she worries the blankets between her fingers, touching, always
touching the fabric, moving her hands along the edges, reading the soft folds
as if it gives her messages only she can see. When she wakes from her frequent naps, she’s confused and slurs her words. I bring her water, say my name real loud. She turns blind eyes my direction. “Who are you again?” she asks, smiling.

“Just me, Mom, no one important,” and we laugh. But it’s not really funny.

Deborah (Debbie) Baxter is an award winning poet who lives in Chesapeake, Virginia, with her husband and 105-year-old mother. A graduate of Old Dominion University, Debbie continues her creative writing education at The Muse Writers Center in Norfolk. Her poetry reflects her Southern roots and ties to family. Her amazing mother is the inspiration for many of her poems.

By Pamela Mitchell

I will bundle you in blankets and place you 
on porches in cure chairs to keep you

I leave you in care of white pine and balsam
may their ethers open your weary lungs    

I will bundle you in blankets and place you
on porches in cure chairs to keep you

I leave you in care of lilac and lily-of-the-valley
may scent of sweet blooms open your heart 

I will bundle you in blankets and place you
on porches in cure chairs to keep you

I leave you in care of stillwater lakes may
soothing waves slake your parched soul 

I will bundle you in blankets and place you
on porches in cure chairs to keep you

I leave you in care of glorious granite may aged 
mountain lend you its strength 

I will bundle you in blankets and place you
on porches in cure chairs to keep you

I leave you in care   I leave you    I leave 

Note: Our house in the Adirondacks was once a cure cottage for tuberculosis patients. On August 9, 2000 my mother sat in a cure chair on our porch. Ironically, she told my father “It doesn’t get any better than this!” He found her the next morning, having passed from this life.

Pamela Anna Theresa Micieli (Mitchell), MFA, R.N., is a recently retired nurse and has published poems in several journals and anthologies including: The Healer’s Burden, and Intensive Care: More Poetry and Prose By Nurses. Both of these were published by Univ. of Iowa Carver College of Medicine Press. She has also published in Pulse: Voices From the Heart of Medicine, as well as a chapbook entitled Finding Lost Pond by Finishing Line Press (2021).

By LaDeanna Mullinix

Together, we’ll visit our friend
who no longer knows us, and pluck
those pesky little whiskers
off her chin.

I’ll keep the cat
you leave behind.

You’ll come
when I call to say
the cancer’s come back
or the diagnosis is dementia.

I’ll go when you call
to say Joe just died.

We’ll steady each other as we step
onto the bridge, and say:
stand tall, speak a little louder,
smile,
take my hand.

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 Stephen Johnson

Like Aspen leaves adrift on yellowed-cold,
we flutter, down from youth – to frailty.

Bone overlapping nerve, vision narrower,
niggling fire- in an un-stoked furnace.
A familiar name, muted in the downdraft,
gait- become a trudge deliberate.

We swirl, blown about upon Time’s whim,
conjugating in our similarities.

Wisdom, begotten by present sorrow,
consoles- as does hot tea in deep winter.
Retrospection, wrings itself out upon us,
our frayed rag, draped on clean plates.

In groups, proliferous and alarming,
we settle, onto the still and waiting soil.

knurled hands laced with peace accepted,
feet – content to have at last arrived,
hearts, at-pace with the scope of quietude,
we bequeath the bustle, to those we love.

Stephen Phillip Johnson is a Mountain Home carpenter. Writing is his itch. Within the halls of medicine, where he’s been (repeatedly) healed, reside flocks of muses.

By Frederick Levy

Our radio wouldn’t dare blast through my father’s orations;
he’d tote his small son on drug rep calls, navigate back roads,
the ultimate detail man.
Other times, he’d drive mute and stare,
while I’d try to decipher his silent accusations.
Alone in plain sight, I felt trapped in the tundra of his glare.

We sat in the waiting room, chairs touching,
our silence the grenade of the unsaid.
Absently letting my hand fall on the armrest,
I screamed soundlessly as my skin
leapt from the webbing of my thumb;
his fingernail drew blood.
Bewildered, frozen, nothing to hold, nothing to protest.

For as long as I knew, I sheltered, eyes closed,
in lands of my creation
but the world fell away in steep decline.

“It never happened.
He never cut me.
He’d never hurt me.”
Shallow bursts of breath…”it never happened.”

We drove home with nothing to see,
the windshield blackened.

Fred Levy is age 74, a clinical social worker of 46 years, who retired April, 2020 to focus full time on writing poetry. He has been taking numerous poetry courses and workshops at The Muse Writing Center in Norfolk, Virginia, which has offered him the opportunity to exchange valuable experiences with other poets. An observant Reform Jew and active in his synagogue, he has been married for 44 years to his Presbyterian spouse. They have raised their two children  – Joshua, 43, Elana, 40 – harmoniously in their two religion household. Exchanging ideas and living lives of diversity has been at the center of their family life.

By Michael Salcman

There’s nothing as beautiful as a marina at dawn
the clacking of ducks
the sky clearing away
the remnants of a storm:

A silvery sky
and a breeze sun-filled
and warm
the steel halyards at rest
from beating on mast and boom
the loom of shadows withdrawing
from the wheel
in the cockpit
the city awakening too soon
like a cat in search of a meal.

The cabins in my sailboat line up
like the lenses in a telescope
the rays of the rising sun
pricking through
from back to front
finally reach into the bow
warming the V-berth
and wake me to the morning.

The tide runs low—
soon there will be
dock hands on the dock boards
and halyards stamping in a stronger breeze
carrying the smell of coffee
and the children asleep below
who won’t yet feel or know
the wonder of the world.

Michael Salcman is a retired physician and teacher of art history. He was chairman of neurosurgery at the University of Maryland and president of the Contemporary Museum in Baltimore. He is a child of the Holocaust and a survivor of polio.

His poems have appeared in many medical/literary journals (JAMA, Chest, Ars Medica, Blood & Thunder, Caduceus, Healing Muse, Hektoen, Hospital Drive) and less bloody venues like Arts & Letters, Barrow Street, Café Review, Harvard Review, Hopkins Review, The Hudson Review, New Letters, Raritan and Smartish Pace.

His books include The Clock Made of Confetti; The Enemy of Good Is Better; Poetry in Medicine, a widely used anthology of classic and contemporary poems on medical matters (Persea Books, 2015); A Prague Spring, Before & After (winner 2015 Sinclair Poetry Prize); and Shades & Graces, the inaugural winner of the Daniel Hoffman Legacy Book Prize in 2020. Necessary Speech: New & Selected Poems was published in 2022.

By Carol Barrett

Twelve ounces coffee 
with skim milk, not whole, then walk
forty minutes flat

Mornings, try the scale
A poet knows less is more
Think leaves, autumn’s drop

Carol Barrett’s poetry has been published in magazines in the U.S., Canada, Britain, Israel, Germany and the Virgin Islands. Her third poetry volume was released in February (Reading Wind, from The Poetry Box). These poems were inspired by the poet’s father, a country doctor, who was also a farmer and musician.

By Jamie Jones

The emergency department, a bustling fray,
Trucks backed up in the ambulance bay.
A mother and child, full of fear,
Scared of needles, lots of tears.
So much the child couldn’t understand,
I took a moment. I held her hand.

In the dim-lit room, a girl of youth,
Afraid of judgment, skirting the truth.
Eyes darting around the room,
Feeling as though her life is doomed.
This was not the life that she had planned.
I stood in silence. I held her hand.

A young mother next, with babe in arms,
Bruised face and ego, escaping harm.
Head lowered, eyes to the ground,
Her quiet sobs the only sound.
So much in life she has had to withstand.
I sat in solidarity. I held her hand.

Midlife’s shadow looms, a woman sighs,
She’s heard it all, the deceit, the lies.
The speculum is cold, her eyes, morose,
As her thoughts consume her, her eyes, they close,
Remembering her life that used to be grand.
Knowingly, respectfully, I held her hand.

An elder then, with wisdom profound,
Afraid of leaving, of the final round.
Each breath uneven, her shoulders frail,
Her bones so fragile, her skin so pale.
She silently succumbed to eternity’s demand.
In quiet tears, I held her hand.

From tender youth to elder’s grace,
In every moment, I found my place.
Each heartbeat echoed in the air,
A silent promise to ease despair.
So, in the echoes of life’s symphony grand,
With gratitude in my heart, I held her hand.

Jamie L. Jones, Ph.D., RN, CNE, is a Clinical Assistant Professor and Academic Coach within the UAMS College of Nursing. With over 20 years of experience as a registered nurse, including intermittent work in the emergency department, and over 15 years as a nurse educator, Jamie is passionate about her roles. Jamie views nursing as a deeply human endeavor, centered on connection, warmth, and kindness. For her, it’s about more than completing tasks; it’s about fostering a sense of safety and well-being for every individual she encounters. Jamie’s overarching life goal is simple yet profound: to brighten at least one person’s day through her actions, every single day.

By Duane Anderson

I plan on getting you around the house
as you hobble from room to room
with your right leg bandaged up
and swollen from a recent surgery.
Just take it slow and easy,
and I will aid you to your destination.

I want to make my friendship with you temporary,
then once you have healed, you can pass me to
someone else in need of my talents.
If you want to race someone else
in a track meet down the hallway,
I might not agree with you, but go ahead.

I will guide you along,
but just as a reminder,
watch out for throw rugs,
electrical cords, and other potential hazards
as we make our trip together.
I want your journey to be safe, and uninterrupted.

Duane Anderson currently lives in La Vista, Nebraska. He has had poems published in Fine Lines, Cholla Needles, Tipton Poetry Journal, and several other publications. He is the author of On the Corner of Walk and Don’t Walk, The Blood Drives: One Pint Down, and Conquer the Mountains.

By DJ Grant

In Loving Memory
Kirsten M. French
1988 – 2023

cancer in her bones
cancer in her cage
frantic butterflies
trapped in a rage

Pain that would cause the weak to shiver
Courage that would make a lion whisper

cancer in her bones
cancer in her cage
suffering bred in
her wisdom sage

“Don’t wait until you start dying to live.” ^KMF

cancer in her bones
cancer in her cage
ripped from her life at
too young an age

Please tell my daughter, please tell my wife
I am with you forever, you are my life

cancer in her bones
cancer in her cage
frantic butterflies
trapped in a rage

DJ Grant holds a bachelor’s degree in English, Emphasis Literature, from The University of British Columbia. An award-winning writer and artist, Grant work can be found on The Mighty, The Lehrhaus, and Cosmic Daffodil Journal. DJ Grant is a disabled artist who lives – and sleeps – with Narcolepsy.