ICE

a Golden Shovel

after Adrienne Rich's  “What Kind of Times Are These”

by Nancy Sobanik

"We support our neighbors and we will stand with our neighbors," Leslie Carlson, a protester, said.

We are born suffused with stardust, not this
armload of crumbling charcoal. Hate isn’t
underground, it feeds on oxygen. A
tinderbox of words erupts like Russian
folk dancers. How quickly a poem
turns to men in black balaclavas. This
is our warning. Fire needs no wind, it is
fed by the pause. The wisp and spark not
stamped, and mouths bare their teeth. Somewhere
another will smother the burning, why else
would we let fire taste our own door?
But—
think of ash, think of diamonds. Grow them here.

A poet and Registered Nurse living in Maine, Nancy Sobanik (her/she) has recent work curated or forthcoming by The Orchards Poetry Journal, Mobius, Chiron Review, Jackdaw Review, Hole in The Head Review and others. A Best of The Net and Pushcart nominee, she is a three-time finalist awarded second and third place in the Maine Postmark Poetry Contest.  A manuscript screener for Alice James Books, her debut chapbook “The Unfolding”will be published by Finishing Line Press in 2026. Bluesky: nancysobanik.bsky.social

THE BEST KITCHEN

by Matthew Murrey

has stains on the backsplash,

a bag of chips on the counter, 
a beer can from the night before, 
a toaster with one slot that works,
a light switch lightly smudged,
one plant too big for the sill,
a cabinet door that will not close,
a fruit bowl with a bruised banana,

a compost bin a bit too full,

chairs hung with coats and shirts,
half a bottle of Spanish wine, 
a clock on the wall running slow, 
a clock-radio shining red time,
a charger for your phone and mine,
a stove with two black iron pans,
a wall with photos and faded cards,
a couple of mismatched coffee cups,
a table with worn veneer where 
no one’s ever sat with diamonds
shining on a cross or shown  
such straight and stainless teeth 
in a smile so forced and white.

Matthew Murrey is the author of Bulletproof (Jacar Press, 2019) and the forthcoming collection, Little Joy (Cornerstone Press, 2026). Recent poems can be found in Roanoke Review, ballast, HAD, and elsewhere. He was a school librarian for 21 years, and lives in Urbana, IL with his partner. He can be found on Twitter, Instagram and Bluesky under the handle @mytwords.

UNDER

by Jenna Le

Political Art is a painting by Gull G

Under the politician's monument,
there was a grub twisting in the topsoil,
and a topsail from an ancient ship
folded nine times,
and a mole with pale human-like fingers
prodding a tree root,
and under this,
a chest seething with stolen coins,
and an aquifer dank with depleted water,
and a cave system beading on for miles
and miles, and a vein of gold ore,
and a cache of diamonds, and a hoard
of sapphires, and under this,
a corpse moaning the name of its child.

Jenna Le is the author of Six Rivers (NYQ Books, 2011),  A History of the Cetacean American Diaspora (Indolent Books, 2017), and Manatee Lagoon (Acre Books, 2022). Her poetry appears in AGNI, Denver Quarterly, Los Angeles Review, Massachusetts Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Pleiades, Poet Lore, Verse Daily, and West Branch. 

MIERCOLES NEGRO

(Black Wednesday)

by Thor Bacon 

So is the baker guilty, too,
who baked the loaves
served at the Last Supper?

Am I also tinged
if I sell diamond earrings
to an adulterer?

And, if I stay quiet,
not sure what to say exactly —
am I party to the flames and rubble?

The election will solve nothing.
Still, we have to vote.
Still, we have to ask each other, "Why?"

And today, Wednesday the 19th, I hear
shouting and weeping down the crowded caminos
of my virgin's heart.

Thor Bacon is an American poet whose work has appeared most recently online at International Times, and in print with The Aurorean.  He resides in Michigan, working as a goldsmith.

IF DIAMONDS WERE MADE OF COAL

by Tom Russell

Shallow men with deep pockets and dark goals
say that up is down and down is up.
Their corrupted family values put the Koch brothers ahead
of working mothers and fathers and leave
far too many to the Little Sisters of the Poor.

Their ballot-mining canaries sing boastfully
of ransacking the middle class and liquidating
those with less.
All who are the coal for their diamonds.

Good common sense and
a sense of the common good
are Black Lung to these dregs and dredgers.
Good common sense and
a sense of the common good
will silence the dirges of their dirty yellow birds.


Tom Russell works at the Omaha Public Library in Omaha, Nebraska.

THE EARTH’S FEAR

by Paul Dickey

Syrian refugee children in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. Photograph: Sam Tarling (The Guardian, May 9, 2014)

I would not say
the earth was afraid,
although it shook terribly
at each of my steps
in the moonlight.
It was only protecting
the children, it seemed,
who had poured
themselves out,
like soft drops of rain
over the hills and valleys.
But I carried on.
I had a business of fire
in the city and in the night
that the earth knew
nothing of, work
that could not be ceased
even had I wanted.
In my own way,
I too worry for the children.
How will they become
as hard now as diamonds?


Paul Dickey’s first full-length poetry book They Say This is How Death Came Into the World was published by Mayapple Press in January 2011 and was nominated by the press for the 2011 National Book Award in Poetry.  His second book Wires Over the Homeplace was published in the Fall of 2013 by Pinyon Publishing.  Dickey’s poetry has appeared in Verse Daily, Rattle, Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics, Mid-American Review, Midwest Quarterly, Pleaides, Bellevue Literary Review,  Crab Orchard Review and online at www.linebreak.org.