Poems for Persons of Interest

Maya Clubine is a Canadian writer and MFA candidate at the University of St. Thomas (TX). Her chapbook Life Cycle of a Mayfly won the 2023 Vallum Chapbook Prize, and her poem " Sun Inside My Brain " won the inaugural PFPOI 12-Hour Sonnet Contest. You can find her and her work at mayaclubine.ca . "Beaver Pond" first appeared in the McMaster Journal of Theology & Ministry . Beaver Pond I saw him once. Between two quiet moments when everything was cloaked in the warm sunfade and the haze of frog song by the pond. He pierced the surface like a finger in an open wound, leaving a wake behind him big enough to haul a bright new world. Since then, I haven’t seen him. Maybe I scared him away, or maybe he has changed his route for fear of his disrupting me. But still, at every turn, I look for him. I’m left unsatisfied by that first glimpse and go on hungrily searching for another. Something about his presence reassures me. I yearn to know that “Beaver Pond” is not some...

Arden Medres is a poet and fictionist from the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia. The sequence here published was born at the height of his enthusiasm for the dramatic sonnet. A Thief to the Heart of Brother Andr é Quebec, 1974 I. If the door to heaven is the heart of Jesus, And the key is love and prayer, have I tried To pick the Sacred Heart that may just free us With feeble twigs? Does He feel me in his side,  Stabbing to prove Him dead, but also craving At the same time a shower of holy water? Am I, who cannot ever merit saving After this act uncivil as a slaughter, To suffer from ghosts until they certify Me madder than the average believer? The locks at your museum would comply To me, but now a paralyzing fever Comes over me to touch the reliquary, Whose seal I dare not break to hold what it must carry. II. But why do I stop here, who have transgressed  Already over mortal lines, and leave The fruit unplucked, which to rub against my breast  Would make the demons ...

Bethel McGrew  is a freelance writer based in Michigan. Her articles have appeared in various national and international outlets. Find her Substack at  furtherup.net , and check out her poems for PFPOI's Halloween Sonnet and Couplets contests. Lines On the Death of a Friend You hailed the noonday midnight like a child, As sun and earth hung split, unreconciled. Moonshadow blanketed your sleepy street Until the span of darkness was complete. "You'd hate to be the Third Stage in a play, Walk out to find the crowd has walked away."   That night, we wandered through a golden glow. You brought a cane and took your journey slow. I snapped you with my father, side by side. I caught a Spring Snow shining like a bride. Oh best of friends, gentlest of gentlemen! You'd never see those trees in bloom again.   You faced your sure defeat with roguish grace And little jokes about your yellowed face. You didn't waste a second wondering "...