Gloria
by Shanna Compton
Gloria
by Michelle Detorie
Gloria
by Carmen Gimenez Smith
Gloria
by Arielle Guy
Gloria
by Becca Klaver
Gloria
by Hassen Saker
*
Gloria
by Sarah Anne Cox
The cow bell pressed down
the timber of the guirra
my lady of Puerto Rico the most
self certain mother of Caparra
Swim Team mother of one
Ricky, a good swimmer, her low arid voice
the certain banter with my mom
her dark short curls
the brow shaped to a focused arch
turning on occasion
to clarify a phrase my six year old brain
lost keys in hand sunglasses on
a busy sitter
or was that my own mother
in bleachers
waiting for the big kids
the little ones in tow
Gloria
no nonsense cheerleader of
the untamed wifery of child into college
of love and practicality
a guttural laugh
All hail Gloria
*
Gloria
by Melissa Eleftherion Carr
To you in the highest
Comestible sunset
A celestial body outlaw
Close enough to dump material
on that other star
Mad math of the prism
Mother of light
Helios – mouth of the annelid
Of invertebrate starts
Maw of the under beyond
Pineal subways, circulatory systems, sudden moon phases
Pumping vessels flowering ganglia
Gloria, fair
Gloria, olive
Gloria, midnight
Ejecting plasma
*
Gloria
by Nicole Stefanko-Fuentes
We miss you
& you are still here
Your slippery hair
and some of us still always
entangling in familiar tethers
Forget it. No Paycheck Fairness Act,
no ERA
the India, Stubenville, Egypt
Then India
Maybe it's the labored last failing grasp
of a falling empire
or
how to teach a girl to run with her long
handled knife concealed
They think when it's men it's a war
and when it's us
it's hunting
On the train a schoolgirl draws hearts
on a boy's cheeks
with a ballpoint pen
One under his earlobe
like a hickey
Gloria, I will carve a heart on the lobe
that grows this predatory madness
*
