Issue 5 – June 2026 – Tanka Page 4

a glut of flotsam

arrives with the flood tide

on moving day

I return songless shells

to the amorphous sea

Farah Ali, UK

here I sit

taking inventory

of past regrets 

barn swallows return 

to the same nest each year

Reid Hepworth, Canada

I sleep in the silences

of Sappho’s fragments—

shadows and echoes

spilling sweet accents 

dissolve on my tongue 

Dru Philippou, USA

driving

through the old neighborhood

again

we slow down

but don't stop

Ruth Holzer, USA

in the hollow

of the sweet gum tree

cobwebs hide

the throne of twigs and moss

we built for the faerie queen

Jennifer Read Hawthorne, USA

after the raid

autumn mandarins

in the rubble

half eaten, tossed aside

—the cockatoo mob

Marilyn Humbert, USA

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