Afternoon at the Beach
by Ed Ahern
I, like many, am drawn to the shores of waters.
Not to sunbathe, for sun on my bare skin triggers
a sandflea twitching to haphazardly explore.
And not to squint past surf for swimming things,
one seal back looks unremarkably like another.
And not to angle for fish I cannot readily eat.
And not to season food and drink with sand.
And not to gossip about those I already know.
I shuffle on the edges of fluid and shifting
perched between cold wet and hot dry,
between immersion and desiccation,
between sense filled and somnolence.
Almost achieving primordial memories
of hunter gathering while starving
of fish and reptile blooded survivals,
of being only barely self-aware.
Bio: Ed Ahern resumed writing after forty odd years in foreign intelligence and international sales. He’s had about 650 stories and poems published so far, and thirteen books. He works the other side of writing at Bewildering Stories where he squats on the review board, and at Scribes Micro, where he’s the idle figurehead.
A Bright Refusal
by Lynne Curry
One star
grips the night.
I stand where darkness kisses the earth,
cold climbing into me.
The other stars move on.
The moon sheds its silver skin.
Morning tilts skyward.
Trees lift into their shapes.
Birds test the air.
The star stays,
a single syllable of light,
refusing to fade.
Something in me leans.
When it dims,
it does not fall.
It slips into blue,
choosing its moment
to become unseen.
I stand, lit from inside.
Still here.
I choose
when I vanish.
Bio: Alaska/Washington author Lynne Curry—nominated for the 2025 Best of the Net Anthology, the 2024 Pushcart Prize and Best Microfiction—founded “Real-life Writing,” https://bit.ly/45lNbVo and publishes a monthly “Writing from the Cabin” blog, https://bit.ly/3tazJpW and a weekly “dear Abby of the workplace” newspaper column. Curry has published twenty-nine short stories; seven poems; four articles on writing craft, and six books.
Oasis
by Steven Deutsch
Long before the specialty
coffee shops,
we congregated at Sam’s
corner candy store.
We brought our nickels
and dimes
for penny candy
and leafed through
the current Superman.
On days of good fortune
we’d sit at the counter
and sip our malteds—
nothing better.
Sam had two booths
with plasticized seats
for the serious customers.
You could get a burger,
dog, or bagel with a schmear.
And for the connoisseurs,
Sam would make you a grilled
cheese worthy of Woolworth’s.
It’s where dad
proposed to mom
and where they
stopped for Sunday coffee.
The shops disappeared
in the sixties.
I doubt if more than one
or two survive
in the whole Borough
of Brooklyn. I wish
I might find one—
have an egg cream
at the fountain
and leave with
a Bonomo’s Turkish Taffy.
Bio: Steve Deutsch is poetry editor of Centered Magazine and was the first poet in residence at the Bellefonte Art Museum. He has been nominated for the Pushcart and Best of the Net Prizes multiple times. He has six volumes of Poetry. One, Brooklyn won the Sinclair Poetry Prize.
MOUNTAIN SEASCAPE
by Lorraine Caputo
In my sleep I hear the sea washing
across the night, silence deep as
my dreams beneath silver stars,
a sliver moon cruising,
nudging me towards
wakefulness, night
rains washing
mountain
night
Bio: Wandering troubadour Lorraine Caputo is a documentary poet, translator and travel writer. Her works appear internationally in over 500 journals and 24 collections of poetry – including Orinoco Plains (dancing girl press, 2025) and Santa Marta Ayres (Origami Poems Project, 2024). She also authors travel narratives, articles and guidebooks. She is a Parliamentary Poet Laureate of Canada honoree (2011) and multiple Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominee. Caputo has done literary readings from Alaska to the Patagonia. She journeys through Latin America with her faithful knapsack Rocinante, listening to the voices of the pueblos and Earth.
