by Yoda Olinyk Mend I am fifteen. I am not stumbling through a cornfield alone at six a.m. I am not plasteredwith vomit. My lips are not a swollen gate. My underwear is whole––not maimedin my pocket. When a truck pulls over, it is not a sinister boy who I can’t place and don’t trust urging me into […]
Category: Poetry
by Dan Berick Catalysis When I die, I would like to becomeYeast in a rising ball of dough. Sugar to eat, no thoughts,No dreams.Making my little bubblesOf useful gas. Rise, rise. Poet Dan Berick is a writer, husband, father, and lawyer based in Cleveland, Ohio, where he writes about the lives of the quiet people […]
by Jonathan Aibel Anti-Elegy Beyond the scrim, do the deadremember? If so, let her remember some other child,the one she wanted, a girl, too good to writeon walls, who didn’t hide in her room, unwillingto talk. I don’t want to make her into a saint —fold my memory in half, fold the corners, a paperairplane, […]
by Daniel Brennan If the act of remembering changes the memory, how can you be certain you loved him so much? an audience member asksthe Poet. A pause of silence, a shallow coughfrom someone amidst the throng gathered there.The Poet’s eyes do not carry the same greenthat they did before; something in themhas been given […]
by Daniel Brennan Every Sex Party is Home to a Prophet We peel back the black lacquereddoor like the scab from a blister. Taste the spoiled heat escaping, that thick cloud of steam as it rises fromthe iron stairwell. Everyone comes and no one goes. I learn new names for myself each time. A friend of mine […]
by Jaycee Billington Buzzard The language of buzzards is a slow cursive:lazy, looping, skating cumulo nimbus vowelsand tilted Ts, a round glide that mimics the curveof bald heads. It’s not messy, this openness,the cyclical return to grace. So often the languageof death is harsh, all consonants, hardedges unsoftened by the feathered driftof wing, the throaty weightlessness.It’s a beautiful scrawl, this gentle handwriting,the way it […]
by Grant Chemidlin Little Quaint House outside, but stepping in, the walls were adorned with naked men. Stretched, voluptuous, leather-bound & gagged, tasteful, but for my still-closeted eyes—the silver glint of the sharpest needle. I looked both ways before crossing the hall—past the marble ass, Tom of Finland quiet on the table. It was like finding a library buried in […]
by Robert Eric Shoemaker BearTrail for Stephanie Michele As the great bear criesstarshine, starshinedip one foot in the lake to test itwhile I take off my shirt, pants, shoes.Turn back to me an owleyes wide; we laugh:I am not Hercules.Comets trail. We get in the water.It reminds me of a childhood mountainwaterfall. Falls overnearly fifty feet, […]
by Lindsay Stewart Stunt girl1 I practiced insanity in the mirror to satisfythe hundreds, said my own name aloud untilit lost all meaning. Nellie, Nell-ie, Nellie.How will you get me out after I once get in?It was never a question of who I was or howlong I might be there. L gave me a spoon,E […]
by Onna Solomon State of Emergency The dream woman chases herempty car down the hillShe is me and I amwatching herfrom my own car When I reach her after hercar slowly rolls awayI hold her inmy arms her bodyfragile in a way my bodyhas never been fragileI feel the edge of hershoulder blades beneathmy hands I hold […]
by Lindsay Stewart Inheritance * A mountain lion sounds like a woman screaming * He taught us how to use a gunwhen we were ten, the same yearwe learned about sex and rapein the same conversation. We weresitting, very still, in the backseatand I was grateful I didn’t have tolook at her while she cried. […]
by Jessica Hincapié Removing The Watermark At the beginning of every booksomeone always telling youthat they have taken liberties with plot. List of wrong names, puzzled numbershanded to the calf skinned boys of summer.Their mask of horns an already rip. What would you do for the promiseof hearing a word held inside for yearsfinally pronounced […]
by Izze Goldberg it’s almost midnight and i’m thinking about god it’s almost midnight and i’m thinkingabout god with my crooked kneeskneeling bruised raw numbly askingfor forgiveness.my dad reminds me i’m a sinnermy unanswered prayers remind me i always will bewords echoing in my water-logged mouthFather falling flatLord, if You are willing, You can make […]
by Emily Light Some Game The word for a boy dog is dog,so I yell Dog! when he pees on his sisterlike she’s a fencepost to mark,when he takes rabbits in his mouthand they scream like dog toysas if they’re part of the game.Maybe someone in his first life,his puppy life in Texas,told him he […]
by Jose Trejo Maya (Editor’s Note: Click on the image for an expanded view) Poet/Artist Jose Trejo Maya is a remnant of the Nahuatlacah oral tradition a tonalpouhque mexica, a commoner from the lowlands from a time and place that no longer exists. Published in the UK, US, Spain, India, Australia, Argentina, Germany and […]
by Brian Johnson Of Inorganic Love The surroundings are what drive you away, and redact you.You can’t bear the houseplants, all fecund, all secretive, A house that feels in too many roomsLike a forest, a grove-grave, and must turn itself To a house alone. You need calm, a layerFree of all growing presences, free of […]
By Charles Haddox Millenary El Paso I. At every hour there is brushwork, and people, birds, houses. Those kiln-baked patioswhere dogs sing to the wind. Night wanders about the night,through a derelict hotel,like bread rising in a window,expectant, filled with tears. Bare aloes, violet from winter’s embalmed terrain,or pale as some ruined watchtowerin a sky […]
by Hannah Matzecki Preparations for an Emergency Author Hannah M. Matzecki is a writer, mother, and the editor of Kitchen Table Quarterly. Her poetry has been featured in West Trade Review, the Ear, and Birdcoat Quarterly, as well as on any refrigerator with those little word magnet tiles. She lives in Los Angeles with her […]
by Cassandra Whitaker Wedding In The Three Chambers of My Heart Widowed Brides Embedded In My Left Shoulder Sharpen Knives ahead the banquet where they will roastpeppers stuffed with nuts, grain, and glazedwith roasted garlic; an understandingof restraint. When dancing begins the brides takeeach other by the arms. The women matchtheir eyes, match their braids […]
by Jake Phillips Broken duplex for breaking & re-entry a knuckle braced into diamond / translated / excised intothe solar plexus. this is breaking / what it feels like— solar systems collapsing / your lungs / atmosphere / venus crushing mars / burn of meteor / a universe of dust in veins / ever-expanding. air-locked […]
by Mary Gilliland Sandia Crest My brother swung off saddle. To be alive before he calleda posse of angels to his side, he walked in turbulencewithin a larger mind: I’m on two tracks—you wouldn’tunderstand—two tracks. Seven months he’d been takingthat pony for a ride. Was his oncologist’s compassioncuriosity? Leave (should he?) a hospital with underfundedwards? […]
by Amanda Gaines Four Stages of Swallowing Author Amanda Gaines is an Appalachian writer and Ph.D. candidate in CNF in Oklahoma State University’s creative writing program. Her poetry and nonfiction are published or awaiting publication in Barrelhouse, Fugue, december, Witness, Southern Humanities Review, Willow Springs, Yemassee, Redivider, New Orleans Review, Southeast Review, […]
by Josephine Defaye Strange Wives (Editor’s Note: from the book of Ezra, Nehemiah, Proverbs, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel; “trans” truncates the words “transgressed,” “transgresseth,” “transgression,” and “transformed”) He that covereth a trans seeketh love;He loveth trans. The words of the trans. Trans on his lips. Trans by wine, enlargeth hisdesire as hell. The wicked is […]
by Lee Peterson Grounds I cannot not bear him,love him, claim him.Can you? Call me claimant, citizen,supplicant, friend. He is mine yours, oursto love and cover. His limbsbelong to me.His death a fault of all our sins.Meant—unmeant.Does it matter? Argument. Argument. Air. Author Lee Peterson is the author of two full-length poetry collections, Rooms and Fields: Dramatic […]
by Chloe Cook To Satiate the Living I Skid-mark clouds driftedwith undetectable urgency.Ofrendas of marigolds and alfeñiquesornamented most headstones. Pan dulce crumbs induced sugar-rabiesin the squirrels; horchata spillageobscured family photographs.Despite temptation, the spirits did not return. A mariachi of widowers sang beneatha hunched yew tree—its branches hunglow enough to invade a makeshift altarand pluck a […]
by Jonathan Everitt Self-portrait from Unnamable Year How often do we not know whatto call a thing until the aftermath?Once, I melted in someone’s mirror,heart a hot rock, heavy in my throat.Presence flipped to absence flapjack-fast.Sheets thunder-rumpled suddenlyby July’s overblown unstable air.Of course there was a downpour.We need reasons to stay alone. To playthe saddest […]
by Alex Braslavsky BRINK I’m talking about the size of my grilledcheese on Valentine’s Day in 2022.I’m bleeding every month. Mencan wear as many goose puffers as they want.In a single day, I have wasted so many darts.A pom-pom appears on the ottoman. In a trice, after orbiting the womb,I was begging for never. I […]
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