< Back to Breakthroughs Issue ANOTHER ANNIVERSARY Stephen Ruffus It begins in a car speeding across the plains in the summer heat until the sun rests along the horizon. He waits to be born on an early morning, the nickel of the moon tacked low in the sky. On an empty street I see his shadow barely lit walking slowly toward me from a long distance. He is in the hallway in the place where I once lived. On one end he is the man he was. On the other is the child who favored dreams to bedtime stories I would read him, whose dreams now form the book written in words ever trespassing across the shifting landscape of my sleep. It is the second anniversary of my son's death, and I am dreaming of him as both a child and an adult simultaneously. The images in the poem, particularly the one in which I see him in the hallway of the apartment where I grew up, are meant to reflect my ongoing struggle with his loss and my understanding of who he was. Previous STEPHEN RUFFUS is the author of a chapbook, In Lieu Of (Elk Press, 2024) His work has appeared in the Valparaiso Poetry Review, Hotel Amerika, 3rd Wednesday, the American Journal of Poetry, The Shore, Poetica Review, JMWW, Emerge Literary Journal, and Stone Poetry Quarterly , among others. Twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, his work also received two awards in the Utah Original Writing Competition and was a finalist for the Concrete Wolf Louis Poetry Book Award. Stephen was a founding poetry editor of Quarterly West . Originally from NYC, he still considers himself a New Yorker in many respects and currently lives in Salt Lake City with his wife. Next

< Back to Breakthroughs Issue ISINGLASS Austin Holmes made coffee then watched rain in blurred sheets cascade down the mountain fed the dog thin light easing through the window moments to be forsaken thoughts of what is to come increasingly shapeless every moment as frail and unpredictable as a panicked bird something looms above all of us at once illuminating and obscuring the path we find ourselves on like moonlight subdued by clouds each night I dream of loss and wake to recollect it as though staring through isinglass resinous and fragmented The poem is about the thin barrier between waking consciousness and dream, and how, when our minds are full of worry for what is transpiring in the world, for our safety and the safety of our loved ones, and for what the future could hold, our dreams often become infiltrated by that worry. Much like the weak early light that struggles through the window in the opening lines, the lingering dread of these dreams permeates our day. We struggle to recollect details but are met with shrouds. Light, like memory, is obscured, and I imagined it filtering through isinglass, something organic and translucent but also obstructing. Like a house of mirrors, it splinters light in the way dreams splinter our memory and worry, distorting it. Previous AUSTIN HOLMES lives in southern Utah, where he spends life with his beloved partner and their dog. He contemplates what he can and falls in love with the sky daily anew. Next

< Back to Breakthroughs Issue THE CITY HAS CHANGED Mona Mehas the city where I grew up has changed for the better I don’t remember coffee shops where poets read their work or parks with gazebos where drummers taught children I recall empty storefronts and homeless people on park benches the nicer parts of town were hidden or possibly off limits growing up poor produced a mindset difficult to leave behind the place has had an upgrade but I’ve moved away I visit friends from childhood my hometown seems foreign turn back time to the days of my youth I want the new town an area rich in culture and art music flowing from shop doors I want to grow up there in that improved city perhaps then I would change for the better "The City Has Changed" is a poem about the breakthrough experiences that made me see my hometown in a different light. For a while, I refused to believe it but after more time, I finally opened my eyes. Previous MONA MEHAS is a retired disabled teacher in Indiana, USA, twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize (Paddler Press , 2023, and TV-63 , 2025), and for Best New Poet (Lucky Jefferson , 2024), with eight published chapbooks. Mona's work has appeared in multiple publications and online museums. She works with Cicada Song Press and Engage! , an online Star Trek fan magazine. Mona is a former President of the Poetry Society of Indiana and is Indiana Co-Leader of Authors Against Book Bans . She is editing her second novel while perpetually distracted by her next chapbook. monamehas.net Next

< Back to Breakthroughs Issue LET'S SAY Maureen Clark there is not a happy ending here the man stuck upside down in the cave will die what then? you will keep living more empty days you’ve begged before and no one came to save you there was no stretcher hauled out with a body breathing but broken mud and dirt worth the life how do you walk away without the rescue live the rest of your life with the always lost In trying to find new ways to deal with difficult subjects, I wrote in the Italian Rispetto form: eight lines, eleven syllables in each line. I like the way a very complex idea fits into this container, like a bento box. "let's say" was published in Sonic Boom . Previous MAUREEN CLARK is the author of the poetry collection This Insatiable August (Signature Books, 2024 ) and has received two nominations for the Pushcart Prize. Her memoir, Falling into Bountiful: Confessions of a Since Once Upon a Time Mormon Girl , is forthcoming from Hypatia Press. maureenclark.art Next