HUNGER
 
Two boys and a dog
jumped the fence to steal
an armful of apples.
To tell it later, those
long summer days
were the best of their lives.
 
Over the hills they rambled,
jousting the sun,
dreaming kingdoms in the corn.
Talk of ships
sailing for blue
lands, where hunger never was,
filled nights of stars ripe
for the naming.
 
Left to their own — father
off somewhere,
looking for work or a
drink — mother
home with sister and chickens
that never laid enough eggs
to keep a family going --
pantry nearly bare,
two masonjars of tomatoes,
half-sack of corn-meal,
and a tin of tartar sauce.
 
There was time and scarcely time
to write in years
what followed — how
the old hound bayed her last,
and broad seas claimed
the younger brother, and how
the lands beyond the blue
held hunger enough.
 
It stayed with him,
that boy who grew from story
to story, keeping the best parts,
trying to make it all rhyme.

​W. Luther Jett (Montgomery County, MD) is a retired special educator. His poetry has been published in numerous journals as well as several anthologies. He is the author of two poetry chapbooks: “Not Quite: Poems Written in Search of My Father”, released by Finishing Line Press in 2015, and “Our Situation”, released by Prolific Press, 2018.
​

​Then and Now
           
            …we’re beginning,/each one beginning
                                    —Aaron R
 
In the Eden of imagination, it is early evening…
insects wheeze and buzz, glad for the cool,
and a barefoot woman in a soft cotton dress
walks lightly on damp grass. She’s in an orchard,
and her hand reaches for the reddest apple.
Its sweet juice and crunch explode joy in her mouth.
There is no taste like this and no punishment,
for it is all happening now and the orchard is real,
planted on a vacant, city lot in the middle
of our country by a woman named Countryman.
It is a kind of Eden, where anyone can walk,
pick pears, figs, apples, peaches, berries too,
in their season—all free—and why not? asked
poet Ross Gay, who joined this good work,
while in other cities, communities are finding
abandoned parks, forgotten school yards and, yes,
they are planting orchards with the knowledge
we were born to….knowledge we can eat.

Patricia Gray (Washington, DC) writes fiction and poetry and teaches Creative Writing at The Writer's Center's downtown campus in Washington, DC. Her poetry collection, Rupture, was published by Red Hen Press.
​

​Comfort Food 
 
Lentils and barley,
water and salt,
split peas and pasta--
pure to a fault--
 
stir until clouded,
season to taste,
boil and then simmer,
nothing to waste.
 
Greens can be added.
Time's on a loop.
Towers have toppled
into the soup.
 
Cauldron of comfort
served with warm hands,
this is a recipe
crisis demands.

​Author of Humor Me ( 2006) and chapbooks including Genetic Revisionism (2019), Claudia Gary (Loudoun County, VA) is also a health and science journalist. She teaches at The Writer’s Center (writer.org), FAES (FAES.org), and elsewhere. See pw.org/content/claudia_gary, @claudiagary.

Then There Was No More
 
I take the apple,
bite into it 
as its flesh touches 
teeth--
the noise catches
his attention 
turning, eye to eye
I swallow slowly
to hide my cache--
his eyes plead 
and I offer half
of what is left,
savoring his gift
he nods in gratitude,
then another hears
the flesh touch
his teeth--
eye to eye
he offers half of
his cache,
the other nods 
in gratitude--
then another hears
the savory chewing,
but now there
is no more to share 
 

Robert L. Giron (Arlington County, VA) is the author of five poetry collections and two award-winning anthologies. His poetry has been published in three recent anthologies, covering: gay poets, poets from around the world and Latino poets in the Washington, DC area.

​Finishing School
 
Teach a man to fish
And he will eat,
Will stuff his face
Like baked flounder,
Full to bursting
There are so many fish
 
Teach a fish to man,
To sprout stump legs
To slither-crawl
Suck air
To hop-stand-run
To sprout hair
Thumbs
To hunt, wage war
To fish!
And he will consume the planet.
 
His scales will fall like coins,
The cost of transformation
But the scales will never fall from his eyes,
And he will never again feel the fins
That once propelled him
In concert with his brethren
Though skull be widened,
He cannot be trusted
For he is just a fish
And it is unwise to teach
A fish to man.
 
​6 August 2019