The thing about the light at the end of the tunnel is that unless you’re carrying a pair of shades you’re gonna be squinting for a good long while, and let me tell you, a little SPF will save you a world of hurt.

These fourteen authors have used their words, as a mother would say, to convey that experience of stepping into illumination, of being steeped in the certainty that we’re in for a change. May their lines carry you into spring and through whatever penultimate Covid-ity might find you mid-mask.

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Michelle Askin: “Visitor,” “Closing the Door”

Chanelle A Bergeron: “Ylang Ylang,” “Violette Hay,” and “Tasseomancy”

Bonnie Billet: “On Men,” “Move the Blue Fuck away from Me” and “Rouge-Blue Slaps”

Lois Brandt: “After the Sun, The Fall,” and “The Birth of the Dark”

John Brantingham: “The Ragpicker, 1870 Edouard Manet”

Brian Builta: “Happiness,” “The Snowmen in Our Lives” and “Some Days are Blue”

Milton P. Ehrlich: “The Present Moment” and “Flying Home”

David P. Kozinski: “Regression”

Cody Kucker: “Motion Struck by Stillness” and “Equinox”

Stephen Mead: “Winter Garden on the Move”

Martina Reisz Newberry: “On the Road” and “Hidden”

D Larissa Peters: “First Pain” and “She”

Gina Stratos: “Snakes for the Living”

Nwuguru Chidiebere Sullivan: “So Far a Journey” and “Symmetrical Synonyms”