“antique fuchsia”

by Rich Boucher

The sky was the color of antique fuchsia,

and now I have to apologize for trying to be poetic

about how everything looked when I craned my head

to look above; there’s no other way to say

what I was thinking when my sisters

told me you’d breathed your last.

The sky being any color at all

should never matter to us,

but tell me who doesn’t look up

when the cost of looking the nearest person

in the eyes is too much to pay?

Let there be no more stories, songs

or poems about how the sky did what,

or how the sky felt like this or that,

or how the sky looked like the color

of anything else that is not the sky.

I wish a thousand people would

ask me what kind of father you were,

so that I could tell them that no sky

could ever display all your colors right.

I was happy even for the clouds, sometimes.

Rich Boucher resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Rich’s poems have appeared in The Nervous Breakdown, Eighteen Seventy, Menacing Hedge, Drunk Monkeys and Cultural Weekly, among others. Rich serves as Associate Editor for the online literary magazine BOMBFIRE. He is the author of All Of This Candy Belongs To Me, a collection of poems published by Jules’ Poetry Playhouse Publications. Peep richboucher.bandcamp.com for more. He loves his life with his love Leann and their sweet cat Callie.

“extra-terrestrial confirmation of tree rings”

by Andrew F Giles

- when invisible secrets rigged on earth, whose 

metal casements, whose searchlights unberth 

& from the casements blink at the peninsula,

the mark which he which he which backward 

& forward concentric rings, when those hands

push, hands that blur under scrutiny, but push

-  that historic fuck, whose no is written – whose 

jacket of steel, whose short-sighted distant things

Andrew F Giles writes poems, reviews and creative nonfiction, with recent work in Dark Mountain Project, Abridged, Feral, Stone of Madness and Queer Life, Queer Love (Muswell Press, 2021). He lives and works at Greyhame Farm, a permaculture project, creative residency, and rural safe space for queer folk and their allies.

2 poems

by Hibah Shabkhez

eye doctor

The rods of the machines are guitar strings 

My drumstick fingers chase in vain. I wait

For the eye-doctor who is to make straight

All the weaving, flickering, rippling things

  Of this office, this hospital, this life.

Ah, mais c’est une guerre, une guerre d’ombres,

  Une guerre ingagnable -

The eye-doctor must teach me how to see

Stool-tops, and not these earth-quaking mountains,

Forbid the curtains to tread their stately

Measures beside their own shadow-fountains;

  Ban the light and fan their eternal strife.

Ah, mais c’est une guerre, une guerre d’ombres,

  Vitale et impitoyable;

The eye-doctor brings forth a battery

Of frames and lense-glass, but the fan fights

Back, swishes across the flickering lights,

And makes all the machines dance in the scree-

  Shadows of an imaginary knife.

Ah, mais c’est une guerre, une guerre d’ombres

  Une révolte ingérable.

Holiday Homework

You'll stand at the skylight in the gloaming

     That makes lonely mountains of the rooftops,

Singing of love and loss, of hearts breaking

     For burnt pains au chocolat, for lamb chops,

And the summer-worlds where mangoes reign.

You'll pirate and wrench love-songs to lament

     All things lorn, ludicrous and lame that tug

The tears out, then pour all the laughter meant

     For great joys on them like mayo. You'll hug

And guard it like a last unspoilt seed-grain.

You’ll go on smashing vases, to piece them 

     Back with strong glue and genuine regret,

Until you learn to graft memory’s stem

     Seamlessly onto the branch that will let

Exile's stony clay turn homeward again.

Hibah Shabkhez is a writer of the half-yo literary tradition, an erratic language-learning enthusiast, and a happily eccentric blogger from Lahore, Pakistan. Her work has previously appeared in Black Bough, Zin Daily, London Grip, The Madrigal, Acropolis Journal, Lucent Dreaming, and a number of other literary magazines. Studying life, languages, and literature from a comparative perspective across linguistic and cultural boundaries holds a particular fascination for her. Linktree: https://linktr.ee/HibahShabkhez 

“silence in three parts”

by Victoria Punch

I

the orchestra tunes their A – that

warm string and weave

curling over the heads of the evening crowd

who turn to each other and fold their

conversations away until 

the intermission

II

the conductor stands

all eyes on the darkness.

drapes (like water,

like silks) fall:

the veil unturned.

he shuffles in the hush and rises

III

eyes meet, tuba to 

bass, violin gaze, straight

as a bow, the baton

flicks, his breath is seen in the lift 

of his shoulders, he strikes the first beat 

and marks the end as it begins

Victoria Punch is a voice coach and musician. Curious about voice and identity, the limits of language, and how we perceive things; her poetry comes from these explorations. Published in the6ress, The Mum Poem Press (guest ed. Liz Berry) and Sledgehammer Lit. Forthcoming in Nightingale&Sparrow. Found on Instagram and Twitter @victoriapunch_

“true name”

by Robert Okaji

I greet you daily without knowing

whether my words stick

or fall through your leaves 

unheard. Sometimes I pause and listen

but a reply evades me,

at least while I stand there.

Do you remember my voice?

Do your acorns share secrets?

Two lifetimes have passed.

Could I be that branch emptied

of birds? That root buckling 

pavement? Who are you

today? What is your color,

your emblem, your true name?

Robert Okaji lives in Indiana. The author of multiple chapbooks, his work has appeared or is forthcoming in Book of Matches, The Night Heron Speaks, Threepenny Review, The Tipton Poetry Review, and elsewhere.

“June 21, 1987”

by Joshua St. Claire

bottle rockets

how does heat

   become

sound

cumulonimbus downdrafts

oak leaf undersides cumulonimbus

chicory and Queen Anne’s lace

bowing in worship cumulonimbus

whispering to each other

in lightning cumulonimbus baptizing

the land in lightning cumulonimbus

beyond cracked carnival 

glass 

the sky

cicada and

cricket distant

motorcycle

revving

Joshua St. Claire is a CPA who works as a financial controller in Pennsylvania. He enjoys writing poetry on coffee breaks and after putting the kids to bed. His work is published in the Inflectionist Review, Blue Unicorn, Eastern Structures, hedgerow, and Whiptail, among others, and has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize.

“my Polonius”

by Alina Stefanescu

Haunts himself.

Haunts his mother, his pals, the stained stage, the beer bottle fallen in the aisle,

and my view of the sky

from the lake's surface, two arms 

extended in flails like angel 

limbs on snow—or whatever this is

as melting continues

one could drown

without knowing it happened.

Be the eternal tragedy

or the inconceivable consequence

who haunts the accident.

after Philip Fried

Alina Stefanescu was born in Romania and lives in Birmingham, Alabama with her partner and several intense mammals. Recent books include a creative nonfiction chapbook, Ribald (Bull City Press Inch Series, Nov. 2020) and Dor, which won the Wandering Aengus Press Prize (September, 2021). Her debut fiction collection, Every Mask I Tried On, won the Brighthorse Books Prize (April 2018). Alina's poems, essays, and fiction can be found in Prairie Schooner, North American Review, World Literature Today, Pleiades, Poetry, BOMB, Crab Creek Review, and others. She serves as poetry editor for several journals, reviewer and critic for others, and Co-Director of PEN America's Birmingham Chapter. She is currently working on a novel-like creature. More online at www.alinastefanescuwriter.com.

“circus act”

by Julie Stevens

I can skate when these legs work

dare myself to somersault over your hedge.

Give life-changing news. You’re happy now. 

Make clothes that shape me a billion years younger.

Rub two sticks together. Toast marshmallows,

let them spin and drop fire on my tongue.

Extend the hours. You’ve got time now.

Ride a bicycle. Sprint to swallow your deadline.

I bake cakes. Pretend it’s my birthday.

Invite the town. Throw a javelin faster

than that hurtling train. Believe it.

Make a meal with one hand and the world can eat.

Plan a trip to Jupiter and start selling tickets.

When my legs don’t work, I swallow glass.

Julie Stevens writes poems that cover many themes, but often engages with the problems of disability. Her poems have recently been published in Fly on the Wall Press, Ink Sweat & Tears, Dear Reader and Café Writers. Her winning Stickleback pamphlet Balancing Act was published by The Hedgehog Poetry Press (June 2021) and her chapbook Quicksand by Dreich (Sept 2020). 

Website: www.jumpingjulespoetry.com

Twitter @julesjumping

“to float”

by Imogen. L. Smiley

I lay each night suspended over a tepid mattress.

Can’t my dreams wash me over like the coming tides and

Drown my unconscious mind, leave it unable to breathe? 

My mind whirls under the gaze of a flickering moon,

Demons crawling from their nests in empty mugs and discarded socks

They thrive in the debris of my shipwrecked room, and 

Know how to keep the mind submerged in thought.

How do I reach the shores of dawn?

To survive another sleepless night, must I 

Swim in a stagnant mind. 

Imogen. L. Smiley (she/her) is a twenty-three-year-old writer from Essex, UK. She has anxiety, depression, and an endless love of dogs, especially big ones! You can support her by following her on Twitter and Instagram at @Imogen_L_Smiley.

“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