By Sarah Soltis

Lotion, lotion. Listen in
To the voices of the moment
As the cream caresses your skin.
Do they murmur that you are undeserving?
Or did you know this from your sin
The kind that cracks and bloodies cold hands
Causing you to scrub and scrub again?
Do you sense the soothing is not meant
For you, who, losing resolve already worn thin,
Came to crave the dehydrated dryness, draught
That winter’s air brought in,
That despair brings out?
Lotion, lotion. Can you win
Over calm in this kind,
uncalled-for motion?
When your reprehensible hands redden
Can you rid yourself of your rocky pride
And let the grace, the softening, begin?

Sarah Soltis is an avid reader, coffee-drinker, nature-walker, and student from Maryland. She enjoys spending time with her two dogs and family. Sarah has scribbled poems in search of the divine for years, and she hopes her writing expresses the beauty and uncertainty of life in a God-riddled world.

by James B. Nicola

In search of the sublime, I read the book
you wrote. In search of peace I read it twice.
In search again of excellence I took
a walk with you and listened to advice.
In search of peace I lingered by the brook,
removed, like you, my footwear. In search of
I don’t know what, you turned my face to look
at you. But it was not in search of love
I did as you and what you asked me to
and waded barefoot in the waters while
the moon appeared, ascending behind you.
That huntress—chaste, divine, and free of guile—
shone cool as those clear waters and your smile;
and all three showed me that my search was through.

James B. Nicola, a returning contributor, is the author of six collections of poetry, the latest being Fires of Heaven: Poems of Faith and Sense. His decades of working in the theater culminated in the nonfiction book Playing the Audience: The Practical Guide to Live Performance, which won a Choice award.

“The Search” was previously published by the journal “Poem.”

by Gershon Ben-Avraham

Curious Creatures

Something there is God loves about humans,
something that he longs for, something he needs.

He sits, listening to their singing and
watching their dancing, while clapping in time,
swaying in rhythm to their joyous music.

For a while, his loneliness moves aside,
leaving space within him where he places
these marvelous melodious beings.

His creatures sing to the music of his
spheres; his universe hums with happiness.

Gods Die When

Gods die when no one believes in them.
Old religion lingers, Pater wrote,
latest in the country, practiced by
dwellers of small towns and villages.

Gods die when the setting sun’s fiery
red glow on mountain snow isn’t a blush
caused by the sun god’s goodnight kiss, but
refraction and reflection of light.

Gods die when prayer becomes empty,
the sound of clapping hands inside a
vacuum, not an alarm bell to
awaken sleeping divinity.

Infinity weighs heavily on
hearts that yearn for gods, who long to love
and be loved by them, but find instead
the dark, cold abyss of endless space.

Gershon Ben-Avraham is an American-Israeli writer. He lives in Beersheba, Israel, on the edge of the Negev Desert. He and his wife share their lives with a gentle blue-merle long-haired collie. Before moving to Israel, Ben-Avraham earned an MA in Philosophy (Aesthetics) from Temple University.

by Joe Bisicchia

Amidst the fallen space junk a bronze serpent maybe,
or not,
exaltation of the Holy Cross, with God something to grasp
or not,
maybe more so God among us, as we knot,
they baptize a baby at mass.

A wet headed little crying Joe is lifted to claps.

And it’s then I realize,
Heart of Love is so extraordinary and
we’re all together individually blessed by such a sacrament,
unless some of us lose ourselves not.

I wipe a tear.

Joe Bisicchia writes of our shared dynamic. An Honorable Mention recipient for the Fernando Rielo XXXII World Prize for Mystical Poetry, his works have appeared in numerous publications. His website is www.JoeBisicchia.com.

by Christina McCaul

My favorite time of day is early morning, when remnants of civil twilight slowly begin to fade and the sun’s warmth feels soft. It is here, in the gentle hours of the day, I am reminded of the beauty of simplicity.

For early mornings bring empty beaches and empty roads.
They bring faded hues of blue and green.
Early mornings are by far my favorite time—
the tranquility they bring, the simplicity they bring.
It is here, in these hours, where we move most like the sun—rising slowly and gently— so by the time the rest of the world wakes, we have already started on our way.

Christina lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland. She holds a BA in Cultural Anthropology and draws upon many anthropological concepts, as well as aspects of her Baltimore community, to inspire her writing. You can check out more of her work on instagram: @christinaann_words.

by Chelsea Elizabeth Samson

When I was a little girl,
My mother told me that pain was a woman’s gift.
I remembered then, she was baking bread.

Her hands fell soft, melodic
and as the flour wove through her fingers
She would hum little sounds that painted my world.

I could never figure her recipe,
but she said that I would know when I was older.
And I have tried and tried since then.

I would never forget the taste of it,
a brown smell and a salty comfort in my mouth
that lingered as I ran outside to play.

Years passed and the days have grown long in me
and many times, I have made her bread,
if only to feel that brown comfort again.

But life always colored mine with its flavors,
at times too light, and thrice too sweet to taste.
Heavy hands made it bitter, and biting to the tongue.

I felt like I would never know her secret,
But the need to feel that comfort, and curiosity,
would not leave my soul.

And so once more I made my mother’s bread,
But the salt of my tears and pain, of age
added to water, sugar, flour, yeast and eggs

There it was – it finally tasted like my mother’s.

Dr. Chelsea Elizabeth Samson works in the field of health management and technology in the Philippines and advocates for human connections in the healthcare system. Alongside her primary functions, she pursues civic advocacies as a brand ambassador of Kandama indigenous weaves and as a Global Shaper under the World Economic Forum. She has been writing poetry since the age of 12 and has continued a love affair with arts through her painting and poetry.

by Sarah Law

Welcome

God comes to me in daily irritants:
a tepid splash of dirty laundry water,
a cobweb resolute against my cloth,
a snag of fishbone in the meagre soup,
my reticence interpreted as sloth;
the cough and scrape of sisters in the choir,
a finger-smudge on cards I have designed,
a blanket gone. No room beside the fire.
A streak of pain. A faith I cannot find:
I welcome everything as bread and wine.

Dust

Since old and useless things are stowed
up in the convent loft, I wondered

whether they were nearer heaven
than our bustling nuns below –

perhaps the chill preserves them;
humility is fostered in the dark.

I crept up in my clumsy sandals,
touched rough wood, cracked bowls,

and honoured their abandonment –
my hands made holy with dust.

Sarah Law lives in London and is a tutor for the Open University and elsewhere. She is interested in saints, sinners and the twists and turns of language. If pushed, she would describe herself as a freelance Anglo-mystic. She edits the online journal Amethyst Review.

by Andy Conner

The Sikhs’ magnificent Harmandir, or Golden Temple, is the centrepiece of the temple complex in the holy city of Amritsar.

Auntie
Respected, rich
Humbles herself

Auntie
Knowing what pride precedes
Hitches her sari above her feet

Auntie
A forward thinking lady
Descends the stairs backwards

Slowly

Clears her mind
Cleans God’s house
For the pious
For the tourists
For the peasants who spend their lives
Swallowing dust

Not born to be a cleaner
She sweeps
Bare-handed
Right to left
Right to left
Gathering tiny piles
Of unholy dust

Each movement
Physically
A speck of dirt

Each movement
Spiritually
A broadstroke golden universe
Of love and hope

Sweeping
Unkind thoughts
Sweeping
Everyday sins

Sweeping
The one thing
No rug is big enough to cover

Outside
Sweet water reflects
Ten heavenly smiles
Nanak to Gobind

Inside
The eleventh
Pauses its reading
And bookmarks
The purity
Flowing in and out
Of four open doors

Andy Conner is a Birmingham, UK-based poet, activist and educator, with a long track record of performing his work nationally and internationally. His work has also featured in numerous publications. He is a Pushcart Prize nominee.
His credits include BBC Radio 4, Jaipur Literature Festival and India International Centre. He has also conducted workshops for The British Council.

by D. Walsh Gilbert

As soon as I dropped
my flip-flop into Charlestown’s

Atlantic, knee-deep in outgoing
tide, it was gone, and I

caught myself before chasing it,
knowing all about the undertow

and the importance of the breachway.
There I stood with the other

looped onto my pinkie finger.
I closed my fist.

Ask me if I can speak
of balance, loss, and distance.

I’ve hobbled forty years
in a single sandal.

Forty—the root for quarantine,
the weeks for full-term pregnancy,

the length of fasting in the wilderness,
of temptation by devils, floods

and wandering in deserts.
Forty years before I pulled the saved one off,

and, finally waltzing barefoot, tossed
it to the undertow and currents.

D. Walsh Gilbert is a thirty-year breast cancer survivor. She serves on the board of the non-profit, Riverwood Poetry Series, focusing poetry against hatred, and as co-editor of the Connecticut River Review. She lives in a rural setting in Connecticut with her husband and two old dogs.

by Matthew Miller

I’m sipping tea this afternoon. Some sons nap.
Another asks, Daddy, spell special for me.

I have no letters to spell special for me.
But words for him: apprentices and spaces.

Certainty spawns danger in novel spaces.
New wine demands new wineskins, not more patches.

I want to walk in soft grass, not burnt patches,
so I overwater brown until it’s smooth

and squashy. I sink in like a pen that’s smooth,
like my hand sliding across unwrinkled thighs.

I wish I was young again, unwrinkled eyes
on watermelon slices, unsure what God says.

You can’t want wrongly with me, God says.
In wells, I find thirst; sipping while some sons nap.

Matthew Miller teaches social studies, swings tennis rackets, and writes poetry – hoping to create home. He lives beside a dilapidating orchard in Indiana, and tries to shape the dead trees into playhouses for his four boys. He secretly the groundhogs, rabbits, and cardinals that share the orchard’s fruits.

by Ashley Marek

Smoky incense fills my nostrils as the
priest saunters down the aisle passing our
pew we sit in Sunday after Sunday.
We go through the readings and sing the hymns
as a middle-aged woman stares at my
bare legs and I cannot remember what
comes after the Nicene Creed. He will come
again in glory to judge the living
and the dead. I am transformed into Eve,
a shameful woman. I look down at my
exposed bare legs, my wisdom is unleashed.
My pops squeezes my hand while reciting
verbatim the old prayer his dad taught him.
All I want is to hide behind him now,
like I did as a kid, my guardian angel.

Ashley Marek is a winner of the 2020 Manitou Fellowship sponsored by the Literary Arts Institute of the College of Saint Benedict. She is currently working on an essay collection about her experience with self-induced anxiety. She is obsessed with cats and has a large, orange tabby nicknamed Pat the Fat Cat.

by Martha Kahane

Down here on earth we
have grocery stores and love
affairs, garden plots and snowstorms,
toilets and telephones. Conversations
there don’t need words at all and colors
come alive, way beyond azur, crimson
and celadon.
And the love.
Even the maddest, deepest love down here is
cardboard by comparison.

Martha Kahane is a psychologist and an avid choral singer. She misses choral singing terribly since singing in groups has become lethal. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband of forty years.

by Juleigh Howard-Hobson

Praise winter skies for winter snows,
For clouds and cold,
For frost and freeze,
For summer’s close,
For autumn’s end,
For spring to come
Revowed.
Praise winter skies for winter snows,
For clouds and storms
For hail that falls
For ground that holds
The ice that will
Melt into spring’s
Green rows.
Praise winter skies for winter snows,
For clouds and cold,
For frost and freeze,
For summers close.

Juleigh Howard-Hobson’s poetry has appeared in The Comstock Review, Noir Nation, L’Éphémère, Able Muse, The Lyric, Weaving The Terrain (Dos Gatos), Poem Revised (Marion Street), Birds Fall Silent in the Mechanical Sea (Great Weather for Media), Lift Every Voice (Kissing Dynamite), and other venues. A Million Writers Award “Notable Story” writer, nominations include “Best of the Net”, The Pushcart Prize and The Rhysling Award. She lives off grid in the Pacific Northwest next to a huge woods filled with shadows and ghosts.

by Laura Ohlmann

Day of Atonement

We were sisters once, bound together
by your hands crafting plaits of braid in my hair,
wrapping them into buns.

We chased a rainbow down Stirling Road
towards University, where the intersections crossed
like a railway sign. This is it, she said. We pulled
into the Disalvo’s parking lot as the rainbow meditated
above us, an ethereal presence where we hoped Mom would
hop out, like gold before us.

It’s Yom Kippur now, but we still haven’t spoken.
How long will you cast me out?
I’ve tossed crumbs of bread down a river for you,
but they stay afloat, puffs of sourdough
disintegrate in the water, polluting the clear surface.

Afikomen

My father splits the baked square of matzo
and places it in the paper towel Mom has prepared
for him. They wrap it carefully, her cradling it like a demigod
in her spread palms, Dad curling the edges around the makeshift
bag. I cover my eyes and it’s a festival now, our stomachs are bloated,
full of charoset and matzo ball soup, and Dad whispers to my sisters
about the hiding location. Mom puts our dog into the master bedroom
or she’ll forage for it too. It’s Pesach and we’re honoring
our liberation from Egypt, my family celebrating
the search of afikomen, the money my father will
ceremoniously hand me, the dark chocolate macaroons
that Mom bought and the slipped shards of matzo that
I’ll secretly slide to Care under the bedroom door.

Laura Ohlmann is an MFA candidate at the University of Central Florida. She enjoys sleeping in her converted Honda Element and biking up mountains with her partner and dog.