Nothing fell. No dishes sang. No beam answered. —Dale Hudson

I watch the shadow of the taxi run down my shadow crossing the street. —J.R. Solonche

I used to be a vase. Now I am the breath that left it. —Furkan Pinar

gliding hesitantly above the ponds morning mist —Crystal Simone Smith

He wants me to say "My pain is eight," instead of "Thunderous and unsettling." —Richard Siken

Look up! he is coming for us. Do you see: he is coming for us. —Kim Dower

The problem with such fun is that nobody explains it. —Patricia Fargnoli

On the Critique of the Week this afternoon, we're going to shift a bit and have a special Q & A for the Rattle Chapbook Prize. Join in here at 4pm ET with your questions!

There’s relief in loving someone who doesn’t remember you. —Justin Rigamonti

To round off the day, these are the lit mags that you guys voted as just A Damn Good Read! Find out who else made the cut and submit to them here: www.chillsubs.com/lists/a-damn... #writing #writers #writingcommunity

Reborn, I do not thank him. I thank the fire. —Isabella Nesheiwat

She tells me it’s hard to know your kid is lonely. —Michelle Patton

It takes us six minutes to decorate the tree, our meager assortment of ornaments dangling ironically. —Greg Hughes

I’m so glad I stopped by my school mailbox on my way out for winter break, because in it was the current issue of @rattlepoetry.bsky.social and on the first page this extraordinary prose poem By Aman Alam 🩵 What a beautiful way to begin four luxurious weeks of reading whatever the hell I want.

Some advice? Limit all expressions to loyalty. Sketch any schemes on edible napkins. Paint your rage in our group mural hidden by the dumpster. —Tarn Wilson

Every boy wants to be the goose … —Diana Goetsch

The man who lived in the body is something other by now. —Al Maginnes

All inside, she’s a column of gray, a building on fire, a house that’s leaning, trying and failing to run from the flames. —Liz Robbins

It’s different with Poetry. —Suzanne Lummis

Oh, to be spineless. Invertebrate. A bee. An ant. Pollen. —Lora Berg

This stillness, what was it? —Gary Lark www.rattle.com/benny-and-th...

The Muse has found her capitalist gig and whispers to the chatbot: Sing for me. She’s cracking vaults that no one thought to rig. —Alexander Pepple

Old Maid, we whispered, like the card game where the loser gets stuck with the singleton queen. —Julie Kane

I’m a loser in the eyes of the living, but a star in the glow of the afterlife … —José Enrique Medina

May you find healing before you find a weapon. —Manuel Iris

Sit by a clean window in your most comfortable chair. —Jeff Worley

Gratitude has never fired a gun or met a dog it didn’t love. —Abby E. Murray

The moon is already high and bright, and like so many things in my life, I have missed it. —Brent Fisk

Then sippy cups, then velcro shoes and shirts with snaps instead of buttons. —Thomas Mixon

Happy to share my poem “Bullet” from the new issue of @rattlepoetry.bsky.social

It used to be that the birds came in the shape of birds. —Yee Heng Yeh www.rattle.com/poem-without...

If you have to send us a heartbreak poem, make sure it includes a pronoun and not just a feeling. —Gray Davidson Carroll

I liked how tired I was and how little I cared about anything dying or having happened in my life … —Kai Carlson-Wee

Each age has its slang, its giggle water, whatever they consider the cat’s pajamas … —Alexandra Umlas

The dog refuses to eat. I keep filling her bowl anyway: new kibble on top of old, hoping that it will suddenly becoming tempting. —Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz

Ah, look at all the modest despots reading their poems about peace. —Sherman Alexie

Where else can gravity carry us than the wilderness of the familiar? —Jonathan Pyner

We’re still singing the songs of our youth, Beatles, Morrison, as though nothing changed … —Lazar Trubman

But this wasn’t a kingdom. It was a four-bedroom house in Albuquerque … —John Paul O'Connor

Tonight's guest on the Rattlecast is Julia Kolchinsky! A frequent Rattle contributor, Julia's most recent book, Parallax, is a lyrical narrative of parenting a neurodiverse child. Join us live at 8pm ET!

The couple across the street did not speak to me. They thought I drove too fast. —Lisa Seidenberg

Have you ever realized how easy it is to not know something? —Cam McGlynn

Of what we offer, life takes what it wants and goes. —Robert Rice

I say, I’m hungover, but mean, Burrrp, who poured this grief so strong? —José Enrique Medina

Years later, I imagined my mother was a mystic, that her fever dreams that summer were whispering deeper truths, that the mechanical thump of her heart was a secret numerology. —Doug Ramspeck

catching a tired leaf the veins in my hand —Sharon Ferrante

At our age, making love is like climbing an old favorite tree on a summer’s night … —Karen Whittington Nelson

A marriage is like architecture. —Mary Pecaut

forced to face a hungry, hot stare, we felt them close and thought, we are like this … —Katherine Barrett Swett

If I am to be devoured, then please, God, Night, Mouth in the Darkness, swallow me faster than one hair at a time. —Alvin Lau