Blue Unicorn – Volume 49, Number 2 (Spring 2026)

Description

CONTENTS

Frontispiece: The Creation of the Birds and Animals
Remarks: Another Good-Bye, Another Hello
James Toupin / Overhearing 3
Jon B. Miller / Panic in the Heat of a Thaw That Arrived Too Soon 4
Laura Ann Reed / An Expansive Strangeness 5
Laura Ann Reed / Inside Is the Pain of Speech 5
Benjamin Rozonoyer / Birds Words 6
Eric Colburn / I Say 7
Joshua St. Claire / Leucosis 8
Benoît Conort / Untitled (translation from the French by Kim Cushman) 9
Benoît Conort / Untitled (translation from the French by Kim Cushman) 9
Belle Biscotti / The End of June 10
Kingshuk Sarkar / A Chaser’s Lament 11
Darren C. Demaree / Emily as a Hawk, Wheeling 12
Hannah Nelson / Love Poem for My Husband Peeing in the Woods 12
Robin Helweg-Larsen / Blind 14
Mark Tate / The Jeweled Stair’s Grievance (after Li Po) 14
Jenny Isaacs / Cercis Canadensis (Eastern Redbud) 15
Steven Knepper / Relationship Troubles 16
Rayni Wekluk / One Afternoon 16
Angela Segredaki / Duke’s & Ruth’s Equation 17
Liya Akoury / Sweet One 18
Iryna Hall / Worthless 19
Thomas Olivieri / Meditations on a Goddess 20
Eric Colburn / Sunset 21
James B. Nicola / Per Haps 21
Dan Campion / Unrelenting 22
Sydney Lea / Stars Fell on Egomania 22
Ann Lauinger / Good Question 24
Lynn D. Gilbert / Contrivance 25
Suzanne Yuskiw / A Game of Chess 26
Zara Raab / First Day of School 27
Mims Sully / My Mother Says Goodnight 28
Maryann Corbett / Faculty Farewell 28
Laurence W. Thomas / Departure 29
Jerry Sexton / Perspective 29
Jeff Graham / Nocturne 50:2 30
Richard Dinges, Jr. / Walking Alone 31
Antonio Machado / This I Dreamed (translation from the Spanish by Gerald Friedman) 31
Antonio Machado / The Eyes (translation from the Spanish by Gerald Friedman) 32
Margaret Ohrn / To My Grieving Husband 33
Sonia Manzano Vela / Hours—5 (translation from the Spanish by Alexis Levitin) 34
Sonia Manzano Vela / Hours—6 (translation from the Spanish by Alexis Levitin) 35
David Rothman / Haunts 36
Theodore Eisenberg / Day of the Dead in Janitzio 37
Kevin Thomason / The Sign of the Stick Man 38
Paul Burgess / Imperfection 39
Martina Reisz Newberry / Presidential Election 2024 40
Carla Sarett / The Booths in New York, 1864 40
Julie Benesh / Sonnet for Interesting Times 41
Mary Cresswell / Home Truth 42
Karl Kraus / Watch in Hand (translation from the German by Mike Rogers) 43
Benson Bobrick / Landseer’s Lions 44
Mike Rogers / Museyroom 44
Mike Meserve / Oxford English Dictionary 45
Jane Blanchard / La Malinche 45
Saad Kayani / Senbazuru 46
Allen Ireland / Summer Vacation 47
John Hart / Simile 48
DB Jonas / Fabric of This Air 48
James Shay / Artists’ Model. Adoration and Violation 49
James Shay / Artists’ Model 49
Curtis Franks / Poioumenology 50
Steven Kent / How Many in Your Party Today? 52
B. N. Faraj / In Memoriam 52
James Appleby / Genitive Case 53
X. J. Kennedy / Lament for Capital Letters 53
David Alpaugh / Reading Frenzy 54
Alex Fang / Quasi-Fridge Poem as Fodder for Psychoanalysis 56
Paul Burgess / Promised Land 56
Paula Halbach / Bosom of Abraham 57
Gretchen Heyer / Cathedral 57
Don Adams / Dejection 58
R. L. Barth / Something Is in the Jungle 59
Donald Wheelock / Just Like That 59
Stephen Kampa / The Loss in Blossom (Figuratively Speaking) 60
Bonnie Thomas / The Glancing Room of Strike or Miss 61
Contributors and Index 62

Our cover features a Persian unicorn, from a thirteenth century miniature. Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC.