Welcome

I Built My Own City

and lived in its ghostly presence.

I walked along, creating souls.

Within that city, I was not hinged

to her memory.

I am Trying

to explain the reason. I wanted

to tell a story that held her memory

in a tight grasp. Knuckles flexed -- I wanted

to never let go.

It tears you apart.

You have to let go or it tears you apart.

Note: These poems originally appear in Sheffield's poetry collection Underground City (2026) and are reprinted here by permission of the author. 

Tommy Sheffield is a disabled, neurodivergent writer who lives in Washington, DC, where he teaches high school English in Southeast DC. His poems, stories, and essays have been published in ucity review, Adelaide, Sanitarium, and a number of other magazines. His chapbooks From Whom We Trace the Bones, Ashore, Where God Has Gone, and These Things Are Often Sealed Within were published by Voice Lux Press in March 2022. He has served as the Poetry Editor for Stillhouse Press for a number of years, editing and publishing five critically acclaimed poetry books, and helping to oversee new projects. He is a co-founder of Shiversong LLC alongside Megan Merchant.  

Novena

I.

O big machine 

that I have been traveling in since 

5 a.m., please take all us souls sitting 

in rows above numinous city lights that look 

the same from 30,000 feet high no matter coast 

and deliver us safely 2,186 miles from where we started 

to a plot of land built on basement rock south of Lake Ontario.

II.

O my brother, 

this delivery of myself from coast to coast 

is not working for me anymore when I would 

much rather be sitting simply by a window and telling you about the 

Mexican whip-poor-wills that skitter from branch to 

branch on the desert willow, how they congregate, how they 

seek communion, how they are wholly offerors, calling to mind 

the drive we once made in a rented minivan, 

389 miles through fallen beech leaves when we missed 

exit after exit after exit before we realized we were never 

going to be where we wanted to be.

III.

O ghost light, 

O ephemeral will-o-wisp 

that is supposed to illuminate the way, 

where are you?

And why is belief in you 

all the evidence I have left that there are 

rooms beyond these rooms, 

a promise of eastern redbud blossoms when we land, 

a miracle of space in which we all might meet again.

IV.

O flight I live inside, 

where the bleed air sounds as hollow as 

the wind coming off Lake Ontario in winter, 

making me feel otherworldly, free-form, as if I don’t even know 

which way earth is anymore, as if I might be able to 

live inside you forever, 

lulled by your rhythm, 

in love with oblivion.

V.

O sun that has still not risen, 

you are also missing 

from my memory of a young man 

wearing a wool mackinaw in warm weather, 

and your absence also feels profound,

as if it will be everlasting.

VI.

O flight, 

O birds, 

O Mexican whip-poor-wills that I cannot see, 

that are no where near me but that I believe are somewhere out there resting 

on a low branch, rousing your feathers into realignment—which of you

is the god who will tell me everything is where it should be,

and who will share with me your divinity?

VII.

O elusive first light, 

O will-o-wisp,

O sliver of new day, 

all I ask for is a glimmer at the horizon line, 

anything to pretend night was never here and yet—heed this—

night is magnificent, 

the way it comes out of the depths of its opposite and

spreads itself thousands of miles in an instant 

to let us know there is no greater form of worship.

VIII.

O my brother, 

O your divinity, 

O the way you 

moved through the world for so many years without me 

when I would have given anything to sit simply by a window 

and tell you the body has a way of speaking slowly at first but then 

eventually it begs 

to be brought back to its place, 

which is how you sometimes find yourself 

traveling toward an expanse of bedrock 

you once were glad to forsake.

IX.

O big machine,

please hurry through this never-ending predawn purgatory

to the expanse of land south of Lake Ontario which is still miles away 

from this confining 9 x 12 window and yet which is still the only

deity I have ever known, from which he and I were both sown, to which only

one of us returns. 

Amy Schmitz's first collection of poetry, Border Crossing, was published in 2018. Amy's work has been published in the Westchester Review, Gyroscope Review, The Connecticut River Review, High Plains Literary Review, Sugar House Review, San Pedro River Review, Borderlands: Texas Literary Review, Louisiana Review, Askew, Poetry International, and elsewhere. Amy has an MFA from George Mason University and is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer who served in Cape Verde, West Africa. She lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA. 

Birdwatching

It’s only a jay, I say—

as if June’s drought

and azure wings

aren’t enough, and

seeds of piñon pines

wing themselves

across a desert—

a desert that at sunset

makes constellations of dust

from the embers of the day,

and demands the crested

and the crestless learn quickly

to turn twigs

and shredded bark

into a kind of home.

Forgive me.

Tim Raphael’s chapbook, More Earth Than Flame, was a finalist in the 2025 Slapering Hol Press Chapbook Contest, and his poem, "Prayer of a Nonbeliever," was a Pushcart Prize nominee and won Terrain.org's 2024 poetry contest. His newest poems will appear in the forthcoming issue of Flyway: Journal of Writing and Environment. 

Renewal

Running towards renewal

That old rugged cross

It is the best this world has to offer

Like solitude on a rainy day

A cyclone blows in the streets

As the winds wash you away

Tired of walking in rain-swept streets

Settle down here before it drives you insane

In your life, you just don't hesitate

To drive the pains away

When you struggle

Life revolves and sways

Trading a cross for a crown

Living for Yahweh

Void of any frowns

It is my life story

Richard McClellan was born in Yellville, Arkansas (USA). He served in the U.S. Army, and has traveled the world including Japan, Korea, Portugal, Italy, Canada, and most of the lower forty-eight United States and Alaska. His favorite place that he has visited is the Azores Islands in the middle of the Atlantic ocean.