Poetry 2 Spring 2025

Mom’s Sweater

by Barbara Brooks

I have a dresser full of sweaters

that Mom knit for me. I wear them

for doctor’s appointments, holiday pot lucks

that I need to look better than my everyday

long sleeve T-shirt and vest.

She never knit one for herself.

I have the one she wore all the time,

store bought. It has a Nordic pattern

of browns and grays on the top, cream colored

body, brown cuffs and plastic buttons colored

to look like wood. It fits me but I can’t button it,

still, it is warm and comfortable. She would tuck

a Kleenex into the sleeve.

I draped it on the old rocking chair

for several seasons. Now, for some reason

I wear it rather than the ones she knit.

Bio: Barbara Brooks, a retired physical therapist, is the author of three chapbooks: The Catbird Sang, A Shell to Return to The Sea, Watercolors. She is a member of The PoetFools writing group. Her work has been published in Remington Review, Field Guide Literary Magazine among others. She lives in Hillsborough, NC with her dog.

The Green Water Bottle

by Richard Weaver

Pear-shaped, an unripened plum-green,

more than any pictures I have

or furniture I chose to inherit,

it reminds me of my grandparents

in their house. It always stood

in the humming, hunchbacked refrigerator,

next to the swollen ice-tray box,

fat with the collected frost of winter's

cloudy weather. Depression glass. Money green.

Its shiny top floated open when tilted

and poured water unlike any tasted.

Who wouldn’t want such an inheritance?

Who could not choose?

Bio: Richard Weaver volunteers with the Maryland Book Bank, CityLights, and the Baltimore Book Festival. In his spare time, he’s the official writer-in-residence at the James Joyce Pub in Baltimore. Previously, he was an Assistant Professor at the 3rd oldest Jesuit College where he taught in the English Department and was the Head of Library Circulation, and acting Archivist. His first published poem appeared in Poetry Magazine April 1975. In his less-than-spare time he reads for Slant magazine.

Riding Lessons

by paul Bluestein

Ready for my first ride alone,

father walked me to the barn,

hand on my shoulder, repeating the lessons

from a lifetime of training horses and riders.

“Don’t worry about the horse. She knows what to do.

Riding is not about reins or saddles,

stirrups or spurs.

Learn to still your hands. Teach your heart

to echo the rhythm of hoof beats.

But if you lose that grace of connection,

stop.

Steady yourself. Soothe Annabelle and begin again”.

As I trotted off, he called to my disappearing back,

“And if you’re about to fall, look for soft ground”.

Bio: paul Bluestein is a physician (done practicing) and a blues musician (still practicing). He lives in Connecticut near a beach where he finds quiet time to think about the past, and wonder about the future. In addition to poems and short stories that have appeared in a wide variety of online and print publications, he has had two books of poetry published - TIME PASSAGES and FADE TO BLACK.

Eye

by Jonathan Fletcher

As a child, I once closed my eyes,

reached out to the display of raised dots,

rolled my finger against the cells—

left to right, right to left—

as if by doing so I could read the Braille,

as if doing so I could know

what it’s like to be blind,

ignorant that eye can see things wrong,

that, just by looking, eye can harm.

Bio: Jonathan Fletcher holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Columbia University School of the Arts. His work has been featured in numerous literary journals and magazines, and he has won or placed in various literary contests. A Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best Microfiction nominee, he won Northwestern University Press’s Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize contest in 2023, for which he will have his debut chapbook, This is My Body, published in 2025. Currently, he serves as a Zoeglossia Fellow and lives in San Antonio, Texas.