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 […]
Category: Poetry
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 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 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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Categories
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 Jacklin Farley After Beholding the Stains on My PBR Can My beloved whispers against my bare, open neck – “I want your lipstick on everything” – then examines my sleek aluminum cylinder again under the dive bar fairy lights, as if it were somerare mineral specimen or elusive icon of unparalleled archeological import. My paisley-print denim mini skirt dampening beneath […]
by Eric Lochridge Wild Horse Island Our summer road trip ended in Lakeside at dusk, thunderstorm roiling the water. Gray lake agitated, Grandpa’s boats bobbed like ice cubesat the docks. The glare of the dying day raged in my stepmother’s eyes. Her wrath struck like lightningthat always found my body—half-moon marks on my wrist, archipelago of bruises across my thigh.Dad scurried […]
Categories
Panini Maker
by Veronica A. Bettencourt Panini Maker It idles most days. Once onyx groovesfaded to ash gray, it hangs on.Sometimes, it sputters as it grills, as though it knows this could be the last timeits steel ribs cradle sourdough andcheddar, energy rushing through its iron veins, meltingall it touches. I remember the friendwho gave it to […]
by Homa Mojadidi Burial If I was there I could’ve cradled his fallen bodyWiped his blood with the hem of my dressSmoothed his raven-like hair placed a final kiss upon his foreheadMemorized the shape and color of his eyes before I closed them a final timeWashed his body with my tears placed him in the soft earthBuilt him a monument […]
by Lexi Pelle Delicious The cashier checks to see if any eggs in the carton are crackedbefore carefully setting it back on the conveyor belt. A mother lays the smooth gray stone she pulledfrom her daughter’s pocket into the warm basket beside the washing machine. These delicate displays,small stays against the schlepp toward death. I […]
by Ben Gunsberg Pillow You deserve more than just enough morphineto halter the red-eyed mare. More than this clean, plush thing your head imprints post-splitand exorcism of lymph nodes. More than swift renewal of soft tissue and the infinite viewfrom a hospital room on the fourteenth floor. More than parched hours spent sponging your lips,you […]
by Ivy Raff Sarah Poet Ivy Raff is the author of What Remains (Editorial DALYA forthcoming 2025), winner of the Alberola International Poetry Prize, and Rooted and Reduced to Dust (Finishing Line Press, 2024). She serves artist communities as MacDowell’s Senior Systems Project Manager and as a member of Seventh Wave Magazine’s editorial team. Artist […]
by Han VanderHart Woman Peeing in a Barnafter Emmet Gowin (1971) is Edith Gowin, the photographer’s wife is backlit by summer is holding her white cotton gown up is hands gathering at hip bones is legs apart is head turned sideways is relaxed, mouth parted is letting her water flow on the barn floor is […]
by Kurt Olsson Say Talaq for Me After the Russian folk song “Миленький ты мой”(“My Darling”) May your nipples grow weedyas a lunatic’s beard. May the windows in your housegape like the evil eye. May life become a scripturedesecrated of all sense. Oh, my darling, take me with you.There in a distant country I’ll […]
by James Long Fingers Always first to arrive, like armies or spring rain, their conversations with the invisible mind frighten me: how fast they could grab a glovebox flask or tap a Google search for Modigliani nudes. I spread mine out, crowned with their half-moon claws, white-capped and holy as nuns. I wonder if they’re […]
by Jennifer Browne Let there be No Scarcity of Beauty [Day 46] “Modern economics has a particular view of scarcity, in which human beings have infinite desires, and society must therefore facilitate endless growth and consumption, irrespective of nature’s limits.” —Wennerlind and Jonsson 1. Of infinite desire, I see only one:only one desire, which […]
by Arianna Miller Phantom StingWith a line by Sandra Cisneros What’s love? A brickthrough a windshield; it’s a crimeto be full of passion. And how do we justify it? The weight of a structuralnecessity? Splintering glass? I once let a man tell mehe only wanted me but would not call me his. I was kept at an […]
by JeFF Stumpo [Tonight you are an insect bound by window-magic…] Poet JeFF Stumpo is a survivor of psychosis and PTSD. These pieces come from a manuscript of prose poem dreamscapes based on actual nightmares he’s had, as well as the hopes and fears of people he cares about. He has a poorly-maintained website at […]
by Kathryn Gilmore In a dream, my father asks me to help him die faster We sit at opposite ends of his hospice bed,wrinkled sheets stained with dried blood and shit. No, we sit on the Mississippi’s brown waves,lurching between every other breath. No, there is no breath. That is, he isn’t inhaling,only releasing one […]
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