by Stephen Petroff

It has surprised me that my
oldest old friends, unseen
for thirty–five years,
still remember the great problem
of my youth,
“What color is sunlight
in a cup of coffee?”

I weep at their faith in art,
and at my inability to handle my colors.

by Kieran Fionn Murphy

Looking down
four palms warmed around ceramic
‘o’s holding whipped cream monticles that wobble
bobble on a sea of dark–roast Kenyan & then I send them
dancing to a clicking spoon with you synchronised a hand away
we potentize day from half–remembered dreams imbibing morning
conversation turns to last night’s coupling & did our daughter hear us
when she rose to pee we froze a film paused a statuary waiting
for a flush then return to silence when our marbled skin reanimated
pressing play to catch the climax ending at least we’re laughing
out the window where an afterthought of moon whispers
in pale blue an ancient wisdom–myth that flutters
close but unlike you my love I can’t quite
reach its fingers

by Kieran Fionn Murphy

The prim afternoon sun hid cloudily as a blue
tugboat barged the Rhine. Sophie, beside a Beatles–
haircut Irishman, nonchalantly tossed a wine glass
over her head when a German said Swiss daughters
couldn’t vote, Wahnsinn, and shameful state secrets
and smug Swiss men meant that nothing shocking

happened in Basel. Sophie’s glass shattered, shocking.
The waiter, balding, black–tied, wielding a blue–
handled–broom, understood how to sweep up secrets.
He approached on shards that crunched like beetles,
wondering who had raised such a daughter.
Professional, he first replaced her broken glass

saying, ‘It appears the lady dropped her glass.’
‘No,’ Sophie said. ‘I threw it. Isn’t that shocking?’
‘And will Ma’am do it again?’ ‘She’s not my daughter,’
said the German. ‘I might,’ said Sophie, crossing
blue–jeaned legs. ‘I understand,’ the waiter said. Cleaned. Beatles
tunes hummed from the Irishman. The two kept secrets.

It was due to Sophie’s parents they kept secrets —
no suitor suitable. Finbarr would slip out the glass
bedroom window, swan–silent, shoes in hand, Beatles
record under arm, when her folks stopped by. Shocking
them not an option. He loved cars, owned a brash blue
Hillman, sat in it as parents checked on daughter.

Back home, on Patrick’s Day, he sent their daughter
a fresh shamrock — could he return, make secrets?
Yes. He rode the ferry, car’s soft–top down, him blue–
capped in a bright red MG–TC. He tapped on her glass
window, and in Café Spitz unwrapped a shocking
fab new album, Hard Day’s Night, the Beatles.

Some time after, him black–suited like the Beatles,
they told Sophie’s parents to expect a granddaughter.
Future in–laws paled, felt ill, pronounced it ‘shocking,’
announced a hasty wedding, waved away their secrets.
Big bellied, Sophie swayed as the wind bucked the blue
ocean liner. Scherben bringen Glück? Yes. Broken glass

did bring luck in New York — Beatles charting, no more secrets,
a daughter, two sons. They sold natural medicines filled in glass
bottles, and, shocking, swapped a sleek Morgan for a Volvo in
blue.

by Geraldine Monk

Women abolitionists
denied their right to be and
speak at the 1840 conference they’d
facilitated returned home and home
for some was America a long way to
come to be snuffed out. Shouted down.
Putting their pretty little heads together
regrouped in the sealed lips of silencing.
a mob of lacy mobcaps —
fully loaded.