HOUSE ARREST

by Devon Balwit

A few months before he began his 2022 Senate campaign, JD Vance reached out to a conservative family policy group with an idea for an opinion essay. He wanted to write about why government-subsidized day care was bad — and why most young children do better when one parent stays home... “We cannot get away from the fact that a child is hard-wired to bond with mom,” said Jenet Erickson, a co-writer of Mr. Vance’s 2021 essay and a fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, a conservative policy group that advocates for raising the birthrate. “They know her smell, they know her heartbeat, they know her voice. I just think, why should we deny that?” —The New York Times, May 12, 2025

 

 

It is impossible for any situation to go on well where one is at the bottom who ought to be either independent or at the top. I am at the bottom and ought not be there. —Florence Nightingale, private note, 1851, in Ever Yours, Florence Nightingale: Selected Letters

 

Lacking a penis, the young Florence Nightingale

had to satisfy herself with the yearly sorting of linens

and kitchen utensils. She noted, wryly, in her journal

that, as for the latter, form didn’t follow function—

she hadn’t the faintest idea of their use. She hoped,

that Capital, by creating a need for them, had allowed some

at least, to earn their bread. Luckily, proper scope

for her talents emerged in the war hospitals of Crimea.

 

Now, talk has again turned to what 

is “natural” for women—surprise—a predilection for babies

and scutwork. Out comes the myth, trailing dust,

that career women are selfish and their children unhappy.

Have we learned nothing since the Victorians—

that if unchosen, a woman’s home is her prison?

When not making art, Devon Balwit walks in all weather and edits for Asimov Press and Asterisk Magazine.

THANKSGIVING AFTER THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 2024

by Tarn Wilson

The people I know have elegant souls.

They wear unfashionable shoes.

They drive raggedy cars.

The people I know have dignified souls.

They have cracks in their walls.

Their sweaters are pilled.

The people I know have radiant souls.

They’re an army of kindness.

They gather in kitchens.

The people I know have royal souls.

They are wise and brave.

They are frightened and brave.

They are warriors disguised.

What they know will save us. 

Tarn Wilson is the author of the lyric memoir The Slow Farm, the memoir-in-essays In Praise of Inadequate Gifts (winner of the Wandering Aengus Book Award), and a craft book: 5-Minute Daily Writing Prompts: 501 Prompts to Unleash Your Creativity and Inspire You to Write. Her essays, poetry, and book reviews have appeared in numerous literary journals, including Assay, Brevity, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, River Teeth, Ruminate, Sweet Lit, and The Sun.

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.

STILL LIFE IN DISARRAY

by Suzanne Morris

after a photograph by Sergei Ilnitsky, 2015

Sergei Ilnitsky, a Russian photographer of the European Pressphoto Agency, won the 2015 World Press Photo First Prize in the General News Category, Singles, for this image of damaged goods lying in a kitchen in downtown Donetsk, in war-torn eastern Ukraine.

Imagine, just

moments before.

No artist could more deftly

arrange these few articles

while conjuring

a still life in Ukraine.

See the embroidered lace curtain

swept aside to reveal

a kitchen table covered in

dainty muslin,

on which are placed

a small bowl of ripe tomatoes,

a lidded porcelain teapot with

poppies on the side; nearby

stout mugs, an empty tin can,

a cutting board with knives.

The view, tilting from above

and to the left,

the artist’s palette dabbed with

simple colors in homespun hues–

vermilion red, salmon pink,

maize yellow, white, gray blue.

Not seen, but understood:

the chairs drawn near,

a hand reaching for the teapot

to fill the mugs 

and slice tomato wedges

for tea

in the midday light

streaming through the 

kitchen window.

What family had sat 

having tea?

Were the children

present?

Did all escape

the bomb,

exploding in near range:

still life impastoed with

shattered window glass

and dust?

But no, a new color,

burnt umber,

spatters the scene;

it soils the table cover and

collects in indentations of

lace flowers and leaves.

A novelist with eight published works, Suzanne Morris began writing poetry in the context of her fiction.  Eventually she shifted her creative focus from novels to poetry only.  Her poems appeared in No Season for Silence - Texas Poets and Pandemic (Kallisto Gaia Press, 2020) and have frequently appeared online in Texas Poetry Assignment.

THE POEM THAT LANDS ON THE BREAKFAST TABLE

by Janet Bowdan

Jac Zagoory Rocket Pen Holder

I forgot what I was going to ask,  

just a question that popped out of my head 

the moment I went into the kitchen, 

and Blair laughed saying I was entitled 

to a day off and maybe so 

 

but what if this is not the day 

what if this is the day I can write about Israel 

firing back on Gaza, the two women who died 

running for shelter, the military targeting Hamas 

tunnels but bringing down buildings, children 

dying, maybe this is the day I can make them stop 

killing each other if they can only stop— 

the poem that lands on Netanyahu’s breakfast 

so he has to read it, how his vow to make 

Hamas pay “a very heavy price” is a weight 

in his throat; he tries to swallow it down 

with coffee. It is not Hamas who’s paying, 

his orange juice says, his bagel with cream cheese. 

We’re all paying. Make it stop, the poem 

says before it backflips and speeds like a rocket 

to the Hamas leaders: make it stop. And it lights up 

the sky but harms no one. 

 

Janet Bowdan's poems have appeared in APR, Best American Poetry, The Rewilding Anthology, River Heron Review, and elsewhere. Her chapbook Making Progress came out in 2019 from Finishing Line Press. She lives in Northampton, Massachusetts, with her husband and son (who recently had a zoom bar mitzvah), as well as a cat and a chinchilla. 

THANKSGIVING

by Joan Colby

 

A window centered over the kitchen sink

Looks out upon the birdbath, the feeder,

All the way past the chicken coop to the

Red barn behind which trees feather the horizon.

 

Today the birdbath bears a lid of snow,

A few chickadees address the feeder.

The cherry trees that line the dry lot fence

Are bare armed, bleak as gun metal sky.

 

My hands delve deep in soapy water.

China and silver clinking a weary hymn.

The scrub of cookie sheets or skillets

Grates like November lurking out the window.

 

The window frames each season. That’s

The reason farmwives demanded placement

To gaze upon the bridal wreath in bloom

Or hollyhocks upholding the old wellhouse.

 

Dishwashing invites contemplation. When

The hands are occupied the mind escapes

Its practical routines and lounges out

Into a landscape frozen as today’s

Promised grace of one more Thanksgiving.

 

Joan Colby has published widely in journals such as Poetry, Atlanta Review, South Dakota Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, New York Quarterly, the new renaissance, Grand Street, Epoch, and Prairie Schooner. Awards include two Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards, Rhino Poetry Award, the new renaissance Award for Poetry, and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Literature. She was a finalist in the GSU Poetry Contest (2007), Nimrod International Pablo Neruda Prize (2009, 2012), and received honorable mentions in the North American Review's James Hearst Poetry Contest (2008, 2010). She is the editor of Illinois Racing News, and lives on a small horse farm in Northern Illinois. She has published 11 books including The Lonely Hearts Killers and How the Sky Begins to Fall (Spoon River Press), The Atrocity Book (Lynx House Press) and Dead Horses and Selected Poems from FutureCycle Press. Selected Poems received the 2013 FutureCycle Prize.  Properties of Matter was published in spring of 2014 by Aldrich Press (Kelsay Books). Two chapbooks are forthcoming in 2014: Bittersweet (Main Street Rag Press) and Ah Clio (Kattywompus Press). Colby is also an associate editor of Kentucky Review and FutureCycle Press.