Contributor: April Salzano

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Murky with assumption, age old
routine, neurological pathways grooved
in place long before me.
I enter you and I am lost
here. Tributaries to follow like roadmaps,
one that leads nowhere. Another
as long as a life-
line on a palm’s surface. Branches
to follow. Guesses to second.
Simple, straightforward, no hidden meanings,
you say. But
this is not blankness.
This is topography. I am soldier, miner, recorder.
And I am not leaving empty handed. This time
I will understand the roots that cause,
the statements that undermine my best
amateur psychologist explanations. I will know
the certain slant of light
that fails windows before I cannot see to see.


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April Salzano teaches college writing in Pennsylvania. Her work has appeared in Poetry Salzburg, Pyrokinection, Convergence, Ascent Aspirations, The Rainbow Rose, The Camel Saloon, The Applicant, Jellyfish Whispers, Deadsnakes, Winemop, and is forthcoming in Inclement, Poetry Quarterly and Decompression.

Contributor: April Salzano

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A stroke of karmic justice,
nurse will become patient, victim,
in need of mercy not delivered. I can hope
the medicine that would ease
be diverted to another vein,
delivered in half the milligrams
prescribed, at best, sink water,
at worst. That someone’s lowest point
coincides, aligns cosmically with yours.
Let it be held in a grip
that has started to loosen.


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April Salzano teaches college writing in Pennsylvania. Her work has appeared in Poetry Salzburg, Pyrokinection, Convergence, Ascent Aspirations, The Rainbow Rose, The Camel Saloon, The Applicant, Jellyfish Whispers, Deadsnakes, Winemop, and is forthcoming in Inclement, Poetry Quarterly and Decompression.