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The Daily Aftershock (Writing Prompt)September 11 by Joseph FasanoSeptember 11by Joseph Fasano They woke not knowing.
They kissed their children goodbye
in the morning dark, left a note
under the roses on the table.
(I’m sorry. We’ll talk about it later.)
Say it: They did not know
they would hold hands with strangers
and have to choose nothing over fire.
They did not know they would have
no other winters.
Listen. History
is human hands, a strand of hair
still stuck in someone’s buttons,
and absence makes a life
undone with hungers:
When my friend heard her father
was am...2025-06-0801 min
The Daily Aftershock (Writing Prompt)How Our Love Ends by Joseph FasanoA Note from the Editor, Max WallisIn How Our Love Ends, Joseph Fasano brings his characteristically cinematic lyricism to bear on the quiet catastrophe of parting. Here, love’s dissolution is neither rupture nor drama, but a final, tender surrender. A red dress. A blue suit. A single silent touch in the kitchen. Fasano sketches the end of a shared life not through argument or betrayal but through ceremony and near-mythic ache. The poem’s final image, “the deep-grooved gloves of falconers / that have learned the infinite difference / between giving up and letting something go”—encapsulates not just t...2025-06-0601 min
The Daily Aftershock (Writing Prompt)For Those Who Wake in Fear by Joseph FasanoEditorial Note by Max WallisFor Those Who Wake in Fear doesn’t console, it steadies the reader. This is a poem for anyone who’s made it back from the dark. Joseph Fasano names the unspeakable with a featherlight touch: “You have felt it slip your heart / like a trembling wren.” That image alone could undo you. But the poem doesn’t stop there. It exhales. It reminds us that if we’ve “carried what we had to,” through the madness and silence and rupture, then we are already whole, already singing. This poem understands that survival isn’t t...2025-05-2101 min
The Daily Aftershock (Writing Prompt)The Good News by Joseph FasanoThe Aftershock Review is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Editorial Note by Max WallisJoseph Fasano is a poet of rare emotional clarity, each line carrying both weight and light. The Good News is a masterclass in quiet resurrection. With the gentlest touch, Fasano reorients suffering not as failure, but as evidence of deep, persistent love. His invocation of Lazarus is not religious dogma, but an urgent metaphor for the reader: to stand, to continue, even...2025-05-1301 min
The Daily Aftershock (Writing Prompt)Day 17 - The Door You Didn’t TakeWelcome to The Daily Aftershock Writing Prompt—a daily invitation to write from the edges of aftermath, memory, rupture, and repair.Each day, you'll receive a short, charged prompt designed to crack something open. There are no rules, only resonance. Use these however you need: to begin a poem, to open your diary, to find your voice again.The Aftershock Review is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.What if one small moment, missing a train, answering a...2025-05-0200 min
The Daily Aftershock (Writing Prompt)Section I - Opening Tremors / Naming the Damage - (Meet the contributors!)Opening Tremors / Naming the DamageWe begin where it begins: with rupture. The poems in this first section speak from the brink, in the language of impact, aftermath, and the moment something breaks. This is where the damage is named. Not to retraumatise, but to mark its outline, to say this happened. These poems are raw-boned, necessary, unflinching. They give shape to the unspeakable, refusing the silence that so often follows trauma. This is the first tremor, the shock before the aftershock. The moment the world tilts, and you know nothing will ever be the same again.2025-04-2402 min