August Issue: Poetry Section

1. Letter from the Other Side of Silence — Stephanie L. Harper
2. Because The Deacon Couldn’t Sleep — Dina Friedman
3. One Day At A Time– Kavita Ratna
4. YOU ARE– Mahvash Mohtadullah
5. Gypsy Woman– George Bakola
6. For Angie– Rachel Ikins
7. Rise And Fall– Lynn White
8. Canary’s Plea– Agaigbe Uhembansha
9. The Lost Pages– Sabreen Ahmed
10. VOICES: Three Haikus by Daiypayan Nair
11. Lipstick– Kalpana Singh Chitnis
12. She Rides The Bus– Marianne Tefft
13. There Is A Desire– Trijita Mukherjee
14. My Inner Voice– Shailja Sharma

Letter from the Other Side of Silence — Stephanie L. Harper

Dear One: A life-long dusk of onyx-black

has failed to send back even faint echoes

of my own refrains. I know what it is

to be mocked by the wind’s bare-rhythmed hiss

through night-hidden palm fronds and rolling surf,

stultifying me with its droning lie

that this something-other-than-living is

all there is… But now that our Unsaying

has sprouted to the surface, basked in light,

and given over its once-crucial husk

to the fallow soil’s reconstitution,

what is left for it but to inhabit

its belly and sing from its deep?

Pronouncing with its crystal vibrato,

Yours is to live!—warbling wildly

between the future’s bracing topographies

and the past’s veiled griefs—my mind registers

magic such as would teach the sea-floor’s stones

to rise up and stitch closed the most ancient

of gulfs. With its made-up plane of coordinates,

this distance separating us has no bearing

on our shared heart’s magnetic north;

so, it’s no wonder that I hear your voice

as clearly and close to the core of Truth

as my own, for we are of the same string-stuff:

the elements with which I’ve already composed

more terms of affection for you than I dreamed

I’d ever know! Youare The Speaking, itself;

and I—no longer a wraith—am body and breath

that will live the rest of my days learning

to say your name… 

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