New Poems • Barbara Archer • After the Fall • Daniel Arenson • Youth • Elizabeth Barrette • Countrycide • Helena Bell • I Asked What it Looked Like • Catherine E. Bollinger • Blood Sucker • Alric Bolt • Dangle • Jennifer Burton • Ragged • Orson Scott Card • Fires • Belly • Don't You Remember the End of the World? • Carol M. Carpenter • Reunion Sunday • Penny Denice Cobb • Caterpillar, Flying • Michael Collings • For Grace Isabella • Pomegranates • 'Possum • The House We Owned • Julia DeLong • Behold the handmaiden • The Orphic Guide • Shards • Rose Drew • For Rose • Lee Evans • Vitreous Floaters • Jimmy nil Fishhawk • Night Blessing • Sonnet for Leaves Shaking Light • David Flynn • Summers Were Warm Back Then • Michaela A. Gabriel • November Rules of Conduct • Lara Gose • Visiting Grandma • Laura Lawlor Hewitt • Matter of Madness • Juleigh Howard-Hobson • Coming Upon A Stone Circle at Sunset • Joseph Josephides • The Window • Abel Keogh • The End of the World • Catherine Knutsson • The Soft Fall of Snow • Eric Lehman • The Hall of Cats • Fred Longworth • Downtown San Diego, 1953 • Robin Merrill • Ferris Rhubarb • Jaime Lee Moyer • Minstrel • Lawrence Nielsen • Not Puccini but Dvorak • Adrienne J. Odasso • The Damage Done • One if by Land • Not Eden • G. M. Palmer • The Penguin and the Clam • Elijah and the Antelope • For the Unborn Dead • Palm Sunday • The Rest • Geoff Peterson • The Ballad of Moses • Eva poon • She Doesn't Know • Jason Kelly Richards • Mother Nature's Facilities • Charles Ries • Jack • Scott M. Roberts • Joogled by Broogles • Song of the Rivelaunt • Pie Fight on the Way To Hell • Train Window Prophet • Adam Z. Robinson • Photograph: A family gathering • Bride & Groom • Johnny Rocket • Angels, Gramma, and Questions • Marsheila Marcy Rockwell • Chrissy at the Grave of P.S. 103 • R. Allen Shoaf • The Father Gives His Boy a Knife • The Boy in Chains • My Father's Church • Cate Snyder • More Nonsense • Mary Sutton-Paul • Shoes • Cory Swainston • The Oath of the Horatii • Justin Taylor • Hallandale • If you weren't now with man... • I was lying when I said I didn't love you • Literary Conceit • Madelia Tower • Fall of Light • Ann Walters • He Speaks Stars • Oregon Morning • In Dreams He Purrs • A Night in Zion • Christopher Way • Fort Myers, Florida • Spring Nerve Sheath • Zach West • Witching Hour • Emily Whitby • Untitled, For Now • Unsent Letter 7 • James R. Whitley • The Goddess of the Hustle

The Son

The pressed steel toys from Poland,
Police cars with colossal lights,

And tiny plastic men,
With frozen plastic frowns.

The Batmobile resurrection,
The Ghostbusters Volkswagen beetle,
Dinosaurs from Jurassic park,
Spacemen - and World War Two soldiers,
Mutant Ninja Turtles - hauling shell,
We were Masters of the Universe.

The Father

Secret Sam and Stan Lee, the world explained in pictures.
Heroes and villains collide,

And cry the behemoth cometh,
To take the child away.

Johnny Seven One-Man-Army,
Creepy comics - from granny!
Secrets of the Unknown,
Tales of the Uncanny,
Pictures, memories,
More real now, than then.

Summers were warm back then,
Remember?