Sarah Sarai | Three Children Are Laughing

Three Children Are Laughing

They fall and float up.
Heaven is deep space, the moon.
They were not issued boots.
They don’t care. They are angels.
They wear taffetas, twinsets,
garlands of sorrow strung on ivory,
eat five grams of Cheerios
every ten years if that is what they
need to count tulips ochers
of the dust we once thought
was all there was to life.


Originally published in Peacock Journal.

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Sarah Sarai’s poems appear in Barrow Street, Prelude, POOL, E-ratio, Zocalo Public Square, Boston Review, and many other journals. Her second full-length collection, That Strapless Bra in Heaven, was published by Kelsay Books. She is an independent editor in New York, where she volunteers teaching manners to pigeons.

Roxanne Hoffman | For Sean

For Sean

I wait for my love to return to me
under the cool shade of the sycamores
bouncing our three-year old upon my knee
I wait for my love to return to me

We tie a yellow ribbon ’round each tree
He plays soldier while I tend to my chores
Veiled in Stars and Stripes you return to me
under the cool shade of the sycamores.


Capt. Sean E. Lyerly, 31, of Pflugerville, Texas, was assigned to the Texas Army National Guard’s 36th Combat Aviation Brigade, 36th Infantry Division. He was piloting the Black Hawk when it went down, on January 24th, 2007, killing a dozen service members. Lyerly entered the Guard as a private in 1996 and was deployed to Iraq in August after being called to active duty. He is survived by his parents, his wife and their 3-year-old son. In a Guard statement, Lyerly’s wife said, “He exceeded even my dreams. He was loving, compassionate and full of integrity — a beautiful man inside and out.”

— Stars and Stripes, January 26, 2007 

Originally published in The Brownstone Poets, 2008.


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Roxanne Hoffman runs the small literary press Poets Wear Prada with Jack Cooper. Her words can be found in cyberspace (IndieFeed: Performance Poetry, Pedestal Magazine, New Verse News); set to music (David Morneau’s Love Songs; on the silver screen (2005 indie flick Love and the Vampire); in print (The Bandana Republic: A Literary Anthology by Gang Members and Their Affiliates, Soft Skull Press; It All Changed in an Instant: More Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure, Harper Perennial). Her elegiac poem “In Loving Memory” was released as a chapbook, with illustrations by Edward Odwitt, in 2011. Their second collaboration, The Little Entomologist, appeared in 2018. 

Prince A. McNally | Pre-K

Pre-K

It was fall

in Brooklyn,

when the beautiful

weather of September

and I were strolling

beneath low-hanging trees,

walking hand-in-hand,

with the Autumn breeze. 

I closed my eyes

to breathe,

slowly inhaling

the intoxicating

laughter

of little children,

joyfully skipping

as they happily

headed off to  

their first day

of  Pre-K,

Taking baby steps

towards their futures

like little birdies,

so eager to fly away

with their precious

little dreams. 

Watching them leave

their mother's nest

for the very first time,

I couldn't help

but smile inside

as their precious

little wings

fluttered nervously

beneath

their clothing. 

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Prince A. McNally is a Brooklyn-born poet, writer, philosopher, activist, and spoken word artist. His work focuses primarily on the human condition and social injustice. A rising voice on the NYC poetry scene, Prince has been featured at Otto's Shrunken Head for Show Do Tell, KGB Red Room for the NeuroNautic Institute, The Parkside Lounge for Great Weather for Media, and Lady Stardust for Rick Eckerle, among other venues. His poems have appeared in TUCK Magazine, The Blue Mountain Review, Leaves of Ink, Creative Talents Unleashed (Featured Writer), and in the anthologies Fire and Ice: An Anthology of Collaborations, The World Poets Open Mic: 2016 Anthology, BEAT-itude: National Beat Poetry Festival 10 Year Anthology, and We Are BEAT: National Beat Poetry Foundation Anthology. He is currently working on his first collection of poetry.