Stonecoast Review

The Literary Journal of the Stonecoast MFA at the University of Southern Maine

POETRY

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sept/ember

By Court Ludwick
Morning of the twen­ti­eth, there is a uni­verse on my wall. Just kidding it is only a burning square of light. Just kidding it is not quite burning. In the square, there are shadows of swaying leaves… Read More

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Three Poems

by Jonathan Diaz
First, get some scrap of garbage
and bind to it a fragment
of your memory. A flattened
can will serve well. Paint the scene 
of your calami­ty as best you can… Read More

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Bosc

By Leslie Miller
When sun­light falls on the pear
it becomes the meal of a long dead woman
with heavy sleeves and small dog. Smoke 
from her chimney billows across the roof… Read More

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Plague Diary — Week XI

By Finola Cahill
I cook fresh artichoke—a head boiled bald,
butter melted in the day’s brag­ging heat.
The garlic bathes, my teeth glean flesh from each
earry lobe of bract, skin spit back to bin … Read More

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Resonance

By Mela Blust
1. a nuthatch brings his wife to the potted bleed­ing hearts my mother gave me. it hangs on the front porch, vibrant red blooms beside the glass door. i watch in wonder as they prepare the nest so close to the domi­cile of another crea­ture. i smile to myself, think­ing they must feel we offer pro­tec­tion. later, i am damned to a life of sitting up all night in the old wicker chair, relo­cat­ing the black snake twined around the … Read More

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Two Poems

by M. E. Silverman
Defin­ing the Third Element 
Lith i um [‘liTHēəm] n. 1. Chem­istry: soft metal that burns moon-white, light­est of the alkali, travels by river, swims in healing springs; reacts with our own carbon dioxide in Oxygen Masks, bends into plane, train, bike, and battery; comes from Greek meaning stone, gift, soother—symbol: Li, dis­cov­ered in 1817 by a Swedish scientist—atomic weight: 6.939, tends to haunt Australia’s stretch, in Chile’s leg, and Bolivia’s heart. … Read More

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Like a Song

By Michael Lauchlan
We were shin­gling in the drizzle
of another century—I guess
we needed the money—and Mel
called out. He was sliding
Read More