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Aug 2026 Issue #42 Poetry
featuring:
Christopher David Adkins, David Anson Lee, Aaron Badida, Rois M. Beal, Carole Bernstein, Pamela ‘RareEpiphany’ Best, Sheila Black, Brian Builta, Chris Bullard, Ann Chinnis, Travis Cohen Acosta, Barrie Cole, Nina DalleyHood, Anna Drasko, Scott Ferry, Gary Fincke, Laura Foley, George Franklin, Jeff Friedman, E.W. Herman, Paul Hostovsky, Hallie Johnston, Tasneem Khan, Josiane Kouagheu, Sylvester Kwakye, Justin Lacour, Rodolfo G Ledesma, Jeff McRae, JK Miller, Kristen Park, Jessica Pollack, Adrian S. Potter, Jordan Ranft, henry 7. reneau, jr., Cecilia Savala, Richard Allen Taylor, Chimezie Umeoka, Alex Rainey Ward, Heather Wright, Beste Yılmaz, Angelique Zobitz
Christopher David Adkins, David Anson Lee, Aaron Badida, Rois M. Beal, Carole Bernstein, Pamela ‘RareEpiphany’ Best, Sheila Black, Brian Builta, Chris Bullard, Ann Chinnis, Travis Cohen Acosta, Barrie Cole, Nina DalleyHood, Anna Drasko, Scott Ferry, Gary Fincke, Laura Foley, George Franklin, Jeff Friedman, E.W. Herman, Paul Hostovsky, Hallie Johnston, Tasneem Khan, Josiane Kouagheu, Sylvester Kwakye, Justin Lacour, Rodolfo G Ledesma, Jeff McRae, JK Miller, Kristen Park, Jessica Pollack, Adrian S. Potter, Jordan Ranft, henry 7. reneau, jr., Cecilia Savala, Richard Allen Taylor, Chimezie Umeoka, Alex Rainey Ward, Heather Wright, Beste Yılmaz, Angelique Zobitz
Christopher David Adkins
Christopher David Adkins
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Filling Up At the Same Boones Mill Shell Station Twenty Years Later
No, he was actually quite easy to understand. He wanted that calm sureity that was welcome and welcome home— professional, punctual about dates and anniversaries— roses on the table, dinner by candlelight… the only place where desire was allowed to burn. It was short sleeve Nautica polos, and Foakleys at the barbecue— tasteful silver necklaces that hinted too subtly at a softness in the manhood— handshakes and suits for the business end of things— respectability politics repackaged as romance. Defiant, sure, but also too timid to make it everyone else's problem... Old before we were young. I guess somewhere I was supposed to smile gratefully and speak highly and revel in the sweet-sad post-traumatic post-modernism and expect this fizzle to be fire— never outshine, even when my own mirror gleamed too bright… Sex is only angry when there's something to be angry about. When it ended, I spoke about opalescent ruins and columns crumbling— but really, it was blown-away ashes from an inferno— the vulpine plume of animal heat, like shockwaves from a supernova that he had wanted to study, but never ventured to, because outer space is always too frigid. And just like the stars we used to watch before the light pollution of the last rebellions of my youth and the insidious xenon of headlights drowned them both out— Well, I'll give him this: He understood forever, and he knew that things (had they been different, had I been different) could last. Vertical Divider
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The View From a Super S On Lined Paper
It was the year before the year it rained every day in May, and snowed every day in February. I wanted a boyfriend, I wanted a boyfriend, and this was supposed to be normal, sweet, oh, sweet, this young thing yearning— But the leprous Moon glowed too bright— the pumpkins burned too sinister— the crickets knew too much, where there was still a forest to do danger in. By then, it had been made clear to me that I was some kind of monstrosity, so I had to make monsters of the men I dared love. Hallways, hallways, to leer and to gawk— it was a night-parade of a hundred ghouls, every time the bell rang. Howling throats for werewolf feasts, lethal venom from manticore tails— And then— For Pan— to curl his chest hair; For Glaucus— in the shivers of chlorine water; For Karasuman— beating his ebony wings at dusk. They made us all beasts, and that's what we ended up craving— no one should ever suffer the privilege of being attractive. My ugly heart was full of nausea in all that afternoon sunlight— eyes fixed on the arching curves in a secret notebook… …but that is how I got hit in the head by a dodgeball writing a sonnet about Catherine of Aragón's divorced sorrows thrown by a jeunesse dorée who now sells real estate. |
Dr. Christopher David Adkins, Ph.D. holds an AS from Virginia Western Community College, a BA with honors from Eckerd College in American Studies, a master’s in American Studies from the University of South Florida. He also holds a Ph.D. in History from the University of South Florida, where he teaches. He has also taught humanities at Hillsborough College. He is a folklorist who has collected stories, tales, songs, and traditions from his home region of Southern Appalachia, Alaska, and rural Florida.
David Anson Lee
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When the Extinct Bird Appears Outside Intensive Care
The last ivory-billed woodpecker appears beside the vending machine outside Intensive Care. Not as ghost: ghosts are too obedient to grief. It arrives feathered in rainlight, its red crest burning like a wound stitched badly shut. Nobody else notices. A janitor mops around it without surprise, pushing gray water in slow planetary circles. The bird taps once against the vending-machine glass. Inside: artificial oranges, electrolytes blue as aquarium gravel, candies sealed in bright sarcophagi. I think of all the species we embalmed with language: passenger pigeon, monk seal, the boy in room twelve whose lungs kept filling like drowned paper bags. Outside, thunder opens its animal mouth over the city. The woodpecker watches me with one prehistoric eye, as if waiting for an apology large enough to enter the weather. But all I have are these human hands: smelling faintly of latex, coffee, and the metallic sleep of keys. The bird strikes the glass again. This time, the vending machine flickers. Every fluorescent light in the hallway briefly becomes a forest. And for one impossible second, even the dying monitors sound like wings. Vertical Divider
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My Mother Says the Moon Follows the Lonely In Chinatown, fish hang in windows silver as surgical tools. My mother presses a lychee into my palm and says: everything sweet bruises easily. We walk beneath red lanterns swaying like captive suns. At the herbal shop, drawers hold the curled bodies of roots and seahorses. The pharmacist weighs grief on a brass scale. A butcher lifts his cleaver. Nearby, a child laughs with their whole skeleton. My mother says the moon follows us because loneliness emits light. I do not understand then. I am still young enough to believe sorrow belongs only to abandoned houses and stray dogs trembling in alleys. Years later, after my father dies, I stand in a supermarket parking lot holding a sack of rice to my chest like an infant. Above the asphalt, the moon waits for me exactly where she promised. Not bright. Not merciful. Only faithful to every creature trying to carry home what hunger has made holy. |
Psalm for the Cockroach at the End of the World
Tonight, the cockroach
crossing my bathroom tile
moves with the confidence
of a minor god.
Nuclear prophets would hate him.
He survives everything:
flood, pesticide, empire,
the sudden loneliness of motels.
When I trap him beneath a glass,
he pauses only briefly,
antennae tasting the invisible.
Outside, the century continues
its nervous breakdown:
oceans warming like fevers,
politicians smiling with borrowed teeth,
another billionaire preparing
to abandon Earth elegantly.
Meanwhile, the cockroach
cleans one delicate leg
like a violinist preparing
for a difficult sonata.
Against reason,
I begin to admire him.
His ancient bronze body.
His refusal to disappear.
His tiny unreasonable hunger.
Perhaps survival itself
is a kind of prayer.
Perhaps God, exhausted by us,
has hidden the future
inside this small moving comma
crossing the white sentence
of the sink.
I lift the glass.
The cockroach vanishes
into a crack in the wall:
carrying, I suspect,
the last dark scripture
of the earth.
Tonight, the cockroach
crossing my bathroom tile
moves with the confidence
of a minor god.
Nuclear prophets would hate him.
He survives everything:
flood, pesticide, empire,
the sudden loneliness of motels.
When I trap him beneath a glass,
he pauses only briefly,
antennae tasting the invisible.
Outside, the century continues
its nervous breakdown:
oceans warming like fevers,
politicians smiling with borrowed teeth,
another billionaire preparing
to abandon Earth elegantly.
Meanwhile, the cockroach
cleans one delicate leg
like a violinist preparing
for a difficult sonata.
Against reason,
I begin to admire him.
His ancient bronze body.
His refusal to disappear.
His tiny unreasonable hunger.
Perhaps survival itself
is a kind of prayer.
Perhaps God, exhausted by us,
has hidden the future
inside this small moving comma
crossing the white sentence
of the sink.
I lift the glass.
The cockroach vanishes
into a crack in the wall:
carrying, I suspect,
the last dark scripture
of the earth.
David Anson Lee is a physician, philosopher, and poet from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota who now lives in Texas. His work explores identity, ecology, medicine, spirituality, and the fragile intersections between human and natural worlds. His poetry has appeared in Right Hand Pointing, Eunoia Review, The Scarred Tree, Braided Way, and other journals. He blends lyrical intensity with meditative reflection, often drawing from Native and Eastern traditions.
Aaron Badida
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The Soft Things
I am awake, my body stirs, skimming the skin off whatever boiled in my sleep. I keep evaporating, I keep turning into something that won’t come back until it gets cold and falls down again. It's early, a Tuesday morning, and I am wondering what kind of afternoon storm I will be: who will get caught in it, what old trees will lose their branches, which streets will flood? Yes, I'm having coffee, swallowing the mouthful of hailstones that steady me. No, I'm not having those thoughts right now, the thunderous ones that crack the sky in half. Some answers are so certain: it'll be only partly cloudy today. I pull the curtains back and see the thick clouds billowing over the graying horizon. They're not dark, yet, and they might even be soft. Yes, it'll be the soft things that get me in the end. Vertical Divider
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Some Pieces
for R.J.H. I don’t need each of my missing parts, stitched back together into something always less than whole but more than wounded. I’ve shown back up in my own life in pieces. Not everything left begs to be returned, to be heaved on your back and carried home through the wilderness. Some things get lost for good in the exile and the animals make their meal. There are deserts where I shed my skin, and crevices where what I’ve lost still lives with wet breaths. There are caves I must not return to, where once I made terrible shadows on the wall. |
Aaron Badida is a poet living in Jacksonville, Florida, where he is completing his debut manuscript, Just Sugar, a collection tracing desire, addiction, recovery, and faith. His work explores queer devotion and the body as a site of both wound and grace.
Rois M. Beal
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EVIL DAUGHTER
I am angry, very angry, very very very angry with myself for could any but a changeling child begrudge her father the kindest of passages to the Beyond? : no old folks’ home; no feeding tube, no wheelchair no more of the pain that had plagued him for years He preached that last conscious day, and had bacon, chicken, a slice of pound cake, tea with turmeric for the first and last time & ate more that weekend, my mother says than she did, more than he had since he fell under the curse that dialysis was to be to him My sister got him the silver bells – Hershey’s kisses – and the hard caramel candies he delighted in He did not need his walker for those final steps ‘We all thought he was getting stronger,’ said the sister with whom he spent those final hours, the one who drove him to the hospital for the very last time And of the favours bestowed by a benevolent heaven, these are but the half as the proof of his heavenly devotion also manifested in the singular, final embrace from my mother, his longest and most beloved sparring partner. Vertical Divider
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ALL OUR EVERYTHING
been done been already happened ‘Lois, you got anybody to keep that baby?’ Our mother, pregnant with the youngest 40 years ago Our grandfather’s sister Cat Eyes my father called her Four fine sons she had Only one in and out of the facility in Milledgeville Georgia State Lunatic, Idiot, and Epilectic Asylum So crazy strong, my father said, when he refused to take his medication they had to call the only one who could calm him-- the brother whose son I loved back in the muscadine and honeysuckle summers when the burrs clung to my socks on the way to the outhouse behind Granddaddy’s church the one from whom the son got his barrel chest the one who was my father’s best friend the one we thanked in the funeral program Gone now the father the grandfather the great aunt the outhouse the asylum Going the church the cousins of that generation the baby me, my babies, Everything that looked like loving Rois M. Beal grew up in Georgia but has spent most of the last two decades in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. A Voices of Our Nations (VONA) alum, her work has appeared in The Washington Post, African Voices, Entropy, Lunch Ticket, and Howard University’s The Amistad. She currently lives in Berlin.
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Carole Bernstein
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He Shares His Opinion
The Con Ed worker thrust his head and shoulders
out of his hole in the street. “You’ve got a really nice bounce, honey,”
he yelled at the girl the same age as his eldest daughter.
Okay, that girl was me, and thank you, kind sir,
I do have a nice bounce, and thank you for redirecting my attention
to the fact that I have tits, that you are staring at my tits, that you approve,
and I should think about my tits, not about the I Ching
or my boyfriend’s new haircut or whether to get lunch at that Ethiopian place,
or how piercing the sunlight seems on that high building’s window.
It was the morning of the third day of my first job,
in the city I loved. But now he was in it.
Thou shalt think about thy tits when thou liest down and risest up,
and if you don’t, this guy will remind you. Rejoice,
because you = tits, Tits R Us, 3-D House of Tits, one tit two tit red tit blue tit,
Top Ten Greatest Tits of All Time,
there is actually a bird called the Eurasian blue tit
but that is somewhat off-topic. A pair of tits
must live attached to a brain, which is unfortunate for both parties.
Would he have found this poem, well, titillating?
He had wrestled his upper body out of the ground like he was
emerging into the world, an upside-down birth,
which reminded me he had to come out of some woman
years ago, and maybe her breasts patiently sustained
his dribbling, mewling mouth. He grinned proudly,
then tracked me until I was out of sight.
It has been forty years.
How long do I have to keep carrying him?
The Con Ed worker thrust his head and shoulders
out of his hole in the street. “You’ve got a really nice bounce, honey,”
he yelled at the girl the same age as his eldest daughter.
Okay, that girl was me, and thank you, kind sir,
I do have a nice bounce, and thank you for redirecting my attention
to the fact that I have tits, that you are staring at my tits, that you approve,
and I should think about my tits, not about the I Ching
or my boyfriend’s new haircut or whether to get lunch at that Ethiopian place,
or how piercing the sunlight seems on that high building’s window.
It was the morning of the third day of my first job,
in the city I loved. But now he was in it.
Thou shalt think about thy tits when thou liest down and risest up,
and if you don’t, this guy will remind you. Rejoice,
because you = tits, Tits R Us, 3-D House of Tits, one tit two tit red tit blue tit,
Top Ten Greatest Tits of All Time,
there is actually a bird called the Eurasian blue tit
but that is somewhat off-topic. A pair of tits
must live attached to a brain, which is unfortunate for both parties.
Would he have found this poem, well, titillating?
He had wrestled his upper body out of the ground like he was
emerging into the world, an upside-down birth,
which reminded me he had to come out of some woman
years ago, and maybe her breasts patiently sustained
his dribbling, mewling mouth. He grinned proudly,
then tracked me until I was out of sight.
It has been forty years.
How long do I have to keep carrying him?
An Errand
Modess Feminine Napkins, Super, Economy Size:
a box that could’ve held a small appliance,
stained with dark pink blots of unrecognizable
flora—chrysanthemums? Overblown roses?
Autumn leaves?—on dingy white cardboard,
and emitting a smell like Glade air freshener.
This was the most dreaded of all the errands.
My mother was obese and had trouble walking places
so sometimes I had to get them.
I vaguely understood what they were for.
I knew it involved grown women and that it hurt--
some sickening physical defect that had no cure,
and made me weak to think about,
and was supposed to happen to me some time
but I didn’t actually believe it.
It was early Saturday morning in the empty store.
The cashier was different, younger, not the old
man with thick glasses. I handed him the bills
and he rang it up, my heart pounding a little.
He met my eyes and grinned. “Is it for you?”
Is it for you. Meaning, does blood come out of your vagina yet?
Meaning, I know you have a vagina
and I’m thinking about it right now.
I can almost see it through your pants.
Meaning, look at this kid’s face, wish I had my home movie camera.
Meaning, if someone rapes you, could you get pregnant?
Meaning, I am so funny I should go on Johnny Carson.
I froze and stared at the counter for an eternity.
His large fist rested comfortably there,
a few light hairs on the knuckles.
I realized he was waiting for an answer--
he was going to make me answer--
so I choked out, “For my mother.”
The smile turned satisfied, and, still smiling,
he slid the giant box into a discreet paper grocery bag
so it could be our little secret.
Later I was still really mad and told my mother.
“He didn’t say that,” she chuckled, with a wave of her hand.
“He couldn’t possibly have said that.”
Modess Feminine Napkins, Super, Economy Size:
a box that could’ve held a small appliance,
stained with dark pink blots of unrecognizable
flora—chrysanthemums? Overblown roses?
Autumn leaves?—on dingy white cardboard,
and emitting a smell like Glade air freshener.
This was the most dreaded of all the errands.
My mother was obese and had trouble walking places
so sometimes I had to get them.
I vaguely understood what they were for.
I knew it involved grown women and that it hurt--
some sickening physical defect that had no cure,
and made me weak to think about,
and was supposed to happen to me some time
but I didn’t actually believe it.
It was early Saturday morning in the empty store.
The cashier was different, younger, not the old
man with thick glasses. I handed him the bills
and he rang it up, my heart pounding a little.
He met my eyes and grinned. “Is it for you?”
Is it for you. Meaning, does blood come out of your vagina yet?
Meaning, I know you have a vagina
and I’m thinking about it right now.
I can almost see it through your pants.
Meaning, look at this kid’s face, wish I had my home movie camera.
Meaning, if someone rapes you, could you get pregnant?
Meaning, I am so funny I should go on Johnny Carson.
I froze and stared at the counter for an eternity.
His large fist rested comfortably there,
a few light hairs on the knuckles.
I realized he was waiting for an answer--
he was going to make me answer--
so I choked out, “For my mother.”
The smile turned satisfied, and, still smiling,
he slid the giant box into a discreet paper grocery bag
so it could be our little secret.
Later I was still really mad and told my mother.
“He didn’t say that,” she chuckled, with a wave of her hand.
“He couldn’t possibly have said that.”
Philadelphia poet Carole Bernstein is the author of Buried Alive: A To-Do List and Familiar (both Hanging Loose Press) and And Stepped Away from the Circle (Sow’s Ear Press). Her poems have been published in Amethyst Review, Antioch Review, Apiary, Chelsea, Hanging Loose, Paterson Literary Review, Poetry, Rat’s Ass Review, Yale Review, and elsewhere. Work recently appeared in the anthology Keystone: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania (Penn State University Press). She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2025.
Pamela ‘RareEpiphany’ Best
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Black and Free
Weldon Irvine used the magic of his pen
To write me young gifted and black
Messaged it through the black badassedness of Nina Simone
Whom I was prone to believe cause Nina never lied to me
Always spoke the truth in her bluesy Mississippi Gotdamn
Revolution of a voice
There was no choice but to be great
To make your nothing on the outside into the everything you were on the inside
Inside out your gifting like the offerings of loosened purse-strings
Reversible
Even more beautiful on it’s satin lined interior
Rebelling against, by your very existence, the lie of inferior
Spoken around you
Constant and Loud
But in came James Brown like a Bouffanted caped crusader
Flying down from the clouds
Singing I’m black and I’m proud
And I believed I should be, too
I knew… have always known
That the richness of my skin tone and
Electricity of my kinky hair
That dared defy gravity of atmosphere or racist ideology
Made me magic
Made me the tragic anti-hero in somebody’s pale blue-eyed fairy tale
That I am regaled in a glory villainized in the devil’s backstory
Prequel
So he can justify unequal and biased
And I wish I could write us a song
About Black and Free
Not the kind of free that lives innately in us as beings of earth and sky and light
But the kind of free that might find us fearless and at peace
In all the spaces we seek to just be and exist
Without the insistence of conformity
Assimilation
Into some homogenized
Bastardization of acceptable
But my tongue is not able to
Wrap itself around the foreign of freedom
In the language of this land
The longer I live the more I believe they do not have a word for that
Not a real one
Freedom has never meant free
Not in the english lexology
It is filled with the nuances of
“Be like Me”
And that is a costly thing
A price I am unwilling to pay
In the wake of always knowing who and what I am
In a sure place…taught to me
in a bluesy Mississippi Gotdamn
Revolution of a voice
Reiterated by a fly ass Bouffanted caped crusader
Who showed me I had no other choice but to be black and proud
So I say it loud
And maybe one day
This place will allow
More than the innateness of our free
Weldon Irvine used the magic of his pen
To write me young gifted and black
Messaged it through the black badassedness of Nina Simone
Whom I was prone to believe cause Nina never lied to me
Always spoke the truth in her bluesy Mississippi Gotdamn
Revolution of a voice
There was no choice but to be great
To make your nothing on the outside into the everything you were on the inside
Inside out your gifting like the offerings of loosened purse-strings
Reversible
Even more beautiful on it’s satin lined interior
Rebelling against, by your very existence, the lie of inferior
Spoken around you
Constant and Loud
But in came James Brown like a Bouffanted caped crusader
Flying down from the clouds
Singing I’m black and I’m proud
And I believed I should be, too
I knew… have always known
That the richness of my skin tone and
Electricity of my kinky hair
That dared defy gravity of atmosphere or racist ideology
Made me magic
Made me the tragic anti-hero in somebody’s pale blue-eyed fairy tale
That I am regaled in a glory villainized in the devil’s backstory
Prequel
So he can justify unequal and biased
And I wish I could write us a song
About Black and Free
Not the kind of free that lives innately in us as beings of earth and sky and light
But the kind of free that might find us fearless and at peace
In all the spaces we seek to just be and exist
Without the insistence of conformity
Assimilation
Into some homogenized
Bastardization of acceptable
But my tongue is not able to
Wrap itself around the foreign of freedom
In the language of this land
The longer I live the more I believe they do not have a word for that
Not a real one
Freedom has never meant free
Not in the english lexology
It is filled with the nuances of
“Be like Me”
And that is a costly thing
A price I am unwilling to pay
In the wake of always knowing who and what I am
In a sure place…taught to me
in a bluesy Mississippi Gotdamn
Revolution of a voice
Reiterated by a fly ass Bouffanted caped crusader
Who showed me I had no other choice but to be black and proud
So I say it loud
And maybe one day
This place will allow
More than the innateness of our free
Pamela ‘RareEpiphany’ Best is an award winning poet, songwriter, singer, author,, mother, and chef. RareEpiphany has toured the country with two stage plays and been featured in multiple major television, film, print, and radio platforms internationally. Rare is the former lead vocalist for inspirational soul band, KOMPANI, a founding member of the Queens of Poetry and proud member of The Honeydripper Poetry Collective, Sunrise Scribe and Atlanta’s Chorale New Creation.
Sheila Black
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Red State Cassandra
My mouth is dry and eyes untrembling.
Eyes untrembling and mouth dry.
I would say to you mainly I am tired
but you know that--
the dun spaces, the furred blinds, smeared windows.
You know the difficulty
of sponging every surface, then repeating.
What a land for grief!
Achilles drags Hector round the city as
Priam watches from behind his wall.
Cassandra speaks a truth no one hears
in sickness and heath and unto death.
Here is the bathtub brimming with
blue dye to hide the blood.
We don’t speak over breakfast or in the diners,
on the road trip or the airport
We exchange meaningless gifts and meanwhile
the drip-drip-drip of our ancient mother Silence.
Not fair to be weary of every story or to be able to parse
each incarnation, the repetition
of the same failures.
The night is beautiful regardless,
wave on wave
of dusty star and deeper indigo
even than an ocean possesses.
I hold this, this single
stalk, prehistoric onion flower, dry
and yellow with a star at the end of it.
My mouth is dry and eyes untrembling.
Eyes untrembling and mouth dry.
I would say to you mainly I am tired
but you know that--
the dun spaces, the furred blinds, smeared windows.
You know the difficulty
of sponging every surface, then repeating.
What a land for grief!
Achilles drags Hector round the city as
Priam watches from behind his wall.
Cassandra speaks a truth no one hears
in sickness and heath and unto death.
Here is the bathtub brimming with
blue dye to hide the blood.
We don’t speak over breakfast or in the diners,
on the road trip or the airport
We exchange meaningless gifts and meanwhile
the drip-drip-drip of our ancient mother Silence.
Not fair to be weary of every story or to be able to parse
each incarnation, the repetition
of the same failures.
The night is beautiful regardless,
wave on wave
of dusty star and deeper indigo
even than an ocean possesses.
I hold this, this single
stalk, prehistoric onion flower, dry
and yellow with a star at the end of it.
Sheila Black is the author of six poetry collections and three chapbooks. Her most recent collection is Cinnamon Fire (Next Page Press, 2026). She is a co-editor of Beauty is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability. Honors include a 2012 Witter Bynner Fellowship and a 2026 Creative West Fellowship. She lives in Tempe, AZ where she is assistant director of the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University (ASU).
Brian Builta
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Post-Holiday Survival Meditation
Technically, Christmas lasts until January 6,
slabs wet then dry as run-down decorations
evaporate from the landscape.
Dithering is less tolerated
as we begin something new,
something without curlicues,
something half potato, half rain,
like Ireland. Common sense,
or any sense at all, is a bonus here.
A poker face helps.
Insurrections and cancer deaths
are still on the table, thunder on the horizon,
gin fizzes and safe faxes
and then February
and forty-seven more Mondays.
You are getting older with fewer visitors
and more dust. You seek a meditative state,
but the mind won’t cooperate.
Perhaps you didn’t practice enough.
Relax.
You know how to do what you’ve always done.
Concatenate and agglomerate the days ahead
and weave them into something
resembling the rest of your life,
or at least a basket of front porch stories
to one day tell under the ancient oak.
Technically, Christmas lasts until January 6,
slabs wet then dry as run-down decorations
evaporate from the landscape.
Dithering is less tolerated
as we begin something new,
something without curlicues,
something half potato, half rain,
like Ireland. Common sense,
or any sense at all, is a bonus here.
A poker face helps.
Insurrections and cancer deaths
are still on the table, thunder on the horizon,
gin fizzes and safe faxes
and then February
and forty-seven more Mondays.
You are getting older with fewer visitors
and more dust. You seek a meditative state,
but the mind won’t cooperate.
Perhaps you didn’t practice enough.
Relax.
You know how to do what you’ve always done.
Concatenate and agglomerate the days ahead
and weave them into something
resembling the rest of your life,
or at least a basket of front porch stories
to one day tell under the ancient oak.
Brian Builta works for the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in Dallas and lives in Arlington, Texas. His poetry has been published most recently in The Account, Willow Springs Magazine, and Burningword Literary Journal. He is the author of four collections of poems and more of his poetry can be found at brianbuilta.com.
Chris Bullard
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Bait
40 feet is the maximum I can drag my oxygen hose. Staked to a compressor I’m just short of the way out. No reason to leave, anyway. I’d rather stay on my tether. Each day I’m lower on the great chain of being. At bathtime my wife uses a hose to wash me down. I no longer need an outside. My mind is settled in this place. Once I was a beast who some barred from their doors. Now I kneel, puffing meekly, awaiting the destroyer. Vertical Divider
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Hold On
“Hold on. Hold on’” Tom Waits sings in a voice like a shot-gunned road sign and I try to follow, rat-tat-tatting through his rusty hope. while my wife holds my hand and nods counting time, always counting the time, now, both of us hanging on And I’m remembering gripping her, as I tightened the bolts on the halo she wore after she broke her neck. She had lost a vocal cord, but could seize the crowd at that Irish seisiún in Sonoma by crooning the verses to “The Water is Wide.” She’s what I’m holding on to, she’s what I was given to hold me to in this life. |
Chris Bullard is a native of Jacksonville, FL. His work has appeared in such publications as Rattle, Pleiades, Hole in the Head Review, and Scientific American. One of his poems appeared in Keystone: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania in May of 2025. He has had twelve books of poetry published. Most recently, in 2025, Finishing Line Press published his chapbook, Lungs, He was nominated this year for the Pushcart Prize. He lives in Philadelphia, PA and is currently in hospice care for lung disease.
Ann Chinnis
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To My Friend in Assisted Living Who is in Love
After Gwendolyn Brooks- To the Young Who Want to Die
Sit on this bench in sunshine.
The next MRI of your brain
isn’t today.
Watch sparrows under the awning
peck Marlboro butts and Skittles wrappers
into their nest.
The 5 o’clock Sunday
fried chicken dinner
will wait
until the sparrows
finish their nest.
The IV tube
of white liquid burning
into your forearm
isn’t today.
As you tip your face
towards the sky
you do not
have to think about death
as you have done for a decade
when they diagnosed
your tumor saying,
Only six months to live.
You do not
have to think about death today
because today,
you are in love. Sit here
with this man
poking the crack in the sidewalk
with the toe of his sneaker.
Sit on the bench as he steadies
your hand on your walker.
Take his hand. Remember
you love yellow.
I lean over to hug you
before I walk to the car,
your booming laugh
sunshine warming
my back.
After Gwendolyn Brooks- To the Young Who Want to Die
Sit on this bench in sunshine.
The next MRI of your brain
isn’t today.
Watch sparrows under the awning
peck Marlboro butts and Skittles wrappers
into their nest.
The 5 o’clock Sunday
fried chicken dinner
will wait
until the sparrows
finish their nest.
The IV tube
of white liquid burning
into your forearm
isn’t today.
As you tip your face
towards the sky
you do not
have to think about death
as you have done for a decade
when they diagnosed
your tumor saying,
Only six months to live.
You do not
have to think about death today
because today,
you are in love. Sit here
with this man
poking the crack in the sidewalk
with the toe of his sneaker.
Sit on the bench as he steadies
your hand on your walker.
Take his hand. Remember
you love yellow.
I lean over to hug you
before I walk to the car,
your booming laugh
sunshine warming
my back.
Ann Chinnis is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, 2025 and the author of three poetry books- Poppet, My Poppet, I Can Catch Anything, and Love Song: Port & Starboard. Her work has been published in Sky Island Journal, River Heron Review, Gyroscope, Crab Creek Review, among others. She is a retired Emergency Physician and a leadership coach and lives with her wife in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Travis Cohen Acosta
Se jodió el gato
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This is what we say when it all goes wrong. The fridge is broken? Se jodió el gato. The day just began and the chancleta just snapped and there’s no money for new shoes and the sidewalk is as hot as the inside of a roasting pit? Se jodió el gato. Car crash? Se jodió el gato. Relapse? Se jodió el gato. Suicide? Se jodió el gato. Suicide is where the cat got started. The cat’s name has passed out of memory and there is no one left alive who knew him so I have made up new names to tell the story of my mother’s cat who hung himself from a leash and a bathroom drainpipe, just a kitten, not so heavy, not so smart, but curious and bouncy, enough of both to jump and jump and jump over the L-shaped joint that ran from the sink into the wall until his toes couldn’t reach the ground, until he floated like an angel, until my mother found him, her new and former pet, and began to weep, and her mother found her and began to weep, and then her sister joined them. One by one, they crowded the bathroom and cried surrounded by gleaming tiles the color of guayaba flesh, a small black cat before and below them, levitating, like a wound in the room, like a sacred virgin, impossible and dead and precious. It was a little boy who said it first, one of my cousins, one who would come to me many years later to tell me my mother was dead, that she had choked in the night, and with his eyes he told me this was what she intended and not what she wanted. Decades before she died and moments before she gathered up her cat and buried him in a shoebox in the sand, neighbors began to amble into an open door, looking for chisme and finding an entire family sobbing near a small pink bathtub and when they asked what happened, it was a little boy who told them: “Se jodió el gato.” I will always wonder if there was any irony in that little boy voice or if the man who would show up at my doorstep one morning in May would be thinking about the cat who reached the same conclusion as its owner, as his aunt, as my mother. I wonder if he ever says it anymore. I wonder if he knows I still say it all the time.
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Travis Cohen Acosta is a Cuban American author and poet born and raised in Miami, Florida. He is a graduate of the MFA program at Florida International University and is currently a Ph.D student in Creative Writing (fiction) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Permafrost, The South Dakota Review, Fourth Genre, and The Sonora Review, among other publications.
Barrie Cole
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In Brooklyn
on Flatbush Avenue, in summer
in front of the dollar store
a cluster of brooms with pink, turquoise blue,
neon-yellow, and rainbow bristles
stand gathered together like a punk
chorus on a cigarette break
The brooms huddle together, a bouquet
in a cardboard vase wishing for the chance
to sweep debris into glittering peaks.
Also, the brooms love that their name rhymes with rooms.
Looms too. That’s not nothing, they whisper. It counts.
There is a green-bristled broom in particular
who longs to be ridden
across the long meadow in Prospect Park
by a six year- old, spikey-helmeted, witch.
Oh what shadows they’d cast, muses the broom .
Oh how, they’d zig-zag & dart through the air,
Careening, dipping, sweeping back and forth
with birds looping about, dragonflies whirring past,
- treetops shimmying in applause
on Flatbush Avenue, in summer
in front of the dollar store
a cluster of brooms with pink, turquoise blue,
neon-yellow, and rainbow bristles
stand gathered together like a punk
chorus on a cigarette break
The brooms huddle together, a bouquet
in a cardboard vase wishing for the chance
to sweep debris into glittering peaks.
Also, the brooms love that their name rhymes with rooms.
Looms too. That’s not nothing, they whisper. It counts.
There is a green-bristled broom in particular
who longs to be ridden
across the long meadow in Prospect Park
by a six year- old, spikey-helmeted, witch.
Oh what shadows they’d cast, muses the broom .
Oh how, they’d zig-zag & dart through the air,
Careening, dipping, sweeping back and forth
with birds looping about, dragonflies whirring past,
- treetops shimmying in applause
Barrie Cole is the author of the book "Lacquer is a Thrilling Word" published earlier this year. by FLP along with numerous plays. Most recently her work appeared in the Hal Sirowitz Anthology by Moonstone Arts, The Paddock Review, and Half and One. She holds an MA in Interdisciplinary Arts and an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia College. She lives in Chicago.
Nina DalleyHood
Tiana Bickle
And when the blood comes, it shall be heavy like rain, it will be
thick, like strawberry jam.
Congealed in cotton. I smile, so no one calls me
angry or unfriendly, though I stopped saying hello
to neighbors who only say it back when
my afro is braided down flat
under a synthetic wig and I can barely pass. C plus.
I always grew up with gray snow.
When I close my eyes, sometimes, I see red
gashes on my wrists
lined up like soldiers. Standing at attention.
I always liked all eyes on me.
But I always hated being stared at, pawed at
both subject and spectator
all at once. My lover spreads the lips
of my sadness but never
plunges his fingers inside.
Men walk alone
women walk with someone lurking behind.
Loneliness is not the caw of a crow.
It is an egg with two yolks.
It is having the only hand left
unshaken. Stirred up by casual comments.
Disturbed by the texture of thick ropes
that only my brothers were taught to climb.
Meanwhile, you look at your hands. Empty, soft.
Yet chapped. All at once.
And when the blood comes, it shall be heavy like rain, it will be
thick, like strawberry jam.
Congealed in cotton. I smile, so no one calls me
angry or unfriendly, though I stopped saying hello
to neighbors who only say it back when
my afro is braided down flat
under a synthetic wig and I can barely pass. C plus.
I always grew up with gray snow.
When I close my eyes, sometimes, I see red
gashes on my wrists
lined up like soldiers. Standing at attention.
I always liked all eyes on me.
But I always hated being stared at, pawed at
both subject and spectator
all at once. My lover spreads the lips
of my sadness but never
plunges his fingers inside.
Men walk alone
women walk with someone lurking behind.
Loneliness is not the caw of a crow.
It is an egg with two yolks.
It is having the only hand left
unshaken. Stirred up by casual comments.
Disturbed by the texture of thick ropes
that only my brothers were taught to climb.
Meanwhile, you look at your hands. Empty, soft.
Yet chapped. All at once.
Nina DalleyHood is a writer from Queens, New York. She is pursuing an MFA in creative writing at Queens College, where she worked as an editor of literary journal Utopia Parkway. She received the Hoyt Jacobs Memorial Prize and won second place in the CUNY wide Labor Arts contest. Her work primarily concerns identity and generational trauma.
Anna Drasko
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Boygirl Thing Reads a Letter from Some Family Members
You could actually be very pretty if you tried being pretty if you waxed your little mustache if you stopped writing poems when you wake up if instead you put on makeup that’s what I do every morning I wake up at dawn I put my face on it takes an hour or two yes it does take time time you could spend otherwise but you could actually be very pretty if you got your nails done you could be pretty if you asked for the almond-shaped nails your fingers are a little short a little stubby this would make them look longer look elegant look pretty your name means God has favored you you need to thank God for the gracious gift of His favor by looking pretty you could actually be very pretty if you tried shaving your armpits seriously why are you doing this to God a God who has shown His favor on you a God who designed you with armpit hair a God who designed you to shave it off designed you to find a man you can be pretty for he probably won’t leave you if you’re pretty God probably won’t leave you if you’re pretty you could be pretty if you actually tried |
Anna Drasko is a writer living in East Tennessee. Their work appears or is forthcoming in Chestnut Review, phoebe, Thimble Literary Magazine, Good River Review, Pangyrus, Connecticut River Review, and elsewhere. They hold degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Penn State.
Scott Ferry
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12 (2).
my son says: if i take off your skull there are little people inside there is an ear cat that lives in your brain and tells you what to do the cat has an endless supply of fish no your head is a meat ball the cat is brain-colored no blue i cut open your head with an axe and the cat runs around and goes back in to his bowl of fish there are many cats that eat throw up and eat more fish your head is a bone and the cats are skinny and the fish are squished the things you see are on the front of your face i can see them from back here when they want to get out they all talk at the same time a meow that sounds like words Vertical Divider
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13.
my daughter and i talk about all the different people inside of us how the watcher usually isn’t the one in control but is perched on a chair at the side of the pool with a black coffee and a fake cigarette dressed elegantly in mist and holding a pistol (we didn’t talk about that part but it is still valid) as the ego and the false selves thrash about in the water and the scared child cowers on the steps the watcher sips, smokes shoots a hand that grips the deck too close giggles a bit, writes notes that are really insincere confessions pisses in the bushes in intervals can’t she come over and help us? my daughter asks? at which point the watchers in our heads fall off their chairs in laughter dust off the gunpowder and ash refill the barrel |
Scott Ferry helps our Veterans heal as a RN in the Seattle area. He has two books birthing in 2026: Blood on the Map of Man from Luchador Press and Inheritance of Air with Aakriti Kuntal from Meat For Tea Press. More can be found @ ferrypoetry.com.
Gary Fincke
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The Rest of It
The detailed police report says only that the retired professor, pulling from a side road, attempted to cross two lanes of highway with insufficient clearance. Which seems an absence of detail, nothing about what was surely, mid-afternoon, on his car radio—an NPR showcase of classical music. No reminder that his seat belt lay snug against his chest where his heart kept its reliable pace. No mention that his vision, recently Recorded as 20/20, had been restored to perfection by surgery. Not a word about the why of choosing that back road, the most unlikely for haste or convenience. No speculating about October’s temptation of leaves, his annual self-guided tour where ash, sycamore, maple, and beech synchronize into Pennsylvania’s spectrum upon one particular hillside for a few hours, receiving the slanted light so perfectly that whatever errand he had could wait patiently six miles north. Where, each autumn, one farmer sells cider by that roadside until October’s end, closing his stand’s produce season with something that might hold an old customer for conversation over a preview of this fall’s gallon. How that give-and-take affected timing to the smidgeon of a second when fate exclaimed “Now” as he accelerated into those two familiar downhill lanes, the high-speed rural-area traffic light and intermittent, even what could be called “spotty” just after three p.m., the sun behind him, the sky clear of clouds. |
Turning Eighty
Even if the early evening predicts How the midsummer moon will reflect Perfectly off the river’s veneer where You’ve wandered, a calm premonition Has surfaced, with this stale birthday, Upon the Susquehanna, shallow In this dry July, yet leering At the nearby floodplain houses. All night, you have heard “however” In every declarative sentence. The river, perhaps, can be waded here By tracing the rippling path of moon. Now, because you have outlived Some ghosts by sixty years, they are Rightfully sick of your breathing. They’re not to blame for loitering. Don’t you be angry, too. They’ll feed Upon it. Likewise, don’t show fear. Ghosts, like dogs, smell weakness Within your leisure and language. Your uneventful days are enough To anger anyone. If those ghosts Fail to believe that you know Absence is a certainty, they would Bury their phantom teeth in you. What matters, for serenity, is Convincing them, even if your words Are transparent as childhood lies. |
Gary Fincke's latest collection is The Necessary Going On: Selected Poems (Press 53 2025). Earlier collections are from Arkansas, Ohio State, Michigan State, BkMk, Lynx House, and Slant Books.
Laura Foley
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The Tug
My son is two,
which explains the little sneakers,
the crisp blue shorts,
and the way he leans against me
as if I were a piece of ancient furniture.
We’re sitting on the steps
of some ruin the guidebook assures me
is important--
freshly scrubbed stone
that once supported philosophers, soldiers,
and now me and a toddler
who believes the world is his snack tray.
As he tugs, I nurse him
under my gray-red tweed cloak,
trying to be discreet.
A few tourists drift by,
lifting their chins toward the empty air
where Athena supposedly stood,
as if she might reappear
out of politeness.
Meanwhile I just sit in the sun,
feeling the familiar pull.
My son is two today.
He was also two
over thirty years ago--
a mathematical impossibility
except in those moments
when time folds back on itself,
like a clean sheet
lifted and let go,
settling over everything at once.
Some version of us remains there still,
in the mild spring light,
where centuries overlap
with the easy confidence
of tourists on vacation,
and the gentle tugging--
past, present, perpetual--
refuses to stop.
My son is two,
which explains the little sneakers,
the crisp blue shorts,
and the way he leans against me
as if I were a piece of ancient furniture.
We’re sitting on the steps
of some ruin the guidebook assures me
is important--
freshly scrubbed stone
that once supported philosophers, soldiers,
and now me and a toddler
who believes the world is his snack tray.
As he tugs, I nurse him
under my gray-red tweed cloak,
trying to be discreet.
A few tourists drift by,
lifting their chins toward the empty air
where Athena supposedly stood,
as if she might reappear
out of politeness.
Meanwhile I just sit in the sun,
feeling the familiar pull.
My son is two today.
He was also two
over thirty years ago--
a mathematical impossibility
except in those moments
when time folds back on itself,
like a clean sheet
lifted and let go,
settling over everything at once.
Some version of us remains there still,
in the mild spring light,
where centuries overlap
with the easy confidence
of tourists on vacation,
and the gentle tugging--
past, present, perpetual--
refuses to stop.
Laura Foley is the author of, most recently, Sister in a Different Movie (Sheila-Na-Gig Press) and Ice Cream for Lunch (The Poetry Box). She has won a Narrative Magazine Poetry Prize, Common Good Books Poetry Prize, Poetry Box Editor's Choice Chapbook Award, Bisexual Book Award, and others. She holds graduate degrees in Literature from Columbia University, and lives with her wife on the steep banks of the Connecticut River in New Hampshire.
George Franklin
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Mazzorbo
On Mazzorbo, a garden full of pinwheels
Spinning in 2-liter water bottles to scare away
The gulls and the rabbits—red and yellow,
When they spin faster, they turn orange,
Make a fluttering sound, not like birds
Or insects but like themselves, the way Earth
Might sound spinning in space if sound
Carried in the black vacuum that isn’t where
We live. I stand at the garden fence and watch.
Another day, I might think it’s pointless to stare
At what rotates but never changes. Today, though,
Is different. My wife, now my former wife,
Has walked to the end of the roadway and
Leans against the wall of the restaurant
Where we’re going for lunch. In a few years,
We will divorce and never come back here.
My son is—what?—maybe five or six, and wears
The blue parka I bought for him, the same one
He wore chasing pigeons in the San Marco
And going for walks with me at night, circling
La Salute, staring at long lines of worshippers
Waiting to be blessed. I don’t recall what
Holiday it was, but it was cold, even colder
On Mazzorbo where the wind chased itself
Onto the island and spun the pinwheels in
The garden, their colors garish as the glassware
They sell tourists on Murano, but here,
Somehow pure—a drizzle of gray rain
Watering the rucola, radicchio, or whatever
Else was planted in that unlikely spot. Simon
Tells me he’s hungry, so we walk toward
Lunch. The place is almost empty and under
New management, but the risotto is still good.
We sit by a window, and I order pasta and
A milanesa for Simon, a carafe of prosecco
For myself and his mother. In the glasses, it
Bubbles pale gold against the Adriatic sky.
On Mazzorbo, a garden full of pinwheels
Spinning in 2-liter water bottles to scare away
The gulls and the rabbits—red and yellow,
When they spin faster, they turn orange,
Make a fluttering sound, not like birds
Or insects but like themselves, the way Earth
Might sound spinning in space if sound
Carried in the black vacuum that isn’t where
We live. I stand at the garden fence and watch.
Another day, I might think it’s pointless to stare
At what rotates but never changes. Today, though,
Is different. My wife, now my former wife,
Has walked to the end of the roadway and
Leans against the wall of the restaurant
Where we’re going for lunch. In a few years,
We will divorce and never come back here.
My son is—what?—maybe five or six, and wears
The blue parka I bought for him, the same one
He wore chasing pigeons in the San Marco
And going for walks with me at night, circling
La Salute, staring at long lines of worshippers
Waiting to be blessed. I don’t recall what
Holiday it was, but it was cold, even colder
On Mazzorbo where the wind chased itself
Onto the island and spun the pinwheels in
The garden, their colors garish as the glassware
They sell tourists on Murano, but here,
Somehow pure—a drizzle of gray rain
Watering the rucola, radicchio, or whatever
Else was planted in that unlikely spot. Simon
Tells me he’s hungry, so we walk toward
Lunch. The place is almost empty and under
New management, but the risotto is still good.
We sit by a window, and I order pasta and
A milanesa for Simon, a carafe of prosecco
For myself and his mother. In the glasses, it
Bubbles pale gold against the Adriatic sky.
George Franklin is the author of eight poetry collections, including the recent A Man Made of Stories, which was a category finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award 2026, and a book of essays, Poetry & Pigeons: Short Essays on Writing (both Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2025). Individual poems have been published in SoFloPoJo, Solstice, Nimrod, Rattle, New Ohio Review, and One Art, among others. He practices law in Miami, is a translation editor for Cagibi, and teaches poetry classes in Florida prisons.
Jeff Friedman
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Boots on the Ground
At night the enemy soldiers, suddenly weightless, lifted off the ground, floating toward the stars. They were an easy target, but we didn’t shoot them, because they were so helpless turning in the wind or clawing the air or grabbing each other or shouting for help into their cellphones. A few rolled into balls, clutching their knees to their chests. And some managed to catch tree branches and wrap around them. One blew himself up, rather than live with defeat. When we swept the territory they had invaded, we found thousands of boots on the ground and a cemetery of cigarette butts. The boots were still good, so we tried them on, and the ones that fit, we took home with us. |
JEFF FRIEDMAN has published eleven collections of poetry and prose, including Ashes in Paradise (Madhat Press) and The Marksman (Carnegie Mellon University Press). His work has appeared in Best Microfiction, New Republic, New England Review, Poetry, Plume, Poetry International, Antioch Review, Rattle, Dreaming Awake: New Contemporary Prose Poetry from the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom, and American Poetry Review. He has received an NEA Literature Translation Fellowship and numerous other awards.
E.W. Herman
Chicago Med
What’s been undone is
done. I don’t remember how, only
just before and after. I went
seven years without a drink until a
voice said I deserved it and
could manage it again. I whispered to
a whisperer, Nice to see you, now
take away this weight. I needed the
release, that moment of a moment’s
peace (the day I’d had) I leaned on the
bar looking out as Wells Street louvered up at
me: The next thing I remember I
woke resting in my car, fender
downward on the verge, the blue and
red lights flashing… I remember now
another moment from before:
Standing in the parking lot staring at an
oily puddle as it dimpled in the rain.
Some shadow had assured me I could manage it
again – it was waiting
there for me just like the call
that awaited them: In the waiting room, the
young man’s family who sits there being
processed by police. In this
life the victims wait: That is
how you know them. Here they
are a father, mother and
a youngish woman, probably his
sister. They were at home
watching Fallon when the phone call
came. He waited 14 hours to die
and bump me to a reckless
homicide. Now his father bunches up
a yellow windbreaker,
its fabric in his fist like he expects his
son to saunter out rain or no rain falling.
What’s been undone is
done. I don’t remember how, only
just before and after. I went
seven years without a drink until a
voice said I deserved it and
could manage it again. I whispered to
a whisperer, Nice to see you, now
take away this weight. I needed the
release, that moment of a moment’s
peace (the day I’d had) I leaned on the
bar looking out as Wells Street louvered up at
me: The next thing I remember I
woke resting in my car, fender
downward on the verge, the blue and
red lights flashing… I remember now
another moment from before:
Standing in the parking lot staring at an
oily puddle as it dimpled in the rain.
Some shadow had assured me I could manage it
again – it was waiting
there for me just like the call
that awaited them: In the waiting room, the
young man’s family who sits there being
processed by police. In this
life the victims wait: That is
how you know them. Here they
are a father, mother and
a youngish woman, probably his
sister. They were at home
watching Fallon when the phone call
came. He waited 14 hours to die
and bump me to a reckless
homicide. Now his father bunches up
a yellow windbreaker,
its fabric in his fist like he expects his
son to saunter out rain or no rain falling.
E.W. Herman worked as a reporter in Chicago and New York City for many years, covering courtroom drama, crime, 9/11--many things. Herman's poetry has previously appeared in the Metropolitan Review and Pensive.
Paul Hostovsky
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My Paper on Paradise Lost
I need to find some weed so I can write
my paper on Paradise Lost. It’s due this Friday.
It took me months to read the poem. It’s long,
longer than any poem I’ve ever read.
At first I tried to read it stoned, but hell,
I couldn’t follow. So I read it straight,
like ten or twenty pages at a time,
then smoked a bowl and thought about what it said.
I think Satan would have approved of that.
Satan was heroic. I don’t think God
created the world. In fact I doubt He even
knows we’re here. I think we’re all asleep
in Heaven dreaming the world. I want to write
about that in my paper on Paradise Lost,
but I need to put a buzz on first. Beelzebub
was Satan’s right-hand angel. Beelzebub
is fun to say: Beelzebub! He’s number two
in Hell’s hierarchy. Sartre said that Hell
is other people. My mother said that weed
is of the Devil. She freaked when she found a joint
in my coat pocket. She sent me to a psychiatrist
who slurped his soup in front of me. He’d slurp
and ask me how I felt, in between slurps.
I love getting high more than anything,
more than my mother, more than God. I quit
high school after that and landed on my feet
in a college where they make us read the long poems.
Professor Rodewald says my papers are
belletristic. I had to look up belletristic.
I think it means my writing is too beautiful.
One could do worse than be a belletristic writer.
I like to write stoned because then I feel
like Adam naming all the animals. He named
everything. But he couldn’t name God. That’s
what I want to focus on in my paper
on Paradise Lost. I’m thinking of writing it
in blank verse to impress Mr. Rodewald.
But I need to smoke a bone first. For inspiration.
My mother thinks that weed is the forbidden fruit.
She may be right. I’d like to work that in
to my paper on Paradise Lost. Milton was
totally blind when he wrote it. He dictated it--
the whole thing, all twelve books—to scribes
who wrote it down for him. Holy shit!
I wonder how he kept it straight in his head.
I think about that when I’m stoned. Praise God.
I need to find some weed so I can write
my paper on Paradise Lost. It’s due this Friday.
It took me months to read the poem. It’s long,
longer than any poem I’ve ever read.
At first I tried to read it stoned, but hell,
I couldn’t follow. So I read it straight,
like ten or twenty pages at a time,
then smoked a bowl and thought about what it said.
I think Satan would have approved of that.
Satan was heroic. I don’t think God
created the world. In fact I doubt He even
knows we’re here. I think we’re all asleep
in Heaven dreaming the world. I want to write
about that in my paper on Paradise Lost,
but I need to put a buzz on first. Beelzebub
was Satan’s right-hand angel. Beelzebub
is fun to say: Beelzebub! He’s number two
in Hell’s hierarchy. Sartre said that Hell
is other people. My mother said that weed
is of the Devil. She freaked when she found a joint
in my coat pocket. She sent me to a psychiatrist
who slurped his soup in front of me. He’d slurp
and ask me how I felt, in between slurps.
I love getting high more than anything,
more than my mother, more than God. I quit
high school after that and landed on my feet
in a college where they make us read the long poems.
Professor Rodewald says my papers are
belletristic. I had to look up belletristic.
I think it means my writing is too beautiful.
One could do worse than be a belletristic writer.
I like to write stoned because then I feel
like Adam naming all the animals. He named
everything. But he couldn’t name God. That’s
what I want to focus on in my paper
on Paradise Lost. I’m thinking of writing it
in blank verse to impress Mr. Rodewald.
But I need to smoke a bone first. For inspiration.
My mother thinks that weed is the forbidden fruit.
She may be right. I’d like to work that in
to my paper on Paradise Lost. Milton was
totally blind when he wrote it. He dictated it--
the whole thing, all twelve books—to scribes
who wrote it down for him. Holy shit!
I wonder how he kept it straight in his head.
I think about that when I’m stoned. Praise God.
Paul Hostovsky's poems appear and disappear simultaneously (ta-da!) and have recently been sighted in those places where they pay you for your trouble with your own trouble doubled, and other people's troubles thrown in, which never seem to him as great as his troubles, though he tries not to compare. He has no life and spends it with his poems, trying to perfect their perfect disappearances.
Hallie Johnston
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Harriet
haunts the small-town art museum where I’m on a first date. A boudoir doll, her gown is long and tattered and in her mouth an eternal cigarette. How she came to Alabama from early 19th century New York is unknown but her ghost is mischievous, thought to be a woman. She wears a forever side-eye, painted irises looking left saying you’ll find love today but not with him. She’s right—friend-zoned a week later in text and comma splice. Translation I. zero attraction; let’s never see each other again. II. too old, re: reproductively. III. synecdoche, as in the girl is her smile or in this case the woman—mind, soul, intellect—her ovaries. Harriet. Clairvoy- ant gaze, never-ending light. For you I’d be the hand cupped close to flame convexing orange air, in- cendiary spark. |
Hallie Johnston is a writer from the South. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Miami. Her work has appeared in Saw Palm, The Louisville Review, and The Citron Review. She currently lives in Birmingham, Alabama.
Tasneem Khan
Mitosis
The starless night is just
another living thing,
you remind yourself,
as your cab driver
stops
and steps out--
to pee, he says,
in the bushes
by the side of the road.
A struggle ensues--
in your mind
as a thicket
of long forgotten facts
about bushes, amongst other things
forces its way in.
You sift through the snarl
suddenly recalling
that cells in the body
duplicate then multiply
and you—being a woman, a daughter
continue to grope desperately--
hadn’t there been something
about daughter cells too.
A man starts
whistling
from afar,
now closer
and you feel something
in your body
duplicate then multiply.
Mitosis--
the word untangles itself in your mind
just as the cab driver
turns back.
The starless night is just
another living thing,
you remind yourself,
as your cab driver
stops
and steps out--
to pee, he says,
in the bushes
by the side of the road.
A struggle ensues--
in your mind
as a thicket
of long forgotten facts
about bushes, amongst other things
forces its way in.
You sift through the snarl
suddenly recalling
that cells in the body
duplicate then multiply
and you—being a woman, a daughter
continue to grope desperately--
hadn’t there been something
about daughter cells too.
A man starts
whistling
from afar,
now closer
and you feel something
in your body
duplicate then multiply.
Mitosis--
the word untangles itself in your mind
just as the cab driver
turns back.
Tasneem Khan lives in India. Her work has appeared in the Gulmohur Quarterly and The BWW Book of Emerging Poets.
Josiane Kouagheu
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my brother, my torturer (xxxxxxx)
April 14, 2026. Cité de Billes. Douala. Cameroon. the sleeping guitars have become the new tools of my brother. he sends them like diabolical letters from some haunted post office. he sends them early in the morning. he sends them when my poetry is made with the scent of his spraying. he sends them when my night is fighting with the color of the pain. he sends them with the awakening of my soul. my brother cremates my strength with the eternal power of his sleeping guitars. then he adorns my body with the lazy procession of his toxic angels & rebels. he sprays. every day. every night. now. he is spraying. and my eyes are battling to survive. like silent donkeys of the road. my brother is spraying. he is desecrating my body with the toxicity of his spraying. as usual. and then, my feet will cry. my kidneys will sob. my stomach will explode. my vagina will burn. my head will whisper their pain. my breasts will hurt. my throat will become a look room. my flesh will be the suffering. Vertical Divider
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my brother, my torturer (xxxxxxxiii)
April 17, 2026. Cité de Billes. Douala. Cameroon. i can hear how the sleeping guitars, the toxic angels & rebels of my brother are getting ready. i can feel how the spicy scent is taking over my nose. my brother is preparing his poison. once again. his concoction of pain. his ingredients of heavy suffering. like yesterday. like the day before. like last month. like the month before. like last year. like the year before. my brother is getting ready to swallow my makeshift flesh with the silent toxicity of his spraying. my brother is getting ready to adorn my soul with the slow killer of my body. and i cannot fight the air. i cannot fight the way it imprisons my feet like bloody cells. i cannot command the way it eat my kidneys like bloody cells. i cannot. no one can fight the air the griot said. and my brother knows the air by the lens of his spraying. once again. |
Josiane Kouagheu is a journalist, writer, photographer, painter and poet from Cameroon. Her works have appeared or are forthcoming in Brittle Paper, African Writer Magazine, Kalahari Review, Frontier Poetry, Prairie Schooner, The Nomad review, Apricity Magazine, Al Dente Journal, Double Dutch Magazine, Barzakh Magazine, Up North Lit, and elsewhere.
Sylvester Kwakye
Market Day, Bantama
days like this, the sun ripens
as a furnace—it toasts melanin
of black skins
& the palette of vegetables
flaunting their freshness
on bazaar. the common adaptation
is: most bodies begin rain little sweats
to calm their glamor; fresh vegetables
begin frowning as hard against
the absurd fahrenheit— a move that
is a violation of the market price &
the truth of the best-before date.
in spots where the sun cannot see,
wo/men without sight, the lame, &
their caretakers stand worshipping
wo/men who give to the plight.
(it is unfortunate to say that is
the life of beggars here)
behind them, on that same stretch,
across the leachate-filled gutter,
in the continuously mounted tents,
some butchers (it is beautiful to
say they are all muslims)
throw their cleaver-knives against
the bodies of many livestock carcasses.
the radios, by them, play different
recitations in Arabic.
(but the truth is, they seem not to be listening
it is almost as though the loudness of the radios
keeps them focused.)
around their butchered animals is a celestial company
of houseflies, mercifully fanning all of it.
the incensed smoke puffing around the meat
doesn’t scare any spirituality out of these flies;
they are all over the tripes, & the liver
& the spillages on the table.
on the far side of wonder & shortage,
i find myself (probably some other people too
but i do not know for sure)
admiring things above my purchasing power
& gracing them with the calm shame
of bargaining…
days like this, the sun ripens
as a furnace—it toasts melanin
of black skins
& the palette of vegetables
flaunting their freshness
on bazaar. the common adaptation
is: most bodies begin rain little sweats
to calm their glamor; fresh vegetables
begin frowning as hard against
the absurd fahrenheit— a move that
is a violation of the market price &
the truth of the best-before date.
in spots where the sun cannot see,
wo/men without sight, the lame, &
their caretakers stand worshipping
wo/men who give to the plight.
(it is unfortunate to say that is
the life of beggars here)
behind them, on that same stretch,
across the leachate-filled gutter,
in the continuously mounted tents,
some butchers (it is beautiful to
say they are all muslims)
throw their cleaver-knives against
the bodies of many livestock carcasses.
the radios, by them, play different
recitations in Arabic.
(but the truth is, they seem not to be listening
it is almost as though the loudness of the radios
keeps them focused.)
around their butchered animals is a celestial company
of houseflies, mercifully fanning all of it.
the incensed smoke puffing around the meat
doesn’t scare any spirituality out of these flies;
they are all over the tripes, & the liver
& the spillages on the table.
on the far side of wonder & shortage,
i find myself (probably some other people too
but i do not know for sure)
admiring things above my purchasing power
& gracing them with the calm shame
of bargaining…
Sylvester Kwakye is a medical doctor, poet, and chef who has authored four microchapbooks of poetry. He's a reader for Rowayat & a member of the Archipelago Collective.
Justin Lacour
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Tom Eliot
i’m good at dodgeball because i’m small and thus hard to hit. Also, people tend to ignore me. Lately, i’ve been too tired to commit actual sins; i just lie in bed thinking about sinning, which is, on some level, also a sin. German perhaps has one long word for this phenomenon, like ohrwurm or earworm is the word for a song stuck in your head. “Gitarzan” is a bit of an earworm, ditto “Tubthumping.” my eyes hurt from staring at my inbox, waiting for zero to become one to become two. There should be a word for this as well, something like “wait-pain.” i think i’m going to run to Dorignac’s for some hog’s head cheese and non-alcoholic beer. Okay, i’m back. i have returned from Metairie unscathed, though now Sheryl Crow seems to have infiltrated my playlist which, to your snobbish ears, must seem the basest coin imaginable. This takes me back to working at the warehouse where the guys would pick songs based more on the hotness of the artist than individual talent. In the warehouse, the men would come and go talking of Sheryl Crow, but also grumbling against Sacajawea dollars, and rigging the security monitors to watch The Chicks’ concert with the sound off. Some say we were more free back then because we could be cruel or crueler with limited repercussions. i do not say that. i say i’m still waiting to grow up. i say a song should be a scarecrow big enough to frighten wolves, which i mean sincerely, sincere as a firefly or an apology. Thoughts towards a dating profile/on my sickbed
What ho?! i’m suffering a fever dream featuring Uma Thurman but also that grouchy care bear, though in the dream, the two are never seen together. i wonder. Is this what i really want? Some things to know about me as a potential dating partner: If i could get out of bed, i’d pick up quill and ink to scrawl Sublimity thy name is King Lear for i feel this in my heart and in my head. At last, i have the age (though not the ability) to play Lear, or at least Kent, for i am two score and seven; my stomach makes noise like the flubber car. This may be the year i try begging for sex. i am not rich in many things, but i am rich in the number of dead alligators i have seen on I-10. For just as you must leave New York before you get too hard and California before you get too soft, so you should leave Louisiana before you hit an alligator with your Prius. The most Louisiana thing about me is the time i crashed a Crown Vic in the Honey Island Swamp, famous for its eponymous cryptid, the Honey Island Swamp Monster, though this may not be an attractive factoid. i have to remind myself this is dating, not a game. A Kenner woman seeks a Metairie man. That sounds like a proverb. i am similar to a Metairie man in that i am always a little bit afraid, and the big box stores on Veterans Blvd. make me think of castration, just like Medusa’s head in Freud’s analysis. Oh, if i’d lived in Medusa’s day, i would have been kind is a nice thing to say, but probably i would’ve turned to stone like the others. i’m a good listener, though flummoxed by what to say next. Medusa is past the point where listening will help. Men need to be afraid. Am i looking for a woman to turn me to stone? She should be into revenge and pharmaceuticals, while my hobbies include reading and perhaps travel. The pebble
If you put this pebble under your pillow, you will dream of your future spouse. i’m sorry, i don’t know why i say things like that. i guess i’m old school. my life hacks include keeping a small towel in my ass pocket and going to the SpeeDee Oil in Hollygrove, where they do not make you wait nor do they try to upsell you. i can do nothing against the women mixing magic potions to make men crawl, except secretly cheer them on. It’s been so long since i’ve played Seven Minutes in Heaven and when i did, i only managed to kiss a girl on her eye. What comes after the anger stage of grief? Perhaps singing “Beast of Burden” in my father’s voice. my father’s disappointment did not last forever and this is making me a little sad. That thing growing on my neck has turned a shade darker. For Halloween, kids will go as the thing on my neck. It didn’t take an efficiency expert to tell me most of my work day is spent hugging myself while whispering fuck the police. Singing the chorus to that rockabye song does not seem to make my wife any less stressed. How could i possibly know “everything is gonna be all right”? Most days, i tumble out of the van in a cloud of bug repellent. The number of adjectives used to describe this scented candle fills me only with doubt. Still, you should take this pebble. It is peach-colored and platonic, but not meaningless for we hate some of the same things, like the way your boyfriend claims to be a master of disguise. |
Justin Lacour lives in New Orleans and edits Trampoline: A Journal of Poetry.
Rodolfo G Ledesma
Love in the Fold
I think bamboo--
how the stalks bend like a dancer and keep their place.
Missed steps slide back to rhythm,
gusts fold into the grove.
My uncle couldn’t tell
my hand gripped the edge of the table,
veins bulging with the pitch in his voice.
My answer caved in my throat.
There I learned freezing stiff,
blank-faced under older voices.
Later he pressed oranges into my hands,
the way his hands knew the creases of my palms.
All those years at the bank,
I stood behind glass,
body locking as people approached,
braced for the next in line.
Stillness takes the hand,
lets the eyes drift apart,
returns hazed from farther off.
From moments like that, we come back heads down.
Not gently.
Not sure if our steps belonged.
Love arrives already folded,
along old lines.
By blood, by habit,
by what passes unseen until it appears in us.
Some folds half-hold.
Some hide.
Many do both.
We weather through the years
as bamboo does,
each stalk bent, the grove roughened.
And what the glass cannot warp,
the hand carries it loose in parts.
I think bamboo--
how the stalks bend like a dancer and keep their place.
Missed steps slide back to rhythm,
gusts fold into the grove.
My uncle couldn’t tell
my hand gripped the edge of the table,
veins bulging with the pitch in his voice.
My answer caved in my throat.
There I learned freezing stiff,
blank-faced under older voices.
Later he pressed oranges into my hands,
the way his hands knew the creases of my palms.
All those years at the bank,
I stood behind glass,
body locking as people approached,
braced for the next in line.
Stillness takes the hand,
lets the eyes drift apart,
returns hazed from farther off.
From moments like that, we come back heads down.
Not gently.
Not sure if our steps belonged.
Love arrives already folded,
along old lines.
By blood, by habit,
by what passes unseen until it appears in us.
Some folds half-hold.
Some hide.
Many do both.
We weather through the years
as bamboo does,
each stalk bent, the grove roughened.
And what the glass cannot warp,
the hand carries it loose in parts.
Rodolfo G Ledesma teaches economics at Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines. Prior to that, he taught for several years in the U.S. and in Seoul, South Korea, where he won a Best Teacher award in 2010. He has poems published in The Raven Review, Glint, Behemoth, and Twin Bird Review, among others. He is also the author and illustrator of Volume 1 & 2 of the cartoon book A Dog’s Guide to Making It in America.
Jeff McRae
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Empty Meadow
A scrum of barns at the end
of a dirt road—farms like ours
failed every day on that thin
kingdom, ledge breaking through
like ribs of something hungry.
In the growing season, wind
blew heavily in the high field
but the house sat quiet in the lee.
Early summer. Milking time.
I walked a girl I imagined from
school through the tall grass.
A pair of leaves on the field.
We had bit parts in a vast and
slow denouement—of thirty
in that county two farms survive.
Is not that real America?
I followed the narrow path
worn into the slope, woven in
the tree line, calling the herd
alone and lonely off the hill.
A scrum of barns at the end
of a dirt road—farms like ours
failed every day on that thin
kingdom, ledge breaking through
like ribs of something hungry.
In the growing season, wind
blew heavily in the high field
but the house sat quiet in the lee.
Early summer. Milking time.
I walked a girl I imagined from
school through the tall grass.
A pair of leaves on the field.
We had bit parts in a vast and
slow denouement—of thirty
in that county two farms survive.
Is not that real America?
I followed the narrow path
worn into the slope, woven in
the tree line, calling the herd
alone and lonely off the hill.
Jeff McRae is a general news reporter for Vermont News and Media. He earned an MA in Writing from the University of New Hampshire and an MFA in Poetry from Washington University, St. Louis. His poetry has appeared in Massachusetts Review, Raleigh Review, Rattle, The Common, and elsewhere. He was nominated for the Best New Poets anthology by Antioch Review and his collection, The Kingdom Where No One Dies, was shortlisted for the 2025 Vermont Book Award in Poetry.
JK Miller
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What She Understands
We sat at Demens Landing, she in her wheelchair,
and I and my brother behind her on the park bench,
talking about her in fits and starts like the sailboats
luffing and heeling in the bay or the stalking white egret
staring long, leaning steadily, toward the surface,
then stabbing a minnow and letting it swim down
its crooked gullet. I say, I tried speaking Spanish to her.
I thought it might make her more fluent. It didn't.
My brother says: You're not going to believe it.
People have told me she talks up a storm.
She looks far off, imperious and impervious,
like the alligator we saw earlier at Boyd Hill Park,
with its long-leathered body immobile, the water
bucking below its belly, the sun dancing on its back.
We sat at Demens Landing, she in her wheelchair,
and I and my brother behind her on the park bench,
talking about her in fits and starts like the sailboats
luffing and heeling in the bay or the stalking white egret
staring long, leaning steadily, toward the surface,
then stabbing a minnow and letting it swim down
its crooked gullet. I say, I tried speaking Spanish to her.
I thought it might make her more fluent. It didn't.
My brother says: You're not going to believe it.
People have told me she talks up a storm.
She looks far off, imperious and impervious,
like the alligator we saw earlier at Boyd Hill Park,
with its long-leathered body immobile, the water
bucking below its belly, the sun dancing on its back.
JK Miller is a former third grade dual language teacher. He lives on the edge of cornfields. He is the first place winner in the modern sonnet category of the 2025 Helen Schaible International Sonnet Contest. His chapbook Bicycling Poems was published in October, 2025. A second chapbook, Rye & I was published in January, 2026. His poems have been published in many journals. In the summer of 2025 he completed a solo 1,335-mile bicycle ride from his house to his son's house to see his newborn grandson.
Kristen Park
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Wedges
I’m considering my father’s calloused hands, how they must feel while rubbing the cold sphere of a sand pear, doused in a stranger’s seawater—for his daughter, this fruit is ready to be sliced open on the family’s maple cutting board, or on the top of his mother’s headstone on the highest hill at the cemetery, toothpicks and machete beside him on the sand, and I wonder again what he must have done in his previous life to have washed up in my arms like a child, which is to say, maybe this isn’t the first time I’ve encountered those exact creases in someone’s hands, so I think—this is what it’s like to cradle your baby girl for the first time, like he must have done, once, in the hospital of our city, tracing the outline of my hands which were the size of strawberries, and I stood beside a hospital bed tracing the outline of his wrinkled hands, once, but that was three years ago now, and today I’m lying on the shore before the lifeboat leaves forever, trying to learn how to pare with a knife, such a simple thing he never let me do, because he knows his daughter’s favorite taste comes from that yellow pear grown only in certain parts of the world, like the one he grew up in, a place that should be mine but isn’t, a place he has returned to and will never leave again, like a womb. |
Kristen Park is a writer from Brooklyn and New Jersey.
Jessica Pollack
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I am at a party.
I am at a party and there are people here. There is laughter outside and also a splash and also
smoke. Someone is laughing and someone is swimming and someone is smoking. They are not
the same someones. Some ones are here but in a group.
I am not where the laughing and splashing and smoking is. I am not in the group. I am in my
room with my bed and my pillow and no splashing and no laughing and no ones.
My eyebrows are hurting. My eyebrows are small and don’t hurt except sometimes
when they get scrunched. My eyebrows are scrunching. They are scrunching and
I keep trying to unscrunch but they keep scrunching back and back. Eyebrows can’t hear
but they move like they do.
My eyebrows are moving because they hear fire alarms and danger and smoke.
You can’t hear smoke. The eyebrows are moving and hearing and the brain is not
remembering but the body is. The body knows the things they’ve done. The body
hates smoke. Smoke gets in the throat and the throat gets dry and the eyebrows scrunch.
The ears are hearing laughing but that is not what the body is hearing. The body is hearing
“so what” and “they are criminals” and “I have to do what’s best for me” and “women
aren’t taken seriously” and “I want to be on the side with the guns.” The eyebrows are
scrunching and scrunching, and the head is hurting, and I do not want to be in the group.
The group keeps being here, and I am here at my house, where I live. I want
to be here. I want them to not be here. The group is here and I am here.
The group is here and the group is my family
and they keep being here.
I am in the kitchen and they are smiling at me and talking to me. They are talking to me and
“how is your job” and “how is your cat” and “I love your outfit.” They are talking and smiling and
I am remembering. I am remembering the words they said and the words they didn't say and the
people they crunch. I am not the people they crunch but they crunch people and my eyebrows
scrunch and my eyebrows hurt and my eyes are making tears and the people keep being here.
The people keep being here and so I am stuck. We are stuck and they made us stuck.
Stuck stuck stuck. I am stuck and the lungs are stuck and the eyebrows are stuck. And the people
outside the party are stuck. They are not at the party but the body is seeing them and hearing
them. The lungs are scrunched and the people are scrunched and these nice people are maybe
not nice. I do not want them to be at the party. Something is burning. I am at a party and
something is burning.
It’s burning.
I am at a party and there are people here. There is laughter outside and also a splash and also
smoke. Someone is laughing and someone is swimming and someone is smoking. They are not
the same someones. Some ones are here but in a group.
I am not where the laughing and splashing and smoking is. I am not in the group. I am in my
room with my bed and my pillow and no splashing and no laughing and no ones.
My eyebrows are hurting. My eyebrows are small and don’t hurt except sometimes
when they get scrunched. My eyebrows are scrunching. They are scrunching and
I keep trying to unscrunch but they keep scrunching back and back. Eyebrows can’t hear
but they move like they do.
My eyebrows are moving because they hear fire alarms and danger and smoke.
You can’t hear smoke. The eyebrows are moving and hearing and the brain is not
remembering but the body is. The body knows the things they’ve done. The body
hates smoke. Smoke gets in the throat and the throat gets dry and the eyebrows scrunch.
The ears are hearing laughing but that is not what the body is hearing. The body is hearing
“so what” and “they are criminals” and “I have to do what’s best for me” and “women
aren’t taken seriously” and “I want to be on the side with the guns.” The eyebrows are
scrunching and scrunching, and the head is hurting, and I do not want to be in the group.
The group keeps being here, and I am here at my house, where I live. I want
to be here. I want them to not be here. The group is here and I am here.
The group is here and the group is my family
and they keep being here.
I am in the kitchen and they are smiling at me and talking to me. They are talking to me and
“how is your job” and “how is your cat” and “I love your outfit.” They are talking and smiling and
I am remembering. I am remembering the words they said and the words they didn't say and the
people they crunch. I am not the people they crunch but they crunch people and my eyebrows
scrunch and my eyebrows hurt and my eyes are making tears and the people keep being here.
The people keep being here and so I am stuck. We are stuck and they made us stuck.
Stuck stuck stuck. I am stuck and the lungs are stuck and the eyebrows are stuck. And the people
outside the party are stuck. They are not at the party but the body is seeing them and hearing
them. The lungs are scrunched and the people are scrunched and these nice people are maybe
not nice. I do not want them to be at the party. Something is burning. I am at a party and
something is burning.
It’s burning.
Jessica Pollack is a classical musician, educator, and collaborator who pulls from many perspectives including music, poetry, improvisation, and psychology to create personal and meaningful performances. Her debut album and book, Part of Me Is Water, interleaves music and poetry into a narrative on resilience. She is based in Florida.
Adrian S. Potter
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- Poem about Identity that Identifies as an Outline
- I. Introduction
- A. Start with I
- 1. Always start with I
- 2. Followed by a period
- 3. Adhering to Harvard Outline Format
- B. Formats rarely yield insight
- 1. However, identity does begin with I
- a. I can be the subject of a sentence
- b. While me is labeled as an object
- 2. So, say I when you are the person acting
- 3. And use me if any action is done to you
- C. I maintain a love/hate relationship with me
- 1. Anyone can make black and white statements
- 2. But it takes audacity to explore
- 3. The gray zones in between
- II. Masculinity Becomes a Lifelong Struggle
- A. It remains a man’s instinctive alchemy
- 1. To transform shame into swagger
- 2. And to praise the congregation
- 3. Worshipping faithfully inside
- 4. The Church of Slim Chances
- B. There are countless ways to get lost
- 1. In the effort to be found
- 2. To discover yourself
- 3. Hollowed out
- a. By a particular form of decay
- b. Gnawing out enough space
- c. For doubt to burrow inside
- C. Like chain smokers loitering outside
- 1. Of buildings, I keep asking
- 2. Other people for a light
- 3. To quell the darkness within
- a. That, like a seed, sprouts
- b. Within the pit of my belly
- III. To Be Black in America
- A. Is to keep an exit strategy
- 1. Tucked beneath your tongue
- 2. Straddle contradictions
- 3. And discover meaning
- 4. Without definition
- B. Like words on a page, stand out
- 1. In white spaces
- 2. Racism is a migraine
- 3. That never fades
- a. So, keep a poker face
- b. Through the pain
- C. Identity evolves into a mere byproduct
- 1. Of society’s judgmental glare
- 2. When the world makes you its prey
- 3. Become a hunter
- IV. Without Clear Vision
- A. The line separating villains from victims
- 1. Looks blurred
- 2. How does it feel to be
- 3. Diagnosed as the problem
- B. Unsolvable, with more unknowns
- 1. Than valid equations
- 2. An underdetermined system
- a. Not enough evidence
- b. To decipher solutions
- 3. Invalidated, but still, you stand
- C. Lean into the anonymity assigned to you
- 1. At birth, fold carefully into
- 2. The tiniest version of yourself
- 3. The creases will remain visible
- 4. After you have unfolded
- V. Conclusion
- A. Search for the idea of redemption
- 1. Like a panicked mother
- 2. Hunting for a missing child
- B. Scrape yourself up from a lifetime
- 1. Of absorbing sucker punches
- 2. Identity gets honed there, aching
- a. While laying crumpled
- b. On the ground
- c. Between love and loss
- C. Contrasted fates on the same page
- 1. Like text embossed on paper
- 2. Entwined, fingers laced together
- 3. In silent prayer for:
- a. Mercy
- b. Meaning
- c. Change
Adrian S. Potter humbly lives in Minnesota on the traditional, ancestral, and contemporary lands of the Dakota people. When he’s not busy silently judging your beer selection and record collection, he’s talking too much or writing poetry and prose. His work has appeared in over 300 literary journals, magazines, and websites. Potter is the author of four collections of poetry/prose/hybrid work, including his most recent, The Blues Handbook (Thirty West Publishing).
Visit him online at http://adrianspotter.com/
Visit him online at http://adrianspotter.com/
Jordan Ranft
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I am the Don Quixote of Dying Suddenly
That’s when I assumed an ultimate political stance and died right there in my Del Taco booth seat, mine because I claimed it, beans disheveled and rice untouched. It was like when Paris felled Achilles. I mean, I didn’t have a sword, blade hunched or thick in the middle, hilt wrapped in sweat-softened leather. There wasn’t an arrow either. Now that you mention it, it was more like an American dipshit dying unremarkably on a hard-plastic bench. But that’s politics for you! That’s Gabort and Postman waiting to beat the brakes off me at the gates of hell! As I left myself, but before I was somewhere else, I smelled wild chives growing at the fringe of the parking lot, thick green shoots, blades bunched in fives and sixes wafting a skunked salt that sticks in the back of the throat. We are too far from mountains for snowmelt; all the same I saw a glassy peak and trickling fingers of water down beneath boulders into creeks threading into larger streams cutting paths of stone toward the jeweled Pacific; parts lost to wind, heat, and culvert. Perhaps a molecule from some ancient glacier is responsible for feeding these defiant onions clustered at the edge of the asphalt. I’m sorry I suggested I was like Achilles. I think it's for the best that no one remembers me. Vertical Divider
|
Deus Ex
Either God or a ghost descended at just the right moment to save our hero. The machine was a contraption of pulleys and rope, rigged to lower Zeus (or spirit) onstage. I always imagined a figurative machine, the static mechanics of narrative, God and death moving through them like electricity, much like how the soul shifts through the meat of a body. A piece of God is trapped inside me. I’d like it if we die and a part of us persists, not like an echo, but a new dimensional stem branching into unseen pockets. This body, a temporary delight, a coin dropped into the slot of a plastic horse. Just a child, distracted until what tends for me returns to pluck me up in its arms. I’d have to be the hero of a story if I expect to be saved. Is it reckless to believe in miracles? I know they call it God’s country, but I don’t think Texans believe in miracles, at least not the ex-felon who showed me the modified machine gun behind the fake wall in his gun safe. He makes his own ghosts, dreams of swooping down and turning everyone to God. This machine is literal. It’s waiting in the wings. |
Jordan Ranft is a Best of the Net and Pushcart-nominated poet. He placed third at the 2015 National Poetry Slam representing Team Berkeley. His chapbook, Said The Worms, was published by Wrong Publishing in 2023. His work appears or is forthcoming in Poetry Online, Boulevard, Frontier Poetry, Passages North, and others. He lives in Northern California, where he works as a therapist.
henry 7. reneau, jr.
AUTHOR PHOTO by MERCEDES HERRERA
so small , the space between us
for John Ortiz-Hutson
we know
who
we
are
in reflection , as our eyes pass judgment
, other eyes
passing
over
us
, but so afraid to see
. in praise , or denigration , each
to their own sixth degree
of separation
. we only see
what
we’ve been taught to see
, believe we see , most often
avoiding another’s eyes
. the willful disassociation
that clouds first impression . the shiny , compact technology
attempting to make conversation , like prisoners of rote
with no new instructions
. bad to worse to change is gonna’ come
. . . most often , transgression
, that our minds conceive for hands
rarely opened in empathy
& charity , most often nil , a vicious fist of malice
, insecurity or self-serving acquisition
ever-ready with false platitudes
: have a nice day . you have
our condolences
our thoughts & prayers
. our church will pray for you
. . . that announces
who
we
are
in the eyes of another
. we say what we want to see
, like social pressure
performing a miracle just beyond our grasp
, a social ass-/similation
to stay in good grace
: i’m sorry , when humans need
an 18 inches of personal space
. all the status quo mute
to drive each other
away
into anonymous isolation , a disconnection
of polite society
. we look at one another , not with our eyes
but with our doubts
& fears . we know
who
we
are
as reflection , a me , unlike you .
for John Ortiz-Hutson
we know
who
we
are
in reflection , as our eyes pass judgment
, other eyes
passing
over
us
, but so afraid to see
. in praise , or denigration , each
to their own sixth degree
of separation
. we only see
what
we’ve been taught to see
, believe we see , most often
avoiding another’s eyes
. the willful disassociation
that clouds first impression . the shiny , compact technology
attempting to make conversation , like prisoners of rote
with no new instructions
. bad to worse to change is gonna’ come
. . . most often , transgression
, that our minds conceive for hands
rarely opened in empathy
& charity , most often nil , a vicious fist of malice
, insecurity or self-serving acquisition
ever-ready with false platitudes
: have a nice day . you have
our condolences
our thoughts & prayers
. our church will pray for you
. . . that announces
who
we
are
in the eyes of another
. we say what we want to see
, like social pressure
performing a miracle just beyond our grasp
, a social ass-/similation
to stay in good grace
: i’m sorry , when humans need
an 18 inches of personal space
. all the status quo mute
to drive each other
away
into anonymous isolation , a disconnection
of polite society
. we look at one another , not with our eyes
but with our doubts
& fears . we know
who
we
are
as reflection , a me , unlike you .
henry 7. reneau, jr. writes words of conflagration to awaken the world ablaze, an inferno of free verse illuminated by his affinity for disobedience and a barbwired conviction that prequels the spontaneous combustion that blazes from his heart, phoenix-flared red and gold, like a discharged bullet that commits a felony every day, exploding through change is gonna come to implement the fire next time. His work is published in TriQuarterly; Prairie Schooner, Notre Dame Review; Punt Volat; The Ana; and Oyster River Pages.
Cecilia Savala
Self Portrait as Hinge Profile
What are you looking for?
I dress too young for my age.
Where are you from?
A fenced-in yard. An above-ground pool. A gravel road.
What do you do? Do you like your job?
My step-mother says I should write a children’s book;
she can’t believe I teach in shorts.
Are you close with your family?
Pick a number between 10 minutes and 2200 miles.
Are you more likely to be 15 minutes early or 15 minutes late?
Parents shouldn’t pierce or baptize their babies.
What do you sing in the shower?
I prefer to put more on the line. My hobbies include
requesting letters of recommendation, fishing
for typology, organizing my running shoes by color…
Are you a morning person or a night person?
I run intervals, practice touch typing.
What’s your rabbit-hole topic?
The house always wins.
How do you achieve balance?
Monday: Run/gym (lower)
Tuesday: Walk/yoga
Wednesday: Run/gym (upper)
Thursday: Walk/yoga
Friday: Walk/gym (lower)
Saturday: Run/gym (upper)
Sunday: Walk/yoga
What’s the best Starburst flavor?
Citrus fruits and berries are calorically comparable.
Do you have any dietary restrictions?
I have a spreadsheet for everything.
Would you rather text or call? How do you feel about audio messages?
Meditation, journaling, a strict sleep schedule.
What’s the last tv show you binged?
An acquaintance once asked if I budget via spreadsheet.
What kind of music do you listen to?
Over-achievement is my drug of choice.
What’s in your Notes app?
How many languages do you speak?
Fitness/poetry/pedagogy/self care
How are your books organized? How many bookshelves do you own?
Every teacher I’ve ever had has sung Simon & Garfunkel’s Cecilia to me.
My favorite version is a bluesy cover by Morgan James.
Does genre exist?
Are you the music or the lyrics?
I haven’t dated seriously in years.
I seriously haven’t dated in years.
Seriously, I haven’t dated in years.
What are you looking for?
I dress too young for my age.
Where are you from?
A fenced-in yard. An above-ground pool. A gravel road.
What do you do? Do you like your job?
My step-mother says I should write a children’s book;
she can’t believe I teach in shorts.
Are you close with your family?
Pick a number between 10 minutes and 2200 miles.
Are you more likely to be 15 minutes early or 15 minutes late?
Parents shouldn’t pierce or baptize their babies.
What do you sing in the shower?
I prefer to put more on the line. My hobbies include
requesting letters of recommendation, fishing
for typology, organizing my running shoes by color…
Are you a morning person or a night person?
I run intervals, practice touch typing.
What’s your rabbit-hole topic?
The house always wins.
How do you achieve balance?
Monday: Run/gym (lower)
Tuesday: Walk/yoga
Wednesday: Run/gym (upper)
Thursday: Walk/yoga
Friday: Walk/gym (lower)
Saturday: Run/gym (upper)
Sunday: Walk/yoga
What’s the best Starburst flavor?
Citrus fruits and berries are calorically comparable.
Do you have any dietary restrictions?
I have a spreadsheet for everything.
Would you rather text or call? How do you feel about audio messages?
Meditation, journaling, a strict sleep schedule.
What’s the last tv show you binged?
An acquaintance once asked if I budget via spreadsheet.
What kind of music do you listen to?
Over-achievement is my drug of choice.
What’s in your Notes app?
- That weird age where pot and Gaviscon coexist.
- Large appliances as gifts.
- A dinner party with soup.
How many languages do you speak?
Fitness/poetry/pedagogy/self care
How are your books organized? How many bookshelves do you own?
Every teacher I’ve ever had has sung Simon & Garfunkel’s Cecilia to me.
My favorite version is a bluesy cover by Morgan James.
Does genre exist?
- A drinking party with writing games.
Are you the music or the lyrics?
I haven’t dated seriously in years.
I seriously haven’t dated in years.
Seriously, I haven’t dated in years.
Cecilia Savala (she/her) is a Latinx poet, teacher, and mom. She is a morning person, a cat person, a writing teacher at ASU, and the Virginia G. Piper Fellow-in-Residence. Her work can be found in Acentos Review, The Boiler, and Poetry South, among others.
Richard Allen Taylor
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|
|
Dear Father
Father sounds so formal. I always called you Dad, it’s just that you’ve been gone for half my life. Dad hardly covers the gap. Two more years and I’ll outlive you. Not because of anything smart I did. Remember what Mickey Mantle said? If I’d known I was gonna live this long, I would have taken better care of myself. I haven’t written lately. I wanted you to know I’ve finally come around to your views about FDR. You were right. A rich man, he stood up for the little guy. Nothing like the jerk we have now. The other thing I wanted to tell you is the pig who gave up his heart valve for your failed surgery didn’t really appear to you in the hospital room. You stared at a spot on the wall and said, That’s a fine-looking hog. Your last words to me. We figured the drugs they gave you triggered some kind of vision. That was just after I said my last words to you-- See you in the recovery room, Dad. Vertical Divider
|
Ways to Say Goodbye
The mouth goodbye. Hear the portmanteau derived from God be with ye, clipped and slurred over centuries as it passed through God b’wye on the way to goodbye. The hand goodbye likely began with mothers who taught their children to wiggle fingers for both hi and bye. From there, the gesture evolved to wrist flap, wave, onward to gladiatorial bump, fist to chest. The foot goodbye, at first a furtive pointing of toes toward the door, sidled into the walk-away, at times stomping or shuffling in anger or resignation, accompanied by the necessary turning of the back, unless backing away with sword drawn. The ghost goodbye, so well-suited for self-disappearances and estrangements, happens without a word or warning of any kind. The thousand-yard goodbye may come with a nod, like the parting glance of one who has already said all there is to say, or the blank face of the refugee, a suitcase in each hand. Even dogs understand this look. The goodbye of dying, not as final as it seems, drops like a pebble in a pond. Ripples spread in all directions, ever fading, never gone. The cataclysm goodbye sweeps past. Black holes, exploding stars ruin everything. But wait, there’s a last dandelion to be puffed, seeds to disperse. Hello. The match that lights the next universe. |
Richard Allen Taylor is the author of Geography of One, his fifth poetry collection from Main Street Rag (2026), built around themes of being a widower, adapting to the single life, and the collisions between aloneness and independence. His work has appeared in many publications including Aeolian Harp, Tar River Poetry, and Sheila-Na-Gig. Winner of the Passionfruit Poetry Prize 2025, Taylor is a multiple Pushcart Prize nominee and a founding editor emeritus of Kakalak Anthology of Poetry and Art.
Chimezie Umeoka
Thieves
I remember the silence of the clear bells ringing across the darkness of the city.
I still had the taste of Oha soup in my mouth, reading Ruyard Kipling
while my brother played guitar in the passageway, the soft Rastafarian sound
coming to me in melodic wisps. The yellow bulbs were vibrant with their electric-powered tissue,.
Outside, termites of the new rain fluttered against the lights with the impermanence of their wings.
The night was deep with the slumber of the neighborhood, even the man and his wife
who exchanged nuclear blows to each other’s face were cradled together, from the window
of their room, with their baby nestled in the cave of their lain bodies.
The boots they marched were like petals of the night wind, and we did not know,
did not understand, what did third-world neighborhoods have that thieves wanted?
They burst the door against my brother and his guitar. The music drowned, the orchestra
fell from their seats, and my brother let out a scream that tumbled through the flat,
waking our parents from their anniversary bed of love. Thieves! Thieves! Thieves!
Who loves to be called by their nicknames in such manner? They leveled the gun
to my brother’s face, and led him into the darkness of our passage, towards the room--
I was invincible where I sat, lost in the wild of Kipling’s Jungle Book. The darkness
hid me in its branches and I watched in fear, as my brother who always did the right thing
led them into the room where my mother and my father were already knelt, announcing
every part of the room where money had been stowed away. Your god is whoever has the power
to subdue you. We worshipped the thieves that night. Families awoke in the distance
and joined in the prayers. The landlord’s gun was taken before he could use it.
The machete was used to slice the hand of the youth who wielded it, the dogs
barked away their voices. We waited for the vigilante but they never came. The thieves
did all they had come to do, packed the poverty of families into their rich bags, and left.
By morning we counted our valuables and realized that the only thing they didn’t steal was our lives.
I remember the silence of the clear bells ringing across the darkness of the city.
I still had the taste of Oha soup in my mouth, reading Ruyard Kipling
while my brother played guitar in the passageway, the soft Rastafarian sound
coming to me in melodic wisps. The yellow bulbs were vibrant with their electric-powered tissue,.
Outside, termites of the new rain fluttered against the lights with the impermanence of their wings.
The night was deep with the slumber of the neighborhood, even the man and his wife
who exchanged nuclear blows to each other’s face were cradled together, from the window
of their room, with their baby nestled in the cave of their lain bodies.
The boots they marched were like petals of the night wind, and we did not know,
did not understand, what did third-world neighborhoods have that thieves wanted?
They burst the door against my brother and his guitar. The music drowned, the orchestra
fell from their seats, and my brother let out a scream that tumbled through the flat,
waking our parents from their anniversary bed of love. Thieves! Thieves! Thieves!
Who loves to be called by their nicknames in such manner? They leveled the gun
to my brother’s face, and led him into the darkness of our passage, towards the room--
I was invincible where I sat, lost in the wild of Kipling’s Jungle Book. The darkness
hid me in its branches and I watched in fear, as my brother who always did the right thing
led them into the room where my mother and my father were already knelt, announcing
every part of the room where money had been stowed away. Your god is whoever has the power
to subdue you. We worshipped the thieves that night. Families awoke in the distance
and joined in the prayers. The landlord’s gun was taken before he could use it.
The machete was used to slice the hand of the youth who wielded it, the dogs
barked away their voices. We waited for the vigilante but they never came. The thieves
did all they had come to do, packed the poverty of families into their rich bags, and left.
By morning we counted our valuables and realized that the only thing they didn’t steal was our lives.
Chimezie Umeoka is a writer from Nigeria. He has appeared or has work forthcoming in journals including Lolwe, PRISM International, Variant Literature, Brittle Paper, and The Journal of African Youth Literature. An English and Literary Studies major at the University of Nigeria, he has been a custodian of The Writers’ Community, Nsukka and has edited the first student journal in West Africa, The Muse Journal.
Alex Rainey Ward
bull god
it’s May 14 in Istanbul
may time not move any further
somebody find a doorstop, a paper weight
somebody find an anchor
heavy enough to hold down the Sea of Marmara
somebody find a clock and break it
somebody smash an hourglass
i lean out the window high above Beydagi Sokak
to look at the BİM, the Şok
my two happiest grocery stores that sell trifles and rotten fruit
the floors are dirty the help is surly the vegetables are moldy
but every second, because it’s Istanbul, i’m
pinching myself, it’s too good
every rotten cabbage is fuller of life than all my days
i lean out to listen to the joy of the Alpine Swifts
and there’s a strange woman sitting darkly in a doorway
smoking, she just keeps smoking
i’m always so happy when i wake again in Istanbul
it reminds me of waking in Alabama
everything’s run-down, cracked, water stained, saggy, creaky
but unlike Alabama
i’m expecting any moment to hear the voice of the bull god
shaking Istanbul to the ground
is there a story about some brave, clever gypsy boy
who charms the bull with his zurna and puts a gold ring in its
nose
the bull is tame and gentle when the gypsy boy plays
for now the bull god’s sleeping
the Moda trolley is running
the çay bahçeleri are full of pensive old men
a swollen blood moon is rising from the Bosporus
it’s May 14 in Istanbul
may time not move any further
somebody find a doorstop, a paper weight
somebody find an anchor
heavy enough to hold down the Sea of Marmara
somebody find a clock and break it
somebody smash an hourglass
i lean out the window high above Beydagi Sokak
to look at the BİM, the Şok
my two happiest grocery stores that sell trifles and rotten fruit
the floors are dirty the help is surly the vegetables are moldy
but every second, because it’s Istanbul, i’m
pinching myself, it’s too good
every rotten cabbage is fuller of life than all my days
i lean out to listen to the joy of the Alpine Swifts
and there’s a strange woman sitting darkly in a doorway
smoking, she just keeps smoking
i’m always so happy when i wake again in Istanbul
it reminds me of waking in Alabama
everything’s run-down, cracked, water stained, saggy, creaky
but unlike Alabama
i’m expecting any moment to hear the voice of the bull god
shaking Istanbul to the ground
is there a story about some brave, clever gypsy boy
who charms the bull with his zurna and puts a gold ring in its
nose
the bull is tame and gentle when the gypsy boy plays
for now the bull god’s sleeping
the Moda trolley is running
the çay bahçeleri are full of pensive old men
a swollen blood moon is rising from the Bosporus
Alex Rainey Ward is a differently-abled poet, songwriter and novelist who spends as much time in Istanbul as he can. He currently has poems in The Beatnik Cowboy, 100subtexts, and Ginosko Literary Journal. He is currently living in Minneapolis.
Heather Wright
The Firepit
My grandmother would say smoke follows beauty
but no seat is safe from southern politics.
In the scent of 2 am and bourbon
I summon no rhetorical questions.
“The Dropkick Murphys are fucking liberal.”
But the Drive-by Truckers are okay.
Once, my aunt called me a paradox
a two-headed woman because you’re never
more southern than when you leave.
Down here, the embers grow orange and cavernous
and adding fresh pine just stokes the flames.
Smoke billows and I can’t get out of the way.
As a child I was flattered, now my eyes tear
and my hair stinks. They slur something like
“shut up and sing,” and their voices are so strange
I don’t understand them, or I’ve forgotten how.
My grandmother would say smoke follows beauty
but no seat is safe from southern politics.
In the scent of 2 am and bourbon
I summon no rhetorical questions.
“The Dropkick Murphys are fucking liberal.”
But the Drive-by Truckers are okay.
Once, my aunt called me a paradox
a two-headed woman because you’re never
more southern than when you leave.
Down here, the embers grow orange and cavernous
and adding fresh pine just stokes the flames.
Smoke billows and I can’t get out of the way.
As a child I was flattered, now my eyes tear
and my hair stinks. They slur something like
“shut up and sing,” and their voices are so strange
I don’t understand them, or I’ve forgotten how.
Editor's note: an earlier version of this poem was included in the author's 2023 thesis at Salem State University
Heather Wright was raised in the U.S. South and now lives on the North Shore of Boston. After thirty years as a manicurist, Heather returned to the classroom in 2020, earning an M.A. in English Literature from Salem State University. In 2025, she graduated from Boston University with an M.F.A. in Poetry. Heather now teaches writing and studies working-class rhetorics as a Ph.D. student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her writing appears in Molecule, The Brooklyn Rail, and The Gloucester 400+ Project.
Beste Yılmaz
back when the empire hadn’t eaten my sister
I, strangely, love this figure of a girl standing under
an extravagant new year’s arch, dark lipstick and hands
crossed formally as if waiting in line for a visa interview.
she will lose half her heart to an empire that eats away
at lands of little might, she will bite each upper arm
she finds until someone bites her back. strangely, I
love, strangely, I clutch at my heart and complete the act,
weep folded in half. I want it fast-forwarded, I want it back.
the girl was a good wife with her hair dyed red, with the
unseasonly jacket you hate. alas, she stepped on her own
skirt and undressed herself halfway when the first fireworks
started going off. she got some help, made conversation
with the green birds, questioned if invasiveness was something
she should be worried about, like quicksand, or brown bears.
she answered her own question: no, no. fret not from love. love
strangely, looking back at an accordion of moments from bitter past
now distorted with many dreams of broken and hastily patched
places, love strangely, looking forward to the version of the girl
with longer hair, ferocious callouses, new best friends,
new ways of accepting touch. love strangely in january.
twist a wish as if raw pasta.
I, strangely, love this figure of a girl standing under
an extravagant new year’s arch, dark lipstick and hands
crossed formally as if waiting in line for a visa interview.
she will lose half her heart to an empire that eats away
at lands of little might, she will bite each upper arm
she finds until someone bites her back. strangely, I
love, strangely, I clutch at my heart and complete the act,
weep folded in half. I want it fast-forwarded, I want it back.
the girl was a good wife with her hair dyed red, with the
unseasonly jacket you hate. alas, she stepped on her own
skirt and undressed herself halfway when the first fireworks
started going off. she got some help, made conversation
with the green birds, questioned if invasiveness was something
she should be worried about, like quicksand, or brown bears.
she answered her own question: no, no. fret not from love. love
strangely, looking back at an accordion of moments from bitter past
now distorted with many dreams of broken and hastily patched
places, love strangely, looking forward to the version of the girl
with longer hair, ferocious callouses, new best friends,
new ways of accepting touch. love strangely in january.
twist a wish as if raw pasta.
Born in 2004, Beste Yılmaz is an emerging writer from Istanbul. Her work appears or is forthcoming in ANMLY, Third Coast, Flyway Journal, Molecule Magazine, and elsewhere. In 2023, she graduated from Robert College where she received the Halide Edip Adıvar Prize in Literature. She has won prizes for her poetry and fiction at Koç Schools and the Tanpınar Contest. She is currently an undergraduate student at Boğaziçi University where she is president of the literature club.
Angelique Zobitz
What Remains
a ghazal
Yaya taught me salt remembers every river, every shimmer and sliver. We are still here.
The sea keeps count in brine and bone, naming us, claiming us—still here.
John Peter vanished into distance, rearview full of weather.
The pothole widened. The road endured. We are still here.
My daughter sleeps, croissant crumbs and phone uncharged on her blanket.
Morning gathers and glimmers around her mouth. We are still here.
The vixen slips beneath the broken fence at dawn—
all tendon and tension, hunger and rust-colored prayer. Still here.
At the lake, dragonflies stitch blue fire across the water.
Clouds loosen whole countries from grief, drifting and lifting. We are still here.
The women shelling butter beans hum the storm into evening.
Nobody sings the words aloud. The song is still here.
I have mistaken wreckage for devotion, absence for shelter.
Still the body blooms and brightens toward wanting. Still here.
Poem not yet finished. Salt on the tongue. Light in the wound.
What survives becomes the slow, low sweetness. We are still here.
Gather what remains.
The mothers, the fox, the girl, the river—still here.
a ghazal
Yaya taught me salt remembers every river, every shimmer and sliver. We are still here.
The sea keeps count in brine and bone, naming us, claiming us—still here.
John Peter vanished into distance, rearview full of weather.
The pothole widened. The road endured. We are still here.
My daughter sleeps, croissant crumbs and phone uncharged on her blanket.
Morning gathers and glimmers around her mouth. We are still here.
The vixen slips beneath the broken fence at dawn—
all tendon and tension, hunger and rust-colored prayer. Still here.
At the lake, dragonflies stitch blue fire across the water.
Clouds loosen whole countries from grief, drifting and lifting. We are still here.
The women shelling butter beans hum the storm into evening.
Nobody sings the words aloud. The song is still here.
I have mistaken wreckage for devotion, absence for shelter.
Still the body blooms and brightens toward wanting. Still here.
Poem not yet finished. Salt on the tongue. Light in the wound.
What survives becomes the slow, low sweetness. We are still here.
Gather what remains.
The mothers, the fox, the girl, the river—still here.
Angelique Zobitz is the author of Seraphim (CavanKerry Press, 2024), Love Letters to the Revolution (American Poetry Journal, 2020), and Burn Down Your House (Milk & Cake Press, 2021). Her work has appeared in The Journal, Obsidian, The Penn Review, The Texas Review, The Midwest Quarterly, Sugar House Review, About Place Journal, and elsewhere. She has been a finalist for the Jake Adam York Prize, the Berkshire Prize, the St. Lawrence Book Award, and the Georgia Poetry Prize.