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 […]
Tag: Poetry
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 […]
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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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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