Yawn by Sarah Rice

Funny how a yawn travels through a room

a pied piper gathering all the rats

In that instant we all draw from the
same source
a great swallowed gasp shoved into our lungs



like socks stuffed in a bag
and the
long outward sigh



That we try to hide it up our
sleeves
makes us culprits in common


like playing truant

with a friend



It�s mostly like this
our bodies
that bind us together

Marco Polo by Ali Alizadeh

Marco Polo





Maybe it�s the natural
extension of immigration. Maybe

it�s the awesome travel
bugs, making my wife�s feet

uncommonly itchy. I�m not
surprised, at any rate, to hear

the paediatrician�s nickname
for our son. �Marco Polo� suits

his - in utero - trajectory
along the Silk Road, from

Kublai Khan�s Forbidden City
to the snow-covered stones of a caravanserai

in central Turkey

Tuesday Poem: Nature Writing 101 by Catherine Owen

Our minds can turn anything romantic.
Is the problem.
The sewagy mud of the Fraser a quaint muslin & the spumes

pulsing out of chimneys at the Lafarge cement plant look,
at night, like two of Isadora Duncan�s scarves, pale, insouciant veils,
harmless. The trees are all gone but then aren�t our hearts

more similar to wastelands.
We can make it kin, this pollution, children one is