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 […]
Tag: WET!
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 […]
Categories
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 […]
Categories
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 […]
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 Rebecca 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 trailer […]
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 […]
Categories
Saturn
Cantos from an Anatomically Correct Chronology by Manuel A. Melendez SATURN Cantos from an Anatomically Correct Chronology What flesh did Saturn[1] savor first? Was it the gummy thigh by the ass-cheek? The creamy-white chest where the heart-blood is juiciest? Maybe he suckled a tender finger until the marrow gave way to a skeletal hollow. Did he […]
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 […]
Categories
The Hope Chest
by Emily Harper Ellis The Hope Chest Gloria had never seen a dead man before and knew, as soon as her truck crested the hill, that she was experiencing one of her life’s defining moments and had better do it right. He was perfectly, doubtlessly dead: his hands and face were blue and every inch […]
Gulf Stream Magazine 