What is this thing I must sing to?
I stand up, sit
Down, then
Stand again.
My mind a fan blade pivoting
In patches in sunlight
And wind,
Scent of peony.
I wait for the bird half
Of my body
To reveal itself,
That sliver of food I carry
In my heart to feed the dead.
As if their leaving
Might finally mean something.
As if that bluebird
Coming down
Out of the pine
Might finally stall
At the feeder’s edge.
One cloud inlaid on the river
Like polished marble.
Light fraying to fading
Horse-shapes
Between the trees.
If one eye must quit its listening
And release its silver,
Then that wren is still there
On the lawn
Lashed down by ropes
And strings of wind,
Quietly feeding.
On the way out when I walked
To some arbitrary vantage,
A spot in the yard;
On the way back
(When I leaned down
And touched a poppy)
To the same.
Wet and tufted, unwounded.
I have taken for granted too long
The tongue’s relationship
To the lip,
So long
A saint might be teased
Out of it.
A mirror carried from darkness.
Then tremble, then seed.
Then then.
Time leaping forward just
For the thrill of it.
Logic like crystallized gypsum.
We sit: the morning and I.
Consciousness: our sleeve of honey.
Glass heart, glass eye, glass
Tongue, glass spine.
I can’t tell—
Of Buddha’s two deaths—
Which to prefer—
The one with poison
And a rush of blood
Or the one tamed
With willingness and grace.
Daylight sharpens
Its immaculate knife.
How does a bird know
It’s been lifted?
How know we have cheated sweetness
(And/or death)
Out of muscle and burning spoke?
Suzanne Strempek Shea is the author of twelve books, the first four of which were novels set in her native Polish America that led to her being featured in national and international media, including twice on NBC’s Today; on The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder, NPR and Voice of America; and in major newspapers and magazines in both the United States and Poland.
Awards for her books include the New England Book Award and the Oskar Halecki Prize. Her journalism was shortlisted for the Penney-Missouri Awards, and her creative writing was recognized in Best American Fiction. Her freelance journalism and fiction has appeared in magazines and newspapers including Yankee, The Bark, Golf World, The Boston Globe, The Irish Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Brevity, Down East, Organic Style and ESPN the Magazine.
Suzanne co-directs the annual Dingle Writers’ Workshop in Dingle, Ireland, and the annual Iota Short Forms Writing Conference on the easternmost coast of Maine. She’s taught in MFA programs at the University of Southern Maine, Emerson College and the University of South Florida, and at conferences through the United States and in Ireland. She lives in Howth, Ireland.
Karen Sherk Chio (she/her) earned an MFA in poetry from the University of New Orleans, where she was the winner of the 2025 Andrea Saunders Gereighty/ Academy of American Poets Award, the 2025 Maxine and Joseph Cassin Prize for Poetry Thesis, and the 2023 Vassar Miller Poetry Award. She brings 25 years of professional experience leading and managing projects for non-profit organizations to the role of Editor-in-Chief, as well as experience as an associate poetry editor for Bayou Magazine and West Trade Review. Her creative work has appeared in swamp pink, Salamander, CALYX Journal, and SmokeLong Quarterly, among others, and her critical work has been published by or is forthcoming from Colorado Review, The Adroit Journal, and West Trade Review. Chio holds two Bachelor of Arts degrees from the University of Connecticut and a Master of Public Health from Boston University.
Monica Jimenez is the senior culture & trends editor for Tufts University news and features and assistant editor of Tufts Magazine, and a community ed acting and playwriting instructor. Her work has appeared in publications including Ruminate Magazine and the Mini Plays Review, and her plays have been produced in festivals including the Boston Theater Marathon, Boston Slam Theater, and Short ’N Sweet Hollywood. She is a graduate of the Stonecoast MFA in Creative Writing program and former co-editor-in-chief, fiction editor, and designer of the Stonecoast Review. She was an honorable mention for Ruminate Magazine’s William Van Dyke Short Story Prize and winner of the flash fiction contest at the Boskone sci-fi and fantasy convention.
