by John J. Ronan

In a universe of unidentified dark
Matter, no wonder you wake,
Anxious in the a.m.’s
Bleak bedroom,
Roof exploded and you exposed
To the careless stars, cold
Beyond the ability of blankets.

The ladder’s where you left it, calendar,
Scaffold, hope and hammer,
Naïve routines you’ll need
For the quick rise and rebuild,
Wife, career, coffee
Pitching in with practiced energy —
Anyway, who argues with darkness?

You raise the rafters, bind
Timbers to collar ties
For the (of course) cathedral ceiling,
Protecting sheaths in shingle
And felt, the fabricated day
In lath and plaster, paint,
Always choosing blue.

by Myronn Hardy

But this is for a time.
A time that slides down branches.
A time seen in mirrors as a trapezoid
of light in constant tremor.
A time when wind is cold    rain colder.
The car has stopped in a town where
sheep    steer heads are eaten.
A time when we stop for breakfast    the coffee
some version of mud.
A time to return to mountains even though
dangerous    even though north was the destination.
A time to prepare for death.
The way the streets run red
but you pretend rust.
A time to mourn love imagined.
Your love for me imagined.
Its reality    currents in air.
A time made complicated
by bombs    the coming
bombs    those eventually
rendering us missing.
A time to perhaps be alone    to be
safe among walls    ceilings that leak.
A time that slides down skin.

by Myronn Hardy

But I thought this was love.
The beginning    ending    the sugar maples’ first leaves.

The becoming of someone else    more at ease    accepting
the world as itself    no protest.

Walks in the dark where dogs howl    the foam on the mouth falling to gravel    a
vein of it exposed yet there is laurel.

The truth I know isn’t so. Tell me why.
Explain my foolishness    the argan air we breathe.

Speak to that God who calls five times. Wash your face.
What does he say? Recite it all to me then go away.

Go to your part of town where asphalt grinds to dirt    where
owls nest in attics    those rooms where onions once dried.

Go to that place where independence was fought for    where humiliation lives
below tissue    fibrous    alive.

We are young among the old.
Mature among friends.

We will no longer share this world.

by Sergio Badilla Castillo

Wang Wei is confused.
What disturbance makes him think of Li Yuan?
Does the storm like a rat
gnaw Tang Dynasty from the rear?
Tough as silver tussock under hoarfrost
the pivot doesn’t wobble,
when Chanxi is whipped by disaster
no excuses can be made.
Thus he is sad as the leaves of the tamarind
fall as the empire will fall,

and yet Wang Wei is alive —
his mind bursting with hypotheses
throughout these tempestuous days.

Translated Roger Hickin & Sergio Badilla Castillo