an on-line poetry magazine
for the 21st century
Winter 2025-2026
Emily-Sue Sloane
FLASHING YELLOWS
It’s the tiny pebble in my shoe
the tag poking at my neck
the burn of the paper cut
inflicted by today’s junk mail
It’s a story waiting for its ending
a word wafting in the fog
birds scuffling on the roof tiles
before the sun breaks through
It’s the raindrops reverberating
in the metal downspout
a steady drip
keeping an unsteady beat
These are the flashing yellows
gentle intrusions
reminders to sniff the air
step over fallen branches
listen to hawks’ shrill warnings
look up and down and then both ways
before daydreams return
to carry me away
Emily-Sue Sloane is the author of the full-length collection We Are Beach Glass (2022) and chapbook Disconnects and other Broken Threads (The Poetry Box, 2024). Her poems have appeared in many print and online journals and anthologies, and have won awards from the Babylon Village Arts Council, Calling All Writers, The Long Island Fair, The Nassau County Poet Laureate Society, Performance Poets Association and Princess Ronkonkoma Productions. She lives in Huntington Station, NY, with her wife, singer-songwriter Linda Sussman.
