this morning

by Jose Hernandez Diaz

After W.S. Merwin

The sun comes through the window like a bird to a tree

I rise bloom again something free for once it can’t

Change this time I’ll hold tight the steering wheel

In this moment between a star and a galaxy we

Part when I go downstairs to make scrambled eggs

With tortillas and ketchup like a blue-collar Mexican-

American coffee no milk just sugar I remember 

The words my mother said when she was going

To start a new job she said a challenge is not something 

To fear walk through the door with your head 

Held high learn but lead soon it will be routine

This life like truth like love is a puzzle

Jose Hernandez Diaz is a 2017 NEA Poetry Fellow. He is the author of The Fire Eater (Texas Review Press, 2020). His work appears in The American Poetry Review, Boulevard, Crazyhorse, Georgia Review, Huizache, Iowa Review, The Missouri Review, Poetry, The Southern Review, Witness Magazine, The Yale Review, and in The Best American Nonrequired Reading Anthology 2011. He teaches creative writing online and edits for Frontier Poetry.

2 poems

by Beth Mulcahy

watch the world melt; hear it crash

Under the glimmer of just enough February sun glowing out of the pale barely blue sky, we watch ice glisten into water as it drips wet from the trees like a slow motion rain. We watch the world melt though you remind me that it was never solid to begin with. We look at each other at the thunder cry of cracking limbs dislodging dangling icicles crashing down all around. We hear the world crashing though you remind me that it was never not crashing to begin with. We watch the world melt. We hear it crash. 

the fog of it

your senses shut off

and you’re left 

with your thoughts

too loud

to see clearly and

you can’t hear anyone’s voice or

look in anyone’s eyes and

you can’t touch anyone’s soul

or feel anyone’s love and

you can’t smell anything at all

or taste your food and

you can’t sleep on purpose

or recognize beauty and

you can’t sit still

or stop thinking and

you can’t see a point but

you can’t stop existing because

you can’t stop 

breathing

you can't stop

breathing

Beth Mulcahy (she/her) is a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet and writer whose work has appeared in various journals, including Full House Literary and Roi Faineant Press. Her writing bridges the gaps between generations and self, hurt and healing. Beth lives in Ohio with her husband and two children and works for a company that provides technology to people without natural speech. Her latest publications can be found here: https://linktr.ee/mulcahea

I straightened a stubborn wave

by Mary Kate Nyland

I straightened 

a 

stubborn wave.

I flattened

a

fault line.

I starved

a

stark, bucknaked child,

strapped braces to her

legs and set her down

the straight and narrow.

and then

I squeezed top and toe

between

hydraulics, squeezed through

the

moving pathway

between

its vinyl gridlock,

my

hair curly

my

ellipses swelling.

Mary Kate Nyland is an Irish American writer, currently pursuing a Master's degree in Creative Writing from University College Dublin. Her work focuses on questions of gender, relationships, and technology.

april

by Joseph Hamel

Because the night is mild 

I open the back porch door 

Again awake so late  

Walking in the misty grit 

The pavement fresh with rain 

My footsteps sound like kisses 

The clucks of teeth and lips 

Not happy, unhappy, or hungry 

A gentle deflation of purpose 

Compared to the warm, delicate breezes 

Exploring the still naked trees.

Joseph Hamel comes from Detroit, MI and attended Wayne State University His has been published in Portland review, Litspeak, Barrow St and his play DEPEW, a modern verse adaptation of Moliere's Tartuffe, was a 2019 semi-finalist for the National Playwrights Conference.

wreck life

by Jude Marr

at ocean’s surface, spinning buoys signal 

their distress: as ocean’s aspect alters—sullen chop

agitating against rocks, water bottles bobbing at the feet

of piers—wreck life endures

below

              organic

matter—manifest of deep-sea creatures—mixes 

to mulch: snapped  

masts and crusted funnels grow as cuttings grow, grafted 

at life’s socket: an ancient rope, hempen 

and heavy, hangs suspended in dense water, waiting

for the seahorse, yellow as a child’s imagined 

sun, to anchor, tail as hook, and graze

                                snout down

above a rumpled ocean bed

                                                 among the reefs and rocks

plankton are less these days, not yet

scarce as toilet roll pre-hurricane, but winnowed: while

each seahorse vacuums, snout intent, polythene

packaging with a picture of a shrimp

                                                                drifts past

carried by currents warmer than a dying planet’s final

breath.

Jude Marr (they, them) is a Pushcart-nominated nonbinary poet. Jude’s full-length collection, We Know Each Other By Our Wounds, came out from Animal Heart Press in 2020 and they also have a chapbook, Breakfast for the Birds, published by Finishing Line Press in 2017. Their work has appeared in many journals in the US, the UK, and beyond. A native Scot, Jude recently returned to live in the UK after 10 years of teaching, writing, and learning in the US. The transatlantic connection remains strong, however: Jude is on the masthead at Animal Heart Press and they will be a Poet in Pajamas for Sundress Press in June 2022. 

engraved

by Megan Jones

I am sculpted by waves

ripples carving out the parts of me

worth saving

flakes dissolving excess 

molecules caressing a thousand

liquid droplets

grappling between wanting

to be contained and

spilling over edges

asking the water to

etch my narrative

Megan Jones is a reader, writer, and linguistics graduate from Yorkshire. She is currently pursuing a Master's degree and is always looking for new ways to admire words. Her fiction has appeared in Reflex Fiction, but this is her first venture into poetry. 

the shape of god in my mouth

by Bernadette Martonik

I yell God 

at the gold-plated icons on the living room wall

where Mary and Jesus have long thin faces and narrow noses

like aliens.

Below them is a small wooden table

that is actually an old sewing machine table

covered in a red velvet-clothed book

of the gospels,

a tabernacle,

and two candles in red glass

which we kneel around each evening

and pray to Our Father.

I don’t really yell God

because in my mind, when I yell God like that

I am squeezing my eyes closed and clenching my

fists and glass is breaking all around me

and sparks are flying.

Do not take the name of the Lord in vain, my father said.

He didn’t know how my mouth longed to form those sounds, 

how I had no control when they pushed up the back of my throat

and caught-

the guh, guh, guh, a tic on the roof of my mouth

or a release latch

letting itself ping off and open up into the all-encompassing

ahhhhhhh sound

before quietly landing on the tip of my tongue

duh

To say it backward was as innocent as Dog.

A word that never forced itself to spit up from my belly and swallowed back down.

I have to stand with my nose against the door

and squirm as I study the places where brown shows

through white chipped paint,

trying to imagine kneeling down

in front of the long-faced Jesus and

long-faced Mary,

looking at their alien long fingers,

hers wrapped around him,

his pointed at the sky,

their stern, sad eyes,

taking a deep breath

before whispering, God.

Bernadette Martonik lives in Seattle, Washington. Her work can be found in Oddball Magazine, Cathexis Northwest Press, Pithead Chapel, The Manifest-Station, The Extraordinary Project, Typishly, Vox Lux Journal, and Stone Pacific Zine. She can be found on Twitter and Instagram @BernadetteMartonik

wobble

by Shari Lawrence Pfleeger

As Earth’s axis leans lazily back from the Sun,  

in easy duality North and South Poles  

diametrically tug at Earth’s in-between.  

Molten iron rises toward crusty outer skin,  

then oozes back toward center, making Poles shimmy  

and shift, their movement teasing magnets and maps.  

As glaciers and polar ice soften, melt,  

move as liquid through surging seas,  

our spinning orb wobbles, jounces  

and judders, unsteadily trundles  

through space and time. Like a tottering toddler,  

puffy, pliant legs quaking, vibrating,  

straining to move through the world. Like the jittering  

of hand-cranked film, or the doddering, jiggling snow  

just before the avalanche plummets, carpeting the valley  

in suffocatingly shimmering glitter. Like my mother,  

when her comfortable, overstuffed-chair world  

quivered, when her brain wobbled and wept,  

when the life she sought  

became the life she dreaded,  

when her daughters, polar opposites,  

became her North Star.  

Shari Lawrence Pfleeger’s poems reflect both natural and constructed worlds, often describing interactions with family and friends. Her regular essays on poetry appear in Blue House Journal, and her poems have been published in District Lines, Thimble Literary, Blue House Journal, Green Light and Paper Dragon, and in four anthologies of Yorkshire poetry. Her prize-winning collection of Yorkshire sonnets was launched in Britain 2021 at the Fourth Ripon Poetry Festival. Shari is on the board of Alice James Books (alicejamesbooks.org), a poetry press committed to producing, promoting, and distributing poetry that engages the public on important social issues. She lives, writes and rides her bicycle in Washington, DC.

the school gates

by Karan Chambers

They stream through –   

a wave of bright blue,  

crashing. Here  

and there one tries to fight 

the tide, clinging desperately  

to arm or leg — reluctance  

in every line. A butterfly topped 

braid wobbles, bobbing 

up and down above shaking 

shoulders: driftwood amid 

dragging current. There’s so much here 

that’s unfamiliar. Adult faces  

too are uncertain — what if nothing 

ever changes? We're all marked; 

seeing history reflected 

in small faces, wanting 

so much to be different  

for them. I watch you, hesitant  

but swept along. I hold

my breath as you swim 

out of sight. 

Karan Chambers is a poet, English tutor, and mum to three boys. She studied Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia and has been previously published by The Mum Poem Press, The 6ress, and The Winnow Magazine.  

the lengthened, light-filled days

by Kathryn Sadakierski

the clouds are cherry blossoms

floating in the sky

with fading wisps of spring daylight.

their reflections flicker like swimming fish

in the water of the reservoir

as though ruffled by wind.

a mirror image, an illusion 

is just as fragile

as the down of dandelion.

it changes just as quickly

as the colors of the trees,

which are like snakes that shed their skin,

butterflies in a constant state of metamorphosis,

red-gold wings like apple slices

descending to the earth.

Kathryn Sadakierski is a 22-year-old writer whose work has been published in anthologies, magazines, and literary journals around the world, including Agape Review, Critical Read, Halfway Down the Stairs, Literature Today, NewPages Blog, Northern New England Review, seashores: an international journal to share the spirit of haiku, Snapdragon: A Journal of Art and Healing, Yellow Arrow Journal, and elsewhere. Her micro-chapbook "Travels through New York" was published by Origami Poems Project (2020). Kathryn collects vinyl records, vintage books, and memories, which inspire her art. She graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. and M.S. from Bay Path University in Longmeadow, Massachusetts.

my children will be dead before their 50th birthday

by Sarah Groustra

You never know what you’re going to see until you’ve seen it

“and isn’t that the way?”

There will be, someday, 

the chocolate ice cream and cotton candy of perpetual youth

but for now it’s just another night, seeking solace

in the emptiness

in the wonders that are not for me

“You must be this tall to ride” 

I don’t want to feel guilty for craving fullness 

but I was born too late

“and isn’t that the way?”

Sarah Groustra (she/her) is a recent graduate from Kenyon College in Gambier, OH, where she studied English and drama. Her writing has previously appeared in Funicular Magazine, Lilith Magazine, and the Jewish Women's Archive. Her plays have been workshopped or produced by Playdate Theatre, the Parsnip Ship, Grub Street, and Playwright's Workshop at Kenyon (PWAK). Sarah is originally from Brookline, Massachusetts, and her favorite thing in the world is breakfast all day. You can find her on Twitter at @ladypoachedegg.

it flows

by Kasturi Goswami

My abuela bled in the colour green

Her ichor - divine and destined

Worshippers gathered every moon under the old oak tree

Offered prayers with sweet honey and peaches

Words of faith sought redemption 

They placed their oaths on her shrine

Blood and sweat ramified for the eternal truth.

My mama bled in the colour blue

Her body-sealed within the caves of a prison

A prison called haven

Here, haven skimmed out abundant pastures

Ones that ran through to the horizons

And fields brimming with wildflowers and trees,

Swarming with the admirers at large.

I bleed in the colour red

Haven welcomes me - burks and censors

My hide decorticates and forges a new me

Scraggly limbs and chipped nails peer out in between bars

Charred knees and thin thorax hold up a pale and raggedy mug

They chant my name and lay bare 

In a place outside a prison called haven.

Kasturi Goswami is a blogger who features on her website colourfulingrey. You can follow her on Instagram and Twitter.

“the cockroach grind”

by Ben Nardolilli

A communication is what we call 

ourselves when together, 

don’t take it from us unless we invite you,

go join a clique, a gang, or a murder

or be part of something that bleeds

until faces and limbs are lost,

a tribe, a nation, one vast enterprise moving

along to what goes without saying

our game is to get exhausted

going over variations on possibilities, 

it’s no doubt too much for you,

especially if it never leads to a shared bed

Ben Nardolilli currently lives in New York City. His work has appeared in Perigee Magazine, Red Fez, Danse Macabre, The 22 Magazine, Quail Bell Magazine, Elimae, The Northampton Review, Local Train Magazine, The Minetta Review, and Yes Poetry. He blogs at mirrorsponge.blogspot.com and is trying to publish his novels.

“perhaps, it is vanity”

by Tejaswinee Roychowdhury

the river saraswati is lost / they say,

she disappeared underground,

pulled to the earth’s core

when her mother changed course / perhaps, it is vanity,

to flee into the folds of history just so i can

stare at my rippled reflection in her waters / perhaps, it is vanity,

to feel ecstasy in seeing my abandoned face in an abandoned river,

to feel like i matter—like i’m a part of god’s design / perhaps, it is vanity,

but still it is mine.

Tejaswinee Roychowdhury is an Indian writer, poet, and lawyer. Her work is published/forthcoming in Ongoing, Ayaskala, Gutslut Press, Roi Fainéant Press, Borderless Journal, Kitaab, Bullshit Lit, Alphabet Box, and elsewhere. She is currently a Fiction/Stage Editor for The Storyteller’s Refrain. Find her tweeting at @TejaswineeRC and her list of works at linktr.ee/tejaswinee.

“march”

by Adele Evershed

In my shed sprays of daffodils name the light—glowery

And Armstrong’s trumpet names the noise—a perfect din 

But they are all substitutes for the hard to bare feelings of survival

When I was young I was asked to choose 

Between a frog jumping—or its rumble   

Of course I picked the lovely splash

Now I think about things from the inside out 

And realize it is the enduring noise that is unexpectedly delightful   

Just like an honest rejection or a made-up word so I can tame the light

I get rid of the bodies—drinking sherry in my shed 

Using a stone to weigh the pages of my life  

And stop the ghosts that haunt my bloated heart  

Bitter pollens leave tracks on my blouse

And the brass fanfare tumbles me back 

To another march down a long aisle

Flowers lying like sleeping children in my arms 

Sprinkling freckles on my knickerbocker glory dress 

But at least then the sneezes sounded like cheers 

As I walked into the yellow light

Adele Evershed is an early years educator and writer. She was born in Wales and has lived in Hong Kong and Singapore before settling in Connecticut. Her prose has been published in a number of online journals such as Every Day Fiction, Free Flash Fiction, and Grey Sparrow Journal. Her poetry can be found in High Shelf, Hole in the Head Review, Monday Night, Tofu Ink Arts Press, The Fib Review, Wales Haiku Journal, Shot Glass Journal, Sad Girls Club, and Green Ink Poetry. Adele has recently been nominated for the Pushcart Poetry Prize and shortlisted for the Staunch Prize for flash fiction, an international award for thrillers without violence to women. Visit her website @thelithag.com

“another portrait”

written in Russian and translated into English by Ivan de Monbrison

another portrait

A child’s murder

or something

like this

a living nightmare

you put

the night in a bottle

to use it as ink

to draw your own portrait

on a piece of paper

другой портрет

Убийство ребенка

Или что-то

Как это

Кошмар наяву

Ты положил

Ночь в бутылке

Она служит твоими чернилами

Нарисовать свой автопортрет

На листе бумаги

Ivan de Monbrison is a poet and artist living in Paris born in 1969, with Jewish Russian, Tcherkess and Arabic roots, and affected by various types of mental disorders. 

“linguaphile”

by Tamara Bašić

she was a language 

full of foreign accents 

and assonance 

and metaphors, 

with an alphabet made of 

rhythm 

and rhyme 

and words not made for translating– 

gökotta 

and Waldeinsamkeit 

and la douleur exquise 

but the lilt of his voice 

as he unraveled 

line after line 

of her offbeat language 

was both saudade and tarab, both a pull and a push; 

such a perfect mix 

of language and linguaphile.

Tamara Bašić (she/her) lives in Croatia, where she is frequently trying to pluck gorgeous sentences from her thoughts and write them into poetry. She can also often be found reading, trying to become a polyglot, staring at the sky in awe, and viciously daydreaming. Her work is featured or forthcoming in Southchild Lit, Ice Lolly Review, celestite poetry, Lavender Lime Literary, fifth wheel press, and elsewhere. For more writing and updates, you can find her on social media @authortamarab

“pleumōn”

by Jeff Burt

for Linnaea

She has small lungs,

like mountain lakes

that appear to have a dark-blue depth

but stay shallow from end to end,

that means she jogs instead of runs,

can submerge but not stay under

in the coral reefs, too short of air

to dive, her burst of breath

not a storm’s torrent but more a wind

that ruffles leafs

but does not sway the branch.

She does not have foreshortened joy.

She dwells, learns 

in moderation what others miss

by whizzing by, 

the angles of bleached buildings

against the shadows of time, 

the swallows breaking tufts from cattails 

with the slightest puff, 

the manner in which a cloud takes

a field of wildflowers 

and sunlight gives it back.

Jeff Burt lives in Santa Cruz County, California, with his wife. He has contributed to Rabid Oak, Williwaw Journal, Red Wolf Journal, Heartwood, and won the 2017 Cold Mountain Review Poetry Prize. Twitter: @jeffburtmth

“rush”

by David J. Kennedy

The world hurried. I wanted to stay and talk — 

trace each minute that led you to this place. 

Peer through the foliage and into the 

valley where you became fluent in 

affliction. 

Devour your tales of yellow and blue;  the 

memories that arrive like indigo wrens  

at the window on late August nights  

when planes rumble, drunks stumble, 

and the reels of your mind play 

sepia scenes that drown emerald eyes. 

Cradle your wounded spirit; how she aches to 

stream northwards, far beyond red cliff tops — 

bound for stations where fairy tales are 

free and the rush of flying too close to 

heaven  

blunts the pain of the fall.

David J. Kennedy is a poet and non-fiction author from Sydney, Australia. Themes of aging, wonder, and mortality feature prominently in his writing, and he has work published or forthcoming in South Florida Poetry Journal, Words & Whispers, and Jupiter Review. Twitter: @DavidJKennedy_   

“summer blooms, winter panes”

by Jennifer Baker

I’ve never had a thumb of green

summer blooms framed in winter panes

My window lacks the sunlight seen

Dark and damp, roots begin

buried seed rising again, though

I’ve never had a thumb of green

Kaleidoscopic tones declare sanguine

flowers, hungrily reaching.

My window lacks the sunlight seen

Stubborn soil, pallid fluorescence intervenes

colder fervor, roots grow shallow

I’ve never had a thumb of green

Shadows conceal light like quarantine

the Birds of Paradise veil their faces

My window lacks the sunlight seen

From Azalea pink to Zinnia blue

and a pallet of bloom between

I’ve never had a thumb of green

My window lacks the sunlight seen

Jennifer Baker is a traveler, writer, and musician.  She has played in music festivals from Seattle to Maine; writing and cowriting many original songs along the road.  More times than not she can be seen scribbling in a journal or spending time in nature. She enjoys studying poetry and creative fiction while working her day job in healthcare near Philadelphia, PA. You can follow her on Twitter @frostglasspoet