SPARROWS SMELL, FENCE GAMES, etc. by Diane Webster

SPARROWS SMELL

A flock of sparrows

drops inside the grove

of lavender stalks,

flutters around

devouring seeds;

flies away smelling

essentially pretty.

FENCE GAMES

Staring down the wooden fence line

rails hold hands as posts

yell to the fence across the field,

“Red Rover, Red Rover, send

Lucy right over!”

MORNING TEXTURE

Like doves gathering for breakfast

fog grips the splintered fence

until mist lifts like a falling feather

in reverse slow motion

so shafts of sunlight glisten

on grass blades nestled around

each fence post in dew sparkle.

MOMENT ON A PATH

The well-worn path follows

the weathered wooden fence

while a top-rail shadow

travels the path into

aspen tree shade.

BLURRY SIGHTS

Reflections

extinct in a drought

except mirage

memories shimmer

a recollection

blurred

on the highway.

STREET GEOMETRY

The sidewalk squares off the block

in front of the building

where a bicycle’s wheels

rest in stationary diameters.

Parallel bars lay tracks

across rectangular windows

while brick and mortar skip

in rhythm throughout the background.

INTO NECTAR

Wind dips

the slender tree limb

into the lake’s water

up and down.

A hummingbird lands

on the feeder

and nods its beak

into the nectar.

PRIORITIES

Feeding the ducks

the little girl flings

slices of white bread

then shakes the loaf

into a pile before

she runs for the swing.

Diane Webster's work has appeared in North Dakota Quarterly, New English Review, Studio One and other literary magazines. Micro-chaps were published by Origami Poetry Press in 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025. Diane has been nominated for Best of the Net and a Pushcart. Diane retired in 2022 after 40 years in the newspaper industry. She was a featured writer in Macrame Literary Journal and WestWard Quarterly. Her website is: www.dianewebster.com

Today’s news wasn’t about you By Samuel John Duffy

Today’s news wasn’t about you

I just read about a rockslide in Banff; one dead

You haven’t lived there in a decade and my thoughts still ran to you

You live a hundred kilometers away in suburbia

It’s a workday

but the chances aren’t zero

It’s not impossible that you returned home,

greeted your family, and embarked on a familiar hiking path,

and the universe’s luck hasn’t favored you,

and with it my enthusiasm for us has been punished

I won’t know for certain until I see you again

I just notice that my world now has you in mind

Samuel John Duffy is a writer, currently based in Calgary, AB.

White Cross and Infrared by Nelson Smith

White Cross

I walk along the National Mall. Peace and solitude at last, I look toward the alabaster temples

that illuminate with hegemonic brilliance. A vast power structure, its framework as glaring as

Venus in the night, conceals the combined memories of imperial architects projecting their

immortal light upon hopeless steel giants of slave labor. From the hive-minded U.S. Capitol,

where two rival cults meet, four elegant building blocks--granite, marble, limestone, and

sandstone--form a white cross stretching more than two miles, head pointing west. But why west and not north? Maybe the answer is the same reason the Lincoln Memorial is the most popular attraction at the National Mall. It’s simple really. Lincoln is anti-slavery, but the United States is pro-slavery just about everywhere else. The National Mall is the true land of the free, but outside, you’ll need some kind of currency. The white cross is the birth of Western Civilization, of liberty and sensation itself. But it isn’t totally white. All stones are shades of grey, but the White House seems to be the blackest stone of all. Is Trump really going to take away our freedom? Yeah, right! As long as Washington sits at the center of the white cross, Trump’s not the center of the universe. When I gaze at the White House’s abject, grassless exterior from Washington’s perspective, I’m sure he’d be disappointed, too. Washington’s legacy, however, stands in two hues, a symbol of a divided nation. Thomas Jefferson hides his bronze character away in his porcelain palace, his staunch, testosterone tongue severed from the American congregation. Martin Luther King Jr. emerges from the stone of hope to challenge his foe across the Tidal Basin, the true beacon of hope. The white cross is a lie, and therefore the centerpiece of this nation. The highlight of my day came at sunset when Venus and Washington convened, their light guiding my way back home.

Cats yowl, scream, and scratch;

dogs bark at the neighbors; and

pigs get barbecued.

Infrared

You saw colored auras of people, and I saw colors in black letters.

You claimed to see the future, but I didn’t believe it, until too late.

I didn’t believe one could see the future, until you showed me.

You freestyled your own rap lyrics, and I played blues scales at eight.

With your freestyled rap lyrics, we would’ve made hit albums by twenty-two.

Your stories were so benthic, and I consumed the oysters of your narration.

The oysters of your narration were more benthic than I could consume.

You passed around earthy flowers, but writing was my true medicine.

You gave me magic, earthy flowers, which enhanced my writing as medicine.

You enjoyed my awkward punchlines, and we laughed at mules in Carolina Squats.

You enjoyed our mutual endeavor most before I was another awkward punchline.

You conversed about your past heartaches, and I was a long-winded encyclopedia.

We conversed about past heartaches before it felt like a long-winded encyclopedia.

You saw colored auras in dull people, and I saw many colors in dull letters.

Nelson R. Smith is an aspiring autistic writer with humble beginnings in Jacksonville, North Carolina. As an East Carolina University master's student in English, Nelson aims to represent neurodivergent voices with inventive, never-ending, world-changing forces of prose and poetry. Nelson has previously published creative nonfiction in Nude Bruce Review.