By Candice Mast

We watch from a distance,
From a parking lot smelling fish and lemons.
Tiny spark and shower.
Remote as stars
The children dangle their feet from the hood of the car
The radio blares songs about American pride.
“Where at least I know I’m free.”
We’ve been gone so long now
Am I immigrant?
Citizen?
Adopted child?
Am I any freer here under the same moon?
Homeland love, homeland hate.
Are my children still your children too?

We are so far away, we can’t feel the boom now,
The one I remember from my childhood
Watching fireworks lying on my back on the New Market
battlefield,
Where I could feel them inside my small body,
Like an wild and alien heart,
Overriding my own heartbeat;
Panicked delight.
I look up now at my children’s lit faces,
Want them to feel the boom inside.

By Jason Ropp

Listen up!
Vagabonds, down and outs,
Embittered, addicts, and wounded,
(even self-shot in foot).
And dare I say it,
Open your ears you
Like-me self righteous,
Apathetic regarding and numb to the
Pumping heart that brings life into
Most repugnant places.

Stop. Don’t read. Listen.

Did you hear it?
Did soft wind work gently
Through leaky old house of heart
With poorly hung doors
And unsure locks?
Did furious love-gale
Raging against needless fall
Bend walls groaning
Further out of square?

Did draft chill you?
Did howl and creak turn you
Again to child with somersault heart?

Listen.
Because fanner of waterless wave
Is magnificent worker of wood —
A carpenter,
Hanging new doors,
Furnishing home with finest antiques,
Mouth-made by supreme artisan,
Origin of all chair-crafters.
And He finds greatest pleasure in
Well working over
Timbers once carved fresh for
Current tenant ungrateful
With deposit insufficient
To make good on damages due
When time comes to vacate current residence.