by Chad Knuth Aubade for a Friend My friend stands in his kitchen peeling boiled eggs Apologizing profusely for the strength of his own hands I tell him it’s okay—I will eat the mangled ones Tell him I’m used to eating ugly things Be it wilting lettuces or sprouting spuds Be it kernels in my […]
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by Parker Logan God Loves Hair And spit, plenty of it, as I tilt my head Back and you keep your thumb on myChin, forcing my mouth wide as your fingers Drift down my throat, my cheeksExtra red from the slap you just issued, and Fuck, it’s so hot to get topped by aGirl, though I like it […]
by Gordon Taylor Stone Fruit My younger lover in vintage selvedge jeans and orange hoodie, wipes our kitchen counter. Orange is my favouritecolour. Can the cluster of rotting tangerines coated with a skin of flies in the acacia bowleffuse a sweet flavour? Should I retire from drink in this middle middle age? The answer: juice. I don’t mean sex. Or I do. I’m […]
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Swan Queens
by Bel Mercado Swan Queens Content Warning: Graphic depiction of eating disorders Elena set her laptop on the rim of her sink so she could simultaneously look at her reflection and the image of me tucked into the corner of the screen. The overhead light, yellow, buzzing, cast dramatic shadows under her cheekbones and collarbones, […]
by Erika Wright Doomsday Clock, December 1987 kitchen table, beside a bay window / winter in southeast Texas /dark at dinnertime / my parents / keep the news on / Dan Rather / announces/ time can move/ in reverse/ doomsday clock / sets back3 minutes to midnight / mutually assured destruction avoided/ my family in […]
by Matthew Young Grant Chemidlin is the author of What We Lost in the Swamp (Central Avenue Poetry, 2023), a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry. His newest collection, In the Middle of a Better World, will be published by Central Avenue Poetry in February 2026. Recent poems can be found in The […]
by Ella Flores Mural of Market Day in Rainy Season Already the bluebirds have pushed their young from tangled nests of twine & telephone wire. Already the plastic canopies overlap stalls within stalls & within one, a steel hook creaks a pig’s swaying head, snout filled with the smoke of its own taste buds. Already […]
After Philip Levine by Maria McLeod The Fallow Deer of Belle Isle, 1983 After Philip Levine The fallow deer of Belle Isledo not appearin Phil Levine’s poemabout his nighttime swimin the Detroit Riverwith the Polish girl.But I am there, on a different planeof time, which I’ve learnedis how the past becomes the presentin the passenger […]
by Craig Seip With My Teeth When your mother tells you she thinks she might begay because she’snever gotten wetfor your dad, there opens this long,slowly bending arc, that separates the child you had been,and who you are now. We sit in the living room, air thick with Merit 100s’ woody scent,TV droning, you complain about dad, hint at divorce,and I preen you, […]
by Cora Schipa Cliffside From the top I’m pink-scalped,cowlicked, feather-fine. Keen to fluff,split-ended. I half-dream digging a holein my left temple, reeling outmigraine’s scale-flash of pain.Blot of ethanol and a new suitrender me numb-skulled, hard-headed,done wrong, wrongdoing, evil-spun,bloodthirsty, sacrosanct. Downright easy. Uniform-clad, on the clock, I’m doll-eyedpixie dreamboat at your service,your very own hot-blooded bombshell […]
by Sarah Brockhaus Girl Night Today the body is just a word I made up in my sleep: a dream I almost wakeremembering, the sheen stumbling away until I don’t make sense: mind a mountain of images and Ican’t identify a single object. Like this, pain distorts body until I can’t decipher leg from back from stomach, nospecificity left […]
by Trinity Richardson Ode to the American Flagfish My own bulldog-fish guarding me from quantifiable vortex-time (for the time being) 24/7 swimmer, algae eater, feisty, nipping summer breeder Pursed fish-lips press hard against it I mean, tall glass of water, I mean, them’s-fightin’-words reflection of Liberty Bell c u r v e s Strawberry popping pearl acid reflux slick oyster-tongue remembers Double O Seven warm […]
by Dena Pruett The Adults are Talking She came to room 6303 first, ignoring the light, taking off her jacket then shirt followed by pants and socks. Each item snapped outward to remove even the hint of a wrinkle and folded flat in a neat pile on the only chair, a shabby affair with loose […]
by Angela Tharpe Lover T is the Whitest Boy I’ve Ever Kissed & something about it feels precarious, like at any moment he might see my bonnet the care it takes to put it on, the patience & he will understand that he is underprepared. Lover T owns a house. He makes kombucha from scratch. […]
by Liz Kicak Dream Theory: Losing Teeth II spit teeth into my hands, until my hands overflow.I spit teeth into my hands like apple seeds.Apples so filled with seeds my hands overflow So I stuff teeth in my pockets until my pockets overflow.I stuff teeth in my pockets like pearls dropped from a strand.Like pearls […]
by Mary Beth Becker Devotional Sing now of the red sentence -finisher throned in my middle shaking with want Sing of clover bloom round like the green moons dan- -gling in June from the cottonwoods pearly gate keeper call my song a tithe to your holies you bead of the joy- ful mysteries body rosary marble she flicks and licks until an organ plays and wind gathers beneath us relinquishment how the bee falls lost in the snap -dragon drunk […]
by Tracy Dubin Remember Me Through Non Sequiturs I’ve Written into My Cell Phone Notes App While in Love Is it my phone or your phone? Which of us is gloriously fucking it up now. A lot has happened since we last spoke. I fell in love with someone who wasn’t you, and I’m also […]
by Jenny Boyar The United Skies of Purple Rain The rain itself will never be purple. Nor will the sky be – at least not in the moment when the world turns overcast, then darkens into downpour. Overcast days never turned me on. Purple’s emergence will be dependent on the rain’s end and even then, on the […]
by Regina Olga Mullen Aftertaste The guests stood up from the table without saying goodbye, and I was left looking at the half-moon of onion still in the fruit bowl, sliced down the middle and purple as a bruise, its white insides exposed and sweating a little in the heat. It wasn’t even wrapped in plastic; […]
by Elizabeth Fogle Breast Reconstruction and Other Bedtime Stories By graduated increments, my body makes roomin saline and scar tissueand the slow geometry of waiting as nerves sparkin vague alarm, something like déjà vu as the plastic expander folds, wedged between muscle and bone,mimicking a flightless wingbuilt out of snow shovelsand tucked all wrong. As I chase sleep on my preferred […]
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Baby Blue
by Elizabeth Spano Baby Blue You hold the newborn baby, and you think, don’t drop the baby, don’t drop the baby. You fear you’ll temporarily lose your mind and drop the baby on purpose. You test your grip and reassure yourself that you are sane, that you are fully capable of supporting this baby in […]
by Trinity Richardson Heretic Genesis I have always feared birth—blasphemous something-from-nothing,soft head pushed through torn skin,the widening, the splittingfor the sake of anotherbecause it’s different when they’re yoursas if the ownership makes the difference My father choked my mother when she was pregnant with me,or gently placed his hands around her neck,or did absolutely nothing […]
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Strumming Some Hums
by Clint Martin Strumming Some Hums “But it isn’t Easy,” said Pooh to himself, as he looked at what had once been Owl’s House. “Because Poetry and Hums aren’t things which you get, they’re things which get you. And all you can do is to go where they can find you.” – A.A. Milne * Sitting […]
by Anna Kegler Once, my sister and I went night snorkeling on vacation Our guide picked us up just after sunset. As he turned the car onto an unlit dirt road, I realized nobody knew we were there. We’d surely be blamed when our strangled bodies were found. How stupid they’d say we’d been. I […]
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THE FINAL SHEDDING
by Alex Bortell THE FINAL SHEDDING I hold yourhead underwater. An alibifor cumulus.Your electric currentcurtained. I castyou infeathers.Saintof the pocked lung.A sturgeonslithers along yourmesial. Wetting memory’stongue. Yougrip the soiled edgeof fiction and Iwatch theflood. Measuring distancebetween canyons. Loosening ourborders.We stopcounting hairpricking the dampfields ofstomach.Inspecting a fossilof someother body’sbetrayal. Hungeris a languageI am always learning. Identifiable […]
by Rebecca Greenes Gearhart The Retention Pond 1. Sixteen years ago, my brother Ethan was swallowed by a retention pond. After that, my mother had five of us kids left. The high school closed the same year. I was in ninth grade. Now my mother and I spend most of our time hiding in our […]
by Matthew Baker Orientation: A Zuihitsu I lie on the couch, feet raised toward the arm rest, a book propped againstmy chest. I lie as the sun burnishes the carpet a beige-gold hue in the afternoon.My body a compass needle. Each direction lying in wait: “Orientation” comes originally from the French verborienter. It suggests the […]
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