The Ache for Home – Sally Gander

The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we areand not be questioned. Maya Angelou The box room where I was staying was dark, always dark. The window let in only a sliver of light and the lamp cast a weak pool of yellow over dark-painted…

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Lord of the Ocean – Aneeta Sundararaj

“China is going to take over our world,” my friend declared. Unlikely to happen! I didn’t say the words aloud, though, for this man’s convictions were delivered with such ferocity that any meaningful debate was impossible. Rumour had it that he believed that every country was doomed to inevitable failure unless it bowed down to…

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ONE POEM – Kira Scott

these are the tears that we cannot shed
as we comment on the beauty of the glen and
how wonderful it must have been to live in such a place.

TWO POEMS – Tim Kiely

the cake is made of Walthamstow
a dense and glutinous Walthamstow
we are going to make Walthamstow
a Titanic success for Walthamstow

Back Home in Old Kentucky – Bailey Vandiver

Kentucky governor Happy Chandler once said Kentuckians are always either coming home or thinking about coming home. On the day that tornadoes devastated my home state, I was longing to be home. It was December 11, 2021, and I woke up in a New York City hotel room to the news that tornadoes had ripped…

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ONE POEM – Claire Sosienski Smith

paring knife, won’t use it to make 
the pierogi. The potato goes 
soft in the microwave, 
the onion falls apart 
and fries itself. 

Scheherazade — Lydia Waites

He studies me for a second before facing the road again, his jaw set. My breath is caught in my throat. I clear it, arranging my thoughts. It was just an outburst, a loss of patience: I am safe. 

ONE POEM – Hideko Sueoka

Bright rays reflect, shape, shake her portrait on the water skin
      and it’s broken, burnt, soon gone.