“a memory of tomorrow”

by Allison Grace

There is a grief in never knowing.

Of creating our own seasickness even when the water

barely laps at our toes and still we find ourselves

bodies wrought with sorrow and rung out of tears

fighting listlessly against the ripples.

Still wondering what comes next 

as if standing ankle-deep in wishes, telling stories 

that don’t build in pages for tomorrow, 

will open up something new. 

Will ease the guilt of never knowing.

For every day until forever I would take the grief

if it meant at least knowing. Then maybe

I wouldn’t find myself fabricating funerals in my mind

until I am drowning in a storm of my own creation.

And I could finally say goodbye.

But I know

there is no ocean, there are no more tears. 

And for the one who has seen the world 

in everything but herself, there is

no tomorrow.

Allison Grace (She/They), is a lover of tea and all things literary. Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, Allison writes coming-of-age poetry and prose that explore the challenges of everyday experiences. Published in Small Leaf Press, Powders Press, Ink Drinkers Magazine, and more.

“a slip into the reflect”

by Kwabena Benyin

We were—& are unto ourselves,

Abysses who recur again & again by the pulse of the wind.

Gathered.                & reflected like memories.            We are only our poetries,                alliterating

chapters of our being in & out of season.

But.   Now               , we’ve slipped into allusion, 

& have met the beginning of our essence—we're translated like synonyms of ourselves.

& it's how we come. 

& it's how far            we have stretched into the 

Kwabena Benyin is a poet, and an arts and nature admirer. Born and raised in Accra, Ghana, he can be found reading anything from poetry to articles. He has work published in the CGWS anthology, ASSmag publication & Writers club website, and others. Benyin is currently working on a chapbook. He blogs at www.aswrittenbybenyin.home.blog and can be found on Twitter @KwabenaBenyin_

“grandpa”

by Jennifer Fox

I learned to dance tip-toed 

on the ends of your feet as

you twirled me around

the living room at 

six-years-old, no music

at all. Listen close and you

can hear it, and I’d press my ear

to your round belly, searching for

the drum of your heart.  How was

I to know it’d be my favorite 

song? I stand tip-toed again,

ear to the sky, listening 

for you. 

Jennifer Fox is a western New York native with an MFA from Lindenwood University. She is Editor-in-Chief at EVOKE and a staff reader at Bandit Fiction. Her work has appeared in The Metaworker, Across the Margin, The Daily Drunk Mag, The Write Launch, Sledgehammer Lit, Ghost Parachute, and more.

“vaticinated”

by Maddie Bowen-Smyth

He can’t compare her to a summer’s day,
But to moonlight streaming through canopies,
As her lips, in quiet mischief, convey,
Quaking truths that come to rest with unease.
He gets used to the beautiful strangeness,
The way he’s so used to her everywhere,
And finds empty spaces when, so aimless,
She chases peril without single care.
He can only think she’s some fae creature,
Flitting and freewheeling easy as smoke,
Soon tangled in tonight’s silent feature,
Where the dark drags long and the shadows choke.
He can’t help but feel inevitably
Drawn to dreams of their own sure misery.

Maddie Bowen-Smyth is an avid tabletop roleplayer, an incurable fan of fried shallots, and an indefatigable hunter of obscure historical facts. Her work explores the lasting echoes of trauma but is animated by a spirit of bull-headed hopefulness. She lives on Whadjuk Noongar land with her wife and their growing menagerie. Learn more at www.journalistic.com.au

“the water dream”

by Mark Burgh

Night’s sea 

rises tiding 

over oaks 

shorn of leaves, 

broaching all islands

lit by low 

yellow bulbs, 

driving

into shoals 

of houses 

like premonitions: 

sorrow, chaste grief;

a finger dipped

into grey dishwater.

Mark Burgh lives and teaches in Fort Smith, AR. He holds a BA in history from the University of Delaware, an MFA in Creative Writing and a Ph.D in English from the University of Arkansas. His work has appearing in many journals and he has won numerous writing awards. 

2 poems

by Sy

stems

flowers drain

from a cheap print shirt

seep to the earth

roots falling downwards falling roots

these petals shall see light

no more 

staring through the surface

for a glimpse of my back

your wrist is full

Another timepiece tears into place,

pendulum rat king, pumping syringe

cogs not so delicate

now their mask has burned

in the sunlight, but 

time does not surrender 

to the discrete points of a body,

regardless of the fabric beneath, does not

give love for a second guess, 

or even a first, all it knows

is your pulse 

against its back

and the feel

of you sleeping.

Sy is a queer non-binary Scottish poet. They write through the haze of cat-/child-induced sleep deprivation to make sense of gender, relationships, and ADHD. Their work has been published in Popshot Quarterly, Perhappened, and Capsule Stories, among others. Find them at sybrand.ink and on Twitter @TartanLlama.

“47th Parallel Sleeping Instructions”

by Dusti RWF

It’s not dark when you go to bed.

It’s never dark. Rest your body

On cool linen; release your burdened breath.

Fix your eyes on a point in the sky, 

Far enough away, apple-toned and lonely,

Supple cheeks missing a kiss.

Languid light filters through your flickering lashes.

Observe the soft pools of pink oil expanding.

In hushed tones, the artist reminds your sleepless heart,

“This is not your home.” Now, imagine the deep well

In the sea wall that contains your bellows.

Know your soul is heavy, as iron chests, and doubly secretive.

Tonight’s tide is so very late,

The sun will never set,

You are drowsy, dusky, star-worn. 

Dusti RWF (they/them) is a queer, disabled poet & writer living in both Seattle and Alabama. Find more of their writing in Lavender Lime Literary, Being Known, The Open Kimono, and Zen Poetry. Besides being founder & editor of Delicate Emissions, a quarterly poetry zine, they love birds, moss, and food that tastes like dirt. 

“something is waiting to hatch”

by Beth Gordon

I don’t know how my father’s last breath sang, 

whether that song like a caterpillar 

spinning or a stadium imploding

in a thunder-ed release of spores & worms, 

can be found in the dreams of the black cat. 

The black cat dreams, I’m sure of it. I don’t 

know what he dreams. I can Google cat dreams. 

I can Google the number of muscles 

in the human body but I prefer 

to believe it is endless as a bowl.

The black cat doesn’t count muscles or bones. 

I don’t know the name of the bird who lives 

in the rhododendron bush, so fractured

by purple blooms I forget to Google 

his markings and the way he carries worms 

to a hidden nest. Something is waiting

to hatch. The black cat doesn’t know the name 

of the bird but he dreams of brown wings: bones

in his claws. I don’t know how many moles 

are on my back. My ex-lovers may know 

but I don’t know where they are, not the names 

of cities or avenues: phone numbers. 

I know my father’s muscles swam away

like fish. He had twenty moles. The black cat

is always sleeping when I walk into 

a room. I don’t know if he is breathing 

until he opens his fiery green eyes 

and speaks. I don’t know what he is saying.

Beth Gordon is a poet, mother and grandmother currently living in Asheville, NC. Her poetry has been widely published and nominated for Best of the Net, the Pushcart Prize, and the OrisonAnthology. She is the author of two previous chapbooks, and her full-length poetry collection, This Small Machine of Prayer, was published in 2021 (Kelsay Books). Her third chapbook, The Water Cycle, is being published by Variant Lit in February 2022. She is Managing Editor of Feral: A Journal of Poetry and Art, Assistant Editor of Animal Heart Press, and Grandma of Femme Salve Books.

“blossom”

by Nia Harries

Here it is, peeking around the corner,

unexpected. 

Feelings, longings, long forgotten.

Tucked away in a corner of my mind,

a fortress against hurt, against feeling too much.

Your touch seeps into my very soul, 

thawing me gently, startling me with its intensity.

I didn’t expect you.

Yet we allow our hearts to tumble together,

trusting, hoping.

Holding back and pushing forward all at once, 

a strange dance that we haven’t quite learned, 

and yet it feels joyous to move.

A timid step towards the unfurling 

of a heart I hadn’t realized I was guarding. 

Like a bloom opening slowly in springtime,

reaching up and out 

for the warmth of the sun;

I too reach, 

and there you are. 

Originally from rural Wales, Nia Harries has lived in East Yorkshire the past 6 ½ years. A single mother and occasional blogger, her self-published collection ‘Walking through the shadows’ was published in 2017 and she is working on her second collection currently. She has featured in the High Wolds Poetry Festival and accompanying collections, and also appeared in The Amphibian Literary Journal. 

Blog: niaharries.wordpress.com 

Twitter: @niaharries1  

Instagram:@realniaharries 

Facebook: realniaharries  

2 poems

by DS Maolalai

a gleam of january

the breeze has a bit 

of ground glass-

dust thrown up in it. 

that gleam of november 

and january. catching the light 

and cutting your lungs up

when you breathe it in deep

while you stand 

on the balcony, 

watching the sun 

as it melts like a candle 

and flattens against 

the horizon, behind

chapolizod. november

and january vary a little – 

their colour, their quality

of light. and it's january

now, which is better

in ways – air burns 

like bummed cigarettes,

borrowed on a patio 

outside of a quiet-night bar. you cup

up your hands and you huff

on your fingers; the evening

a piano to be played. below, traffic goes – 

going home, going out 

toward the city. the headlights

all on and all beckoning 

that you should follow. the 9pm series

of breadcrumbs and pieces

of beerbottle, holding the light

with the tips of its fingers,

hanging it up like a coat. 

walls and fall backward

the mind climbs steel downpipes

and up toward the gutters; 

hopperheads perching, 

surveying their corners like cats – 

blackly shadowed and

lesser black skylines,

a point and a point of sharp

view. my mind touches raindrop-

wet, never-dry brickwork. 

it fingers to water-stained 

white painted walls, making grey 

maps of countrysides, 

pictures of human anatomy. 

the mind feels the walls 

of each sliced apart house: 

every kitchenette, single

bed, windowless shower 

room. sometimes, I think,

I could live in these moments; 

could sit on these walls 

and fall backward. and a yard

full of people putting smokes

out in flowerpots. and moss

on the ground, and a bicycle

somebody left. the comfort of rocks 

being dropped into place

by a river. there are slimes – 

types of algae – which grow in such places. 

if you put them in sunlight they die. 

DS Maolalai has been nominated nine times for Best of the Net and seven times for the Pushcart Prize. He has released two collections, "Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden" (Encircle Press, 2016) and "Sad Havoc Among the Birds" (Turas Press, 2019). His third collection, "Noble Rot" is scheduled for release in April 2022.

“land for sale”

by Sam Calhoun

They're cutting down the orchard.

I watch the sawed branches snap like fire. 

Where the tattered sun shade hangs

the wrens made a home.  

How we visited in spring like sky larks.

How the pink blooms filled the sky.

Passing, as the sun lifts on its carousel,

the whole sky aglow pink, just for a minute, 

and then the rain.

Sam Calhoun is a writer and photographer living in Elkmont, AL. He is the author of one chapbook, “Follow This Creek” (Foothills Publishing). His poems have appeared in Pregnant Moon Review, Westward Quarterly, Offerings, Waterways, and other journals. Follow him on Instagram @weatherman_sam or weathermansam.com

“A Few Lines Composed while You were Talking”

by Robin Keehn

You have a question.

You need advice about poetry,

about being a poet.

You tell me you’re broke and need money.

I joke that you’ve already met the number one 

requirement of the profession.

And then you ask 

if I know where you might sell some of your poems.

I don’t know what to say.

I’m thinking you’re no Billy Collins.

I’m thinking I’ve never made a penny from poetry.

I’m thinking I’m no Billy Collins, either.

You are still talking, 

something about a transmission,

and your girlfriend, 

and your cell phone bill,

and your roommate 

who eats your food.

And as I nod my head, 

I begin to imagine you sporting a goatee,

a beret cocked to the side, dark black sunglasses,

a diaphanous peasant blouse, billowy, unbuttoned 

exposing your hairless chest.

You’re on a hot street corner in New York City,

slouching behind a table 

covered with a smart madras cloth 

complemented by a vase of black tulips

as Davis’s Bitches Brew wafts around you.

And when a stilettoed urbanite approaches, 

you hoist the heavy blue glass pitcher  

rattling with shards of ice

and offer a tall glass of fresh lemonade,

and a poem—an original—written by you.

All for only a dollar.                                                                        

Robin Keehn lives in Encinitas, California.  She teaches literature and writing at Cal State University, San Marcos.  She holds a Ph.D. in English and American literature from the University of California, San Diego.

“the watermen: door county scenes”

by Jacob Riyeff

limestone, basalt 

wade under cypress 

over feldspar to shale 

we'll move earth 

like others, to make  

a space to walk 

* 

sheer, clear light  

fossils roll 

on the shore. curdles  

of water massage  

earth’s edge 

and we will live 

'til the sun sets 

we are trapped  

but the words are free— 

* 

claws on dirt  

children play  

with dead fish  

like pets and puppets 

* 

a barest trace  

of light splayed  

’cross miles of water 

jupiter delayed,  

hanging in the eye  

lightning bugs waft  

thru aspen leaves,  

beech logs burn 

tongue of flame  

asleep, slugs  

coiling green  

girth ’round toadstool  

stalks in darkness,  

mycelial volvae  

bursting moss,  

virginia wetleaf  

explodes stamens  

in the night, and still  

jupiter floods 

the sky slowly,  

slowly delayed 

* 

day cardinal chortles  

over emergent gemmed  

amanitas. play whist 

listen  

to waves 

in the dark— 

* 

fern-field branching  

for sun unimpeded 

sand-ringed swales  

of light, dappled  

caressing the base 

one dead aspen  

fern-flanked as i  

make my ablution 

squat on the wet  

sand, water  

gathered in hands 

* 

a glimpse of black  

boggy bottoms  

where trails don’t go 

and always the desire  

to take—thicket  

thrushes coupling, 

berate as i move  

by the bank, mosquitoes  

elated for a mammal 

stream rushing on  

pulling and shifting 

sand 

stone 

leaflitter— 

moss-burrow, new  

eyeline. we are off  

the trail now 

fern-bank underfoot  

enter creek-current  

cool water 

over rough sand 

*  

the proud, lone  

iris, standing  

trunks for beetles— 

must watch our step 

Jacob Riyeff is a translator, teacher, and poet. His books include his translations and editions of Benedictine works from the early medieval through the modern periods, as well as his own poetry collection, Sunk in Your Shipwreck. Jacob lives in Milwaukee's East Village.

web: jacobriyeff.com

blog: jacobriyeff.com/blog

@riyeff

“self portrait as the trembling giant”

by Daniel J Flosi

We stood together, my son and i, in that 130 acre park looking 

for descendants, for those who slashed through 

entire mountain ranges and populated outcroppings, 

those who meander like stoney walls 

over vast plains, who survive on butterfly wings and cry

milksalt tears into poppling streams, 

for those who span generations like moonshine, 

or who propagate not through seed but who clone 

through rootsprouts,  who i said crossed this continent 

just to get to him — his eyes tickled by trembling, 

then i asked him if he thought it was possible 

that there were some river, or song, some wave connecting 

us all and he assured me there wasn’t; i want 

to believe that i won’t fail him, so i told him 

that somewhere in colorado there’s an origin point 

to all this shaped like a heart in the earth, or like a hearth 

in a home, or like a home in a valley, shaped like us

standing here together and when i asked him if it were possible, 

he just shook his head no; i want to believe that he won’t let me go. 

Daniel J Flosi sometimes thinks they are an apparition living in a half-acre coffin within the V of the Mississippi and Rock Rivers. They are a poetry reader at Five South. Their work has appeared in many journals including recently/forthcoming in ELJ- Scissors & Spackle, Funicular Online, Inklette, The Good Life Review, and Zero Readers. Drop a line @muckermaffic

“night driving”

by Leela Raj-Sankar

Two in the morning, mid-December—

the crackling radio huffs out a song

you haven’t heard since you were fifteen,

hiding from your parents in your best friend’s

basement. A deer stands in the center of the

road, trapped in the bright beam of your headlights—

you watch yourself in its eyes, transfixed by

your own stiffness, hands rigid at

ten-and-two on the steering wheel, mouth set in a thin,

straight line. Your face at least ten years older

than the rest of you. Somehow, you are just as terrified-looking as the deer,

both frozen solid in the blue-tinged twilight; Alanis Morissette, half-drowned

in static, croons from the speakers, isn’t it ironic? 

An exhale, slow. Your breath visible, even with the car’s heater on full blast. The two-way

mirror only stares back at you, forever reflecting the rotting, year-old dreams 

that fog up your windshield. 

The song ends. The window shutters. The deer

darts off the road. In the distance,

a streetlight flickers once, twice, then

sighs into the darkness. Silently, you promise yourself,

for the thousandth time, that you are not going to die.

Leela Raj-Sankar is an Indian-American teenager from Arizona. Their work has appeared in Mixed Mag, Warning Lines, and Ghost Heart Lit, among others. In his spare time, he can usually be found doing math homework or taking long naps. Say hi to her on Twitter @sickgirlisms.

“the last poem”

by Neha Rayamajhi

Bodies are stubborn.

Sometimes they refuse to surrender 

even when you want them to.

Mine is rebellious like that –  

she holds grief like a mother holds a newborn. 

Last week I dropped to the kitchen floor 

in the middle of figuring out an alternative for basil.

The nurse said anxiety attack

I told him it was my body leading a rebellion;

she doesn't know how to let go. 

The summer he left the first time: 

I cried so much

my body convinced me 

we were an ocean.

Now when we are lonely, we pull

poems out of his empty section of the closet.

Review the pros and cons of 

saying goodbye

to a man who has left me more 

times than he has said he loves me. 

This body is stubborn.

She refuses to surrender even when I plead.

She holds grief. 

Like a mother latches onto a newborn,

so she holds onto you. 

Neha Rayamajhi (she/her) is a storyteller and a cultural worker who uses multidisciplinary art. She is passionate about creating spaces and art that revolve around decolonial politics, diasporic nostalgia, and the joys of reimagining anti-oppressive futures. Her work has appeared in the South Asia Journal, Chambers, La Lit Magazine and other online publications. Neha was born and raised in Nepal, and currently lives in Massachusetts. You can find more about her at neharayamajhi.com. 

“an exaltation”

by Jen Feroze

Two days in this place, and London 

is strange as moonscape.

The dirt track stretching

away over the hill;

the quiet after the morning’s joyous

exhale of church-bell rounds; 

bowls of sun-struck eggs

on the kitchen windowsills

and I think those are celandines

starring the grass like fallen coins.

There are eggs out here too, speckled

in little, leaf-lined hollows, 

hidden as we cross to the stile,

and protected by plump-feathered parents.

It’s almost lunchtime, and there’s 

the promise of warm bread.

We leave that field behind your mother’s house

with garlands of song around our ankles.

Jen Feroze lives by the sea in Essex, UK, with her husband and two small sleep thieves. She's inspired by the seemingly everyday, and likes to write with a stubborn upswing of hope in her work. Her poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in The Madrigal, Capsule Stories, The 6ress and Hyacinth Review, among others. Her first collection, The Colour of Hope, was published in 2020. 

“roots”

by Safiya Cherfi

I live across the river from where you were born

I can see it from 

my living room window

Hundreds of miles from 

where I was born.

Funny that I should end up here because

it wasn’t deliberate

Landing a stone’s throw from 

my roots

I didn’t know that’s where you were born until 

I lived here.

Roots were pulling me back 

dragging me in

to the start

the heart of them

There’s no limit to how far roots 

can be stretched

No telling when they’ll start 

tugging at you

No knowing how strong 

the pull will be

Or how long you can 

bear the pull for.

Safiya Cherfi is a writer and book reviewer based in Scotland. She writes short stories, published in Gutter, Sundial Magazine, and Bandit Fiction, and is currently working on a novel. She is also an editor for Overtly Lit. 

“belonging”

by Helen Openshaw

I let the feeling sit beside me;

A strange companion on a train.

The edges ooze as I decide if I can

Take this journey, or slide,

Suffocating into its folds.

The energy in the room changes,

Crackles, fills.

I shift to accommodate it,

Lean in to the pillow warmth of it,

Let the percussion of chatter soothe.

Helen Openshaw is a Drama and English teacher, from Cumbria. She enjoys writing poetry and plays and inspiring her students to write. Helen has had a short monologue commissioned by Knock and Nash productions. Recently published and upcoming poetry work in Secret Chords by Folklore publishing, Green Ink Poetry magazine, Words and Whispers magazine, The Madrigal, Fragmented Voices, Loft Books and The Dirigible Balloon magazine.

“angry gods”

by Lisa Molina

For so long, 

I believed 

I somehow

angered the gods.

Otherwise, why would Zeus

thrust his shocking bolts

of blinding light, followed

by his inevitable bellowing

growl, or shocking shouts 

of fury?

Terrifying vibrations of 

the imminent unknown 

buzzed through the

gray matter of my

electrified brain

on/and/on/and/on/and/on/until

the earthquake from 

within my unstable 

core finally shattered 

open, dispersing 

shards of inner

stained glass as the

orange/yellow/blue/indigo/violet/

violent/red/bloody

explosion tore and 

ripped me apart from 

within,

with such

force and

magnitude

that 

Zeus himself

ceased

to

exist.

I never angered the gods.

Lisa Molina is a writer/educator in Austin, Texas. She has three chapbooks forthcoming in 2022, and her words can be found in numerous publications, including Bright Flash Literary Journal, Beyond Words Magazine, Sparked Literary Magazine, Neologism Poetry Journal, and The Ekphrastic Review. Molina enjoys writing, singing, playing the piano, and spending time with her family. She now works with high school students with special needs, and loves teaching them the joys of reading and writing.