She plays in the shallows, always just beneath the surface. Find her near the mud banks of a shrunken lake. She is swimming among the weeds, happy to be free. Nothing can move her. Not like it used to. She has felt her share of sadness and would rather keepContinue Reading

for Anna Laura Grace Elena The crushed rubies and sweet woodruff are Angelina, who died of her ninth bambino, making a bed of her memory for her two-year-old Laura who would see her mother’s ghost ever after on the landing, backlit by gaslight and need. The lapis lazuli and bluebellsContinue Reading

It’s time to resurrect my light so that I can rewire a new path  as I rewind these neuron memories and liberate  the yellow-green speckles  from the bloated fish, that washed up on the beach years ago. Even if I enter the Lion’s gate the amber tapestry painted across theContinue Reading

From Grimm’s Little Red Cap, Perrault’s Little Red Riding Hood, & Christ’s Parable of The Good Samaritan There was once a sweet young girl who lived deep in the woods with her mother. Everyone who saw this girl instantly adored her. One day, her mother was feeling ill, so sheContinue Reading

Damask curtains at the top of the stairs have been tied back. The candle will burn for hours on the windowsill while I sleep. A dream told me he would come, but I need to let him know where to find me. Three weeks have passed and no one hasContinue Reading

in the beginning, there was a river and an old man in a rowboat fishing the hazel water for coins and feathers and things and there was you, in the silt, all twisted up in soda rings with the hook burrowed deep in the red flesh of your foot.  soContinue Reading

the aching snowflakes cling like cold butterflies to the black fingers of dark barren trees reaching upward to the storm-driven sky with no recourse but to bear  the onslaught of the storm and the wind’s winter teeth… a tempest. Lynette G. Esposito, MA Rutgers, has been published in Poetry Quarterly,Continue Reading

I never knew thatthe name Osei-Afrifawas one of royalty,until a classmate whispered: you are of noble blood— but I had been beatenand belittled by so manythat I didn’t believe for years I slept as untilI felt the stars of Anansiand listened tothe djembe drum: I dancedin the astral realmand askedContinue Reading