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

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.