Virginia Watts is the author of poetry and stories found in Illuminations, The Florida Review, CRAFT, Sunspot Literary Journal, Sky Island Journal,Permafrost Magazine, Bacopa Literary Review, Streetlight Magazine among others. Winner of the 2019 Florida Review Meek Award in nonfiction and nominee for Best of the Net Nonfiction 2019 and 2020, her poetry chapbooks, "The Werewolves of Elk Creek" and "Shot Full of Holes," are upcoming for publication by The Moonstone Press. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize three times.
“Relativity: A Lithograph by M.C. Escher,” “Chores” and “Another Kind Man”
In life, I bugged my brother relentlessly
about Escher’s impossible staircases,
his floors and doors, his figures with no faces.
It looks like a prison.
It’s not. Read more.
“They All Died in Vietnam,” “Echoes from My Mother’s Closet” and “No”
Three forest cousins, all boys, my summer secrets / We hiked under hawk shadows, spun pancake flat shale / stones touch tipping Loyalsock Creek, arrowheads, / rattlesnake skins longer than my arms, salamander wranglers / The oldest Vernon lingered longest with my grandmother’s stories / He never liked to hunt except for stars and no one cared, not even the army Read more.