Contributor: Theresa A. Cancro

- -
Winter peers around the corner,
her white-tooth smile,
icy but tame,
wisps among trees.

Skeletal branches
finger her gray cloak,
caress the muff clouds,
tempt a long sojourn.

Firefly snowflakes
escape her grasp,
flitter and glint,
impish and sass.

Back to her sense,
true nature takes hold –
she moves along,
ever north.


- - -
Theresa A. Cancro writes poetry, especially haiku and related short forms, as well as short fiction and nonfiction. Her work has appeared worldwide in dozens of publications.

Contributor: Theresa A. Cancro

- -
magnolia bud
curled against the window
a Siamese kitten


our breaths
crossing above the path --
a meteor shower


apricot jam
on a fresh croissant --
the shop door's bell


purple martins
returning to roost –
my long to-do list


blind date –
the mosquito and I share
a Bloody Mary


cotton candy
sticks to my fingers –
summer's end


- - -
Theresa A. Cancro writes poetry, especially haiku and related short forms, as well as short fiction and nonfiction. Her work has appeared worldwide in dozens of publications.

Contributor: Theresa A. Cancro

- -
Taking to sheer flight,
my compound eyes dig in
to old air drenched
in solstice shade, what
loosens scales, wicks and
draws me now, trips an edge
off the beat.

I sink beneath crowds,
my proboscis curves around
dead silence, a random
two-four, as I fall toward
that single note, no
chords, no stamen
ever found.


- - -
Theresa A. Cancro writes poetry, especially haiku and related short forms, as well as short fiction and nonfiction. Her work has appeared worldwide in dozens of publications.

Contributor: Theresa A. Cancro

- -
I have no blind, only
lace curtains gracing
my back, similar to clouds.

I release the walls
from their oppression,
loosening rigid structure.

No eyes necessary yet
plate glass is my skin,
solid and viscous at once.

Those within gaze through me
each day, laugh at squirrel antics,
murmur among birdsong.

They obsess over doors,
safety, fear in the lock
that keeps them in, ills away.

Wind ekes between layers,
soft shrill gives me voice,
they finally listen, sense my raw.


- - -
Theresa A. Cancro writes poetry, especially haiku and related short forms, as well as short fiction and nonfiction. Her work has appeared worldwide in dozens of publications.

Contributor: Theresa A. Cancro

- -
Lithe sunset spreads over fields dry with curdled grass
sifted by winter winds, where new blades sprout
among straw, then pick up odd light. A clipped-edge sliver
left over from the middle of the day bruises sallowness
that merges with bright moisture twirling
underneath. Purple tones mill about, bounce
around livid corners still warm from young bodies
full of long kisses that breached the depths of the afternoon.

The earth sinks through the weight of the sectioned orb
brindled over lawns clustered with shy wild violets,
like the bosom of a widowed aunt once crushed in hug
against my flat chest as it budded under a summer blouse,
pansies embroidered, moping on the corner
of a sweat-dampened collar.


- - -
Theresa A. Cancro (Wilmington, Delaware) writes poetry and fiction. Many of her poems have appeared in online and print publications and anthologies internationally. She also enjoys music, dance and gardening, as time permits.

Contributor: Theresa A. Cancro

- -
Your hands lift me out of the banks
of rusted transepts that fell long ago.

You try to revive my eviscerated spirit,
no mouth to mouth, just fingertips.

You pencil in our names together,
at once imagined yet not quite inked.

You trace my eyebrow, absent tears;
no longer innocent, we bear the drench.

You close in on the monster illness,
stare it out, but know it will win.

Your warm embrace perfumes my corner,
a lotus in bloom at the midnight hour.


- - -
Theresa A. Cancro (Wilmington, Delaware) writes poetry and fiction. Many of her poems have appeared in online and print publications and anthologies internationally. She also enjoys music, dance and gardening, as time permits.

Contributor: Theresa A. Cancro

- -
A single winter rose defies
January's blustery garden.
Her lengthened stamens glory
in deep sun's cast-off rays.

Lush branches, pregnant blooms
tangle, untangle as they slice
a mephisto waltz across
remnant snow mounds,

bleak skies. She must have traded
the grim reaper piles of chintz
petals for the five leathery spikes
that last for days, never seem to fall.

Now she fools the eye, with pink-
tinged giddiness, making us
ponder last spring's awakening
through dust motes and ice sheets.

Her evergreen arms blunt
the teeth of short days, long nights.
We're mesmerized by lightness,
avoid the demon's grip.


- - -
Theresa A. Cancro (Wilmington, Delaware) writes poetry and fiction. Many of her poems have appeared in online and print publications and anthologies internationally. She also enjoys music, dance and gardening, as time permits.

Contributor: Theresa A. Cancro

- -
Soft drops gather, fall faster,
they flush the conduits where
gargoyles speak in guttural
of knights who strode before
myriad grids of lead pulling
hours of color together.

Once liquid viscous hues,
frozen by heat, now keep
out the sky's gifts
to mortals, plants, any
kin that run, but should
frolic in the proffered puddles.

Cathedral bricks drink in long
douses plying buttress shoulders,
wet knees of dome flex
over relics and wretches
who bring their lives, lost loves,
within dark pillars of stone.

Downpours cannot genuflect,
simply pummel contrite
heads -- veil-covered, hats on-off --
yet see no washing away
of their sins, what never
completely dissolves. Raw thunder

holds the past, is fickle in its release --
they know cool summer rain
remembers all it observes,
clings tight to shouts, strikes,
envy, the seven transgressions,
exploding over and over.


- - -
Theresa A. Cancro (Wilmington, Delaware) writes poetry and fiction. Many of her poems have appeared in print and online publications internationally. She also enjoys music, dance, and gardening, when time permits.

Contributor: Theresa A. Cancro

- -
saccharine prose, the sateen proposal
supposes that I love the über
sweet tackiness it shoves against my tongue,
while its fleeting euphoria cripples my eyes

to always crave beautiful people,
glossy ones, moving along grain of the mundane,
smear ordinary, to become the new 'it' and 'them' and 'those' who knock, knock knock
at my door, my screens, my toes,

and if I don't bite, they jeer, snicker,
then sheesh with awful grins, their smiles
frozen in that glacial care-no-more land
where everyone lives happily ever after.

I stand at the equatorial where I watch them melt
and shatter.


- - -
Theresa A. Cancro (Wilmington, Delaware) writes poetry and fiction. Many of her poems have appeared in print and online publications internationally. She also enjoys music, dance, and gardening, when time permits.

Contributor: Theresa A. Cancro

- -
Scintillating scapula in the corner of my eye
you appear unbidden apace, a specter at the edge
of night, shriveled day, scratched dry limbs brushing
my bedroom window, crepuscular fingers
graze my hair when you whisk by, pleating
drapes, a grimace in the air, yet nearly in-
distinguishable from winter gusts seeped
under the door, no shadows to warm
the utter blasphemy, the dread history
you drag in to the middle of my scree dream.


- - -
Theresa A. Cancro (Wilmington, Delaware USA) writes poetry and fiction. Her poetry has appeared, or is forthcoming, in print and at online sites, including Jellyfish Whispers, Kumquat Poetry, The Rainbow Journal, Stormcloud Poets Anthology, A Handful of Stones, A Hundred Gourds and Shamrock Haiku Journal.

Contributor: Theresa A. Cancro

- -
snow cloaks her angles, blizzard maps
the ways she beckons little girls out of doors,
innocuous frolics lead to glistening satin
drifts, glint mesmerizes until they climb
hills, leave their mothers behind, see beneath
soft crust surface, sit in early evening to watch
the sun melt across toy shelves, slough eyes droop
on pastel expanses, caught in red rose petal, the thorns of ice
prick their hearts, and at last they have arrived
at the casket, oh, without true love, bitters blight --
no turning back now.


- - -
Theresa A. Cancro (Wilmington, Delaware USA) writes poetry and fiction. Her poetry has appeared, or is forthcoming, in print and at online sites, including Jellyfish Whispers, Kumquat Poetry, The Rainbow Journal, Stormcloud Poets Anthology, A Handful of Stones, A Hundred Gourds and Shamrock Haiku Journal.