I   The Cuban sun baked through Pat’s sweat and blood-soaked uniform. He lay in the tall grass halfway up the first hill, surrounded by dead and dying soldiers, patiently waiting for a litter-bearer that would never come. The hole in his side oozed, the flies already crawling on his hand, biting his flesh. He had swatted at them at first, but now he had no strength to shoo them away. He could not decide where to put his hat. The sun burned through the felt regardless where he laid it. He settled on putting it over his face, the stink of his own sweat tickling his nose as he closed his eyes. His head swam and he felt the urge to be sick. Echoes of gunshots came to his ears, less numerous now than…

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Editor’s Note: Our member Natalie Goodwin shares a timely message about a perennial holiday toy, and a reminder of the darker side of the holidays. We hope you enjoy her poems.  * * *   A Letter Home to Parents Re: Daughters   If you want society to define your child with: (extension nylon curls, after eating hurls, necklace made of pearls, garish glamour, self-worth stammer, disheartened clamor, malleable model, worth from a bottle, inner squabble, depression, therapy sessions, social regression, top heavy diva, crashing ballerina, internal edema, self-torture, inequality endorser, emotional warfare, imprisoned a body image snare, morticians makeover, fall from grace, loss of faith, plastic putty nose, jobs that blow, methodically sexualized, objectified, petrified, defeated, depleted, mistreated, media exploitation, pop culture implications, gender devaluation, beauty image manipulation, sexist segregation, and lack of validation)…

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Image Caption: Clark Zlotchew, Havana, Cuba, 1958 Editor’s Note: Clark Zlotchew’s poetry will be featured in Irisi Magazine next month. If you’d like to read more of Clark’s work and see what the good folks over at Irisi are doing, please check out their website. “A Song of China” and “Dancing in the Tropics” published in Irisi Magazine, Copyright (c) 2016 Clark Zlotchew. Used by permission of the author. A Song of China It was in Shanghai that I heard it: Music so unbearably sweet, Melodious, mellifluous, It tastes like honey That flows over your tongue, Sinks into your taste buds, Then descends to your stomach, Where you digest it, Whence every atom of your being, Draws it in, absorbs it The music is so tender, It caresses, Like the smooth hand of A woman…

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  Two men, well past the shady side of sixty-five, sat alone and comfortably ensconced in plush outdoor garden chairs on the terrace of a private residence in San Francisco. The glass enclosed terrace overlooked the Castro neighborhood and offered an unimpeded view down the length of Market Street to the Embarcadero and the Ferry Building, with its attached Clock Tower framed by the rippling water of the Bay. Both men, dressed in black on black ensembles, had come to celebrate the life of a mutual friend who had passed away two weeks earlier. The men shared a twenty-five year acquaintanceship linked by their professional connections to the decedent, a famous San Francisco investment broker, whose advice had transformed many hardworking, low profile persons, into millionaires. In an act of incomprehensible proportions, the decedent, without…

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Christ! thought James, Barbara is hard to live with. I’ve been bad, sure, but I can’t keep going like this. And I worry about her having a gun. He drove his silver Toyota Camry into the garage of his San Diego home. Walking into the kitchen, he called in a deep voice, “Barbara, I’ve got the Chinese food you ordered.” James hung his blue cotton blazer over the back of a chair. Placing the takeout containers in the microwave, he heated the food. The room filled with the aroma of shrimp, chicken and marinated seaweed. He placed knives and forks on the rectangular, glass-topped table and filled plastic cups with water. “Lunch is ready.” Barbara entered the kitchen wearing a denim shirt and jeans, her gloomy, hazel eyes lost in discontent, her hair uncombed. “Barb,…

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