by Beth Suter Night-blooming jasminesuffuses the sleepless dark— scent of the unseen, a shiver in the belly, my forever-fishswimming a shoreless womb. Though my son surfaced, a tremor remains, his arrivalopened a door I can’t close— the door of my […]
Category: Issue 29
by Ash Good Accessible File Ash Good (they/them) is a queer, non-binary poet, designer & activist in Portland, Ore. They are cofounding editor at First Matter Press (501c3 nonprofit) & a reader for Frontier Poetry. Ash’s newest collection, us clumsy gods, is forthcoming from What Books Press in 2022. Poems recently appear in Voicemail Poems, Cathexis, Willawaw Journal & others. Diamante […]
Don’t worry, I promised my mother,I’ll finish the room. She lay in the hospice bed,her chest spongy with cancer.She had me get the scrapof paper from her purse, her notes:the carpet, the table, the wicker, the paint.I stroked her skeletal hand.Then day turned its face away. Weeks later, I bought the paint, made the time.But […]
by Christina Perez Brubaker Hanna hadn’t planned on taking the rabbits. It was one of those things that just sort of happened. An impulse her husband, Matthew, if he were still alive might’ve slapped her cheek for because according to him, nothing ever just-sort-of-happened. In a way, he’d be right. She’d been thinking about it […]
by Rachel Stempel for my future dermatologist It’s Thursdayand it’s lateand you’ve lostyour right handto scienceand your left hand’slimp Your knucklesbulgeand starecockeyed You forget howyour playground politicsmade illegibleevery good thingyou got your greasy […]
by Jessica Kim Now watch me strangle the neck of the apricot tree,watch me grab a back of green onions and cage it in the rusty supermarket cart. Like the flight herefrom California, confined in the small body of an aircraft. The Korean peninsula devours my bodyand swallows. I wonder why I am so welcomed […]
by Courtney Clute Did you know that due to the trillions and trillions of stars and planets out in the universe, it’s mathematically certain that there is some sort of intelligent life out there? But why haven’t my kind come to Earth to get me? Every night when the moon pokes through the dark sky, […]
Categories
What Gone Looks Like
by Leah Claire Kaminski Crazy Snail and Backseat Driver by Igor Kasev I eat my first mushrooms in traffic with my sister on Seven Mile Bridge. I’m a small notch in the metal spine of cars cooking over the hot sea. Over the old bridge running next to us like a mouth missing teeth, a […]
Categories
The Art of Boiling Water
by Rose Strode Water is easy to drink. Too easy, considering it’s not easy to find. Once found, one must consider its source. Water’s powerful, shaping the landscape through which it flows, yet also vulnerable, retaining in itself particles of all the places it’s been. The first time I considered water, I was twenty-seven. The […]
by Daniel M. Mendoza This past Sunday, the city announced a parade to celebrate the grand opening of Fanatics Hunting and Fishing Gear where Motherclucker’s Chicken Shack once operated before the incident residents collectively call “The Burning” occurred. Motherclucker’s was not open very long when it became obvious to all that it would rake in […]
Gulf Stream Magazine 