POEM OF THE MONTH
Heat Lightning
Desmond Reyes, Rhode Island

No thunder, just the sky
clearing its throat all night over the bay.
We sat on the back steps with the radio off,
my brother and I, too hot to argue,
counting the flashes the way we used to count
the seconds in between, except
there was no in between,
only light, and then no light,
a promise with nothing after it.
Our mother would have told us
it was a storm too far off to hear.
Neither of us said it.
We let the sky talk to itself.
Around two it gave up, and the crickets took over,
and my brother said well,
and went inside,
and that was the most we'd said to each other
in a year.

HONORABLE MENTION
Tar
Frank Szymczak, Ohio

In July the county road went soft
and we pressed our bare heels
into the black blisters on the shoulder
till they gave like something alive.
Our mothers scrubbed our feet with butter
and said we'd never learn.
We never learned.
Forty years on, I still slow the car
where the county patched the pavement,
half wanting to pull over,
take off my good shoes,
and feel that small give.