toast sweats on a kitchen counter in Highland, Illinois

by John Dorroh

Has there always been bread? I want to know,

I guess, part curiosity, part conspiracy of thought,

the stories in documents: Bible-black testaments

of wheat & chaff, nomads in Egyptian deserts

searching for mana, unleavened bread; Austrian

monks who assigned me early-morning tasks

to prepare the dough, popping bubbles

with a quill pen, fanning warm proofs like

tired hummingbirds. Process deserves respect.

My Cuisinart stainless steel toaster with its 

obvious defect jettisons my toast onto the counter

where it lies in state on fake faux formica. I transfer it 

to a saucer, admiring the saunaed history it leaves behind, 

a near-negative with mottled surface. A gentle heat rises

like ghosts from fields where silver-green choruses

bowed & waved in golden Kansas oceans, Saskatchewan 

prairies, or a thousand other places on a fantastic 

earth.

John Dorroh understands that words are more than some magic potion, that words engage themselves with the soul. He appreciates the work that went into each and every poem he reads in journals by every author. He thanks them. Three of his poems have been nominated for Best of the Net. Others have appeared in over 100 fine journals such as Feral, River Heron, Pinyon, Burningword, The Orchards Poetry Journal, & North Dakota Quarterly. He had two chapbooks published in 2022.

glimpses of nana

by Jada Gordon

While gardening, my hands dig deeper into the earth. Softest wet ground. Reaching with

my grandmother's spirit. I swear I feel the south in the orbit of my palms. I pull weeds

without gloves and massage the vines and leaves. Baby cherry tomatoes blush in the

daylight. Thinking of the stories my mother told me. How my Nana didn't know what the

great depression was. They had an abundance of crops and fruits to feed on. The

sharecropper song. She hated picking cotton and what it did to her hands. She'd put

rocks in the bottom of the bag to weigh it down. There's always been an emphasis on

clean hands in my family. I scrub off the lye that singed my Nana's once youthful hands.

Every careful defiance makes her soul sing. I want her to bloom with life and vitality like

my jalapeños. I dug them out too soon. They were ahead of their time. Daring to make

an escape like I am, every story I've heard of my Nana feels like a picture caught her in

motion. Never stagnant. Never settling. Battling a world that burns labels into a Black

woman's back. Her hands always remained clean, lotioned, and presentable. She's a

lavender refreshing the garden. Bending, swaying but not folding. Her fists were rocks,

her voice thunder. In my box at the community garden, she rests, as the lavender and

peppermint oil I lather into my hair finds its place in my follicles. The smell so strong my

eyes fill to the brim with tears. I cry for her, the roots of the crops, the roots of her pain,

and the roots of my hair. The joy acquired in the distance.

Jada Gordon is a New York City-based writer, journalist, editor, and photographer. Their work centers around girlhood, sexuality, nature, gender, and family. Their work has been featured in Sula Magazine, Poetry & Performance 47,48, & 49, La Libreta, Stuck In the Library, Indolent Books, & KGB Bar Lit Magazine.

the blazing mass graves

poem and translation by Ivan de Monbrison

Горящих братских могилах

Говорить кричать не быть не думать не знать мое сердце начать снова плакать и начать снова не быть страху больше голод забвение мудрость лень земля время кровь земля там в крови ты ходишь ты говоришь ты я не не знаю кто ты ты ходишь ты разговариваешь ты смеешься ты забыл что в клетке животное это ты животное я открываю клетку вынимаю огонь я выдавливаю кровь я снова кладу огонь клетка, и снова я в клетке,  я кто горит, я кто сжигает мои раны, которая сжигает время, которая сжигает ночь в горящих братских могилах.

the blazing mass graves

Say scream don’t be don’t think don’t know my heart starts crying again and start all over again don’t be scared hunger forgetfulness wisdom laziness earth time blood earth there in the blood you walk you talk you I don’t know who you are you walk you talk you laugh you’ve forgotten that there is an animal in a cage it’s you the animal I open the cage take out the fire I squeeze the blood out of it I put the fire back in the cage and again it’s me in the cage burning burning my wounds burning time burning burning all night within the blazing mass graves. 

Ivan de Monbrison was born when people still needed to meet each other face to face to relate, and when education and art were still meaningful words, somehow. He remembers going alone, at the age of 12, to the Louvre Museum because he thought it was what had to be done. He’s been dabbling in poetry and painting while waiting for his death and – at the pace, as time flows – this should happen very soon. 

regret is a nocturnal beast

by Kathleen Pastrana

Regret turns nocturnal 

like a predator in the dark, 

drawn to the scent of fear,

hunting with fangs more venomous 

than my treacherous tears. Undetected, 

it lurks in the shadows 

of a short-lived situationship,

a phantom of affections

that never truly exist. 

Sometimes it festers 

in wounds that refuse to heal, 

preferring to hide only 

in crevices that cradle pain, 

beneath surfaces in danger of collapsing

and other times it dwells on what-might-have-beens,

in the ashes of desires left burning too long, 

settling like a brick in the pit of your stomach

the moment you realize 

commitment is a cage 

and you were born an illusionist

trained to pick locks.

A midnight guest or a familiar intruder, 

it doesn’t matter,

you welcome regret to your threshold

all the same.

In the morning it will be gone,

and so will you. 

Kathleen Pastrana writes from her hometown in Bulacan, Philippines. She used to work as a speechwriter for corporate and academic events. Now she writes poetry in a house she shares with 40 rescued cats. Her poems have appeared in Banaag Diwa and elsewhere.

crush

by Catherine Schnur

Fresh pine

Fallen on the forest floor

Boots blunder in underbrush

A crunching cacophony

Wiggling worms 

Wrought and woolen in warm dirt

Rain rattles the rooted ground

The weeping sky a wonder

Drenched us

Huddled by the hickory in a haze

Averting our gaze, grazing hands 

Blushing brought by the beloved

Catherine Schnur is a writer living in West Virginia. She enjoys moving in circles, painting small portraits of spices for her friends, and dancing in her kitchen. She finds writing bios a bit alienating but hopes something about this one connected with you. 

luminous flux

by Helen Anderson

Tonight is a night

of brash resort neon’s surrender to a lemon moon

while red rivers of taillights rush away, below,

and this mountain on which I sit drips with unspent ink.

This is a night

for silent sips in passed-over corners – 

of strangers oversharing over vino rosado,

swapping doctored details as they weep goodbye.

Tonight

I jangle with warped renditions of tearjerker classics – 

scratch signs in needle piles with a blunt sandal toe – 

watch faces flicker in the glow of separate screens.

This is a night 

which clangs with frantic church bells, ripping

double-denim sea-sky – too fast, too many – 

before the valley settles to a gull’s single cry.

Tonight is a night

of Scots-Scouse-Spanish lilt merging into mellow –

for transcribing this almost-tune onto wavy staves

scribbled in the back of a blank pocket-planner.

Tonight

marks the debut of a makes-my-soul-sing sundress –

of shrugging off just-in-case cover-ups

and sitting comfortably in heat-bumped skin.

This is the night

for letting ants saunter, unsquashed, across my page –

for tormenting word-games to slip my mind,

and solving nothing to become the start of an answer.

Helen Anderson writes in a small coastal town in the North East of England. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Teesside University and her work has been published in literary magazines such as Confingo, Ellipsis, and StepAway. Author of ‘Piece by Piece: Remembering Georgina: A Mother’s Memoir’ (Slipway Press), her debut poetry pamphlet ‘Sagrada Familia’ is due to be published by Nine Pens Press. As a bereaved parent and a widow, Helen is fascinated by the therapeutic power of words.

wishing through the night

by Carina Solis

i.

i’ve fallen in love 

with the bones 

poking through 

your ribcage;

and your back, 

the way 

your scars unravel you

like a secret;

and your shoulders

weighted with 

the sky,

how they slope

from darkness

to dawn.

ii.

an airplane swoons 

into the left chamber 

of my peeling heart;

below, a boy walks

in a song of lanterns.

i watch him 

gleam in the glow 

and then, 

melt away. 

the night is almost 

gone now;

i count my wishes.

Carina Solis is an African-American writer from Georgia. Her work has been recognized in Teen Ink, the Ice Lolly Review, the National Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, the Georgia River of Words, and the New York Times Summer Reading Contest, among others. She is also an editor at Polyphony Lit, an intern at Young Eager Writers, and a mentee at Ellipsis Writing. She is fifteen years old.

an angel flies over

by Mark J. Mitchell

You think — at first — it’s a wind

battering trees at sunset.

Or perhaps an airplane, lower

than usual on a flightpath by moonlight.

But it is his wide wing,

enfolding a weary, guilty earth.

You cannot hide from it.

Mark J. Mitchell has worked in hospital kitchens, fast food, retail wine and spirits, conventions, tourism, and warehouses. He has also been a working poet for almost 50 years. An award-winning poet, he is the author of five full-length poetry collections and six chapbooks. His latest collection is Something To Be from Pski’s Porch Publishing. He is very fond of baseball, Louis Aragon, Miles Davis, Kafka, Dante, and his wife – activist and documentarian, Joan Juster. He lives in San Francisco, where he once made his marginal living pointing out pretty things. Now, he is seeking work once again.

frutti de mare

by Stephen Kingsnorth

The wreckers search the post storm strand,

both eye and ear, revenue men,

and always lurking, pressgang fear,

but shipwreck yields the common touch.

Both cargo and the hulk bear fruit,

the timber, sailcloth, coal and plate,

and even keel set in its place,

a stable board of food, hoard stores.

This treasure chest from tidal horde

will keep the winter gnaw at bay

while we can spar the lighter beams

as coffin rest, bedraggled mates.

The coinage of foreign mint,

but now rechristened in the waves 

these strangers face a common god;

we’ll not disguise these wights, now shades.

Their blue bleached flesh now beached among

gulls, crows and terns, all skua birds,

a thicket, wings and pecking beaks,

that we must brave to feed our own.

Stephen Kingsnorth, who retired to Wales from ministry in the Methodist Church due to Parkinson’s Disease, has had pieces published by online poetry sites, printed journals, and anthologies. His blog is at https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com/  

waltz footprints in snow

by Michael Lee Johnson

Care to dance a new waltz renew,

or drift back

to those old vintage footprints −

waltz with me

footprints in snow

fog covering over old snow.

Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada during the Vietnam era. Today he is a poet in the greater Chicagoland area, IL. He is a member of the Illinois State Poetry Society: http://www.illinoispoets.org/   

blue sky dream

by Yuan Changming

for Qi Hong

Behind the dance with no choreography 

I see the gracious steps and movements

Of your shapely figure in tune with 

An ascending spirit, where bees swarm

Into the spotlight as if to collect notes

Shaken off from your melody, and swirls

Sweeping through the grassland as if 

To emulate your postures in the distance

Beyond the horizon

It’s not my imagination

But in the dance I do see you painting a picture

With all the smoothness, tenderness and grace

Of your body in the heart of light 

As in the spotlight of my heart

Yuan Changming hails with Allen Yuan from poetrypacific.blogspot.ca. Credits include 12 Pushcart nominations & 15 chapbooks, most recently Sinosaure: Bilingual-Cultural Poems. Besides appearances in Best of the Best Canadian Poetry (2008-17), BestNewPoemsOnline, Poetry Daily and nearly 2,000 others,  Yuan served on the jury and was nominated for Canada’s National Magazine Awards (poetry category).

where are you now

by Alexander Etheridge

I keep hearing the gone 

are gone and don’t 

come back

Someone said what’s done 

joins what’s vanished

and in a pure dance

they fall into God’s tear

Meet me there

all you that were dear to me

you that flew up

into moonshadow

What will I do then

in my own last moment

Will I see it 

coming

and will we be apart

as we are now

or blended seamlessly

out there in Heaven’s

fields    Heaven’s 

winter fields

Maybe I’m already

falling or maybe

I’m a drifting grain

of pollen

Who’ll come to me

at the center of

the void

where snowfire blooms

Where is

the shoreless ocean

You told me death is

bone-close and woven

in every thought   

and that in time’s 

dark chapel

all our grief and 

all our joy are recalled

by an infinite mind

Find me there

after the last

morning

Alexander Etheridge has been developing his poems and translations since 1998. His poems have been featured in Scissors and Spackle, Ink Sac, Cerasus Journal, The Cafe Review, The Madrigal, Abridged Magazine, Susurrus Magazine, The Journal, Roi Faineant Press, and many others. He was the winner of the Struck Match Poetry Prize in 1999, and a finalist for the Kingdoms in the Wild Poetry Prize in 2022. 

“open the window, open the window and open it wide!” I say

by Bracha K. Sharp

And peering out at the downpour,
Speckles flung haphazardly on
Stone steps, trees flung in the rain,
Staccato taps a constant in the background —

Yes, this is the primeval that touches mundanity,
The skies pigeon-grey, the wind unfurling closed leaves —
And I, standing there,
Know only this loving prayer,

And like the leaves pirouetting in mist
And the birds crooning at the skies, I, too,
Lift up my arms and twirl in this
Edenic and aqueous world.

Bracha K. Sharp was published in the American Poetry Review, the Birmingham Arts Journal, Sky Island Journal, ONE ART: a journal of poetry, and Wild Roof Journal, among others. She placed first in the national Hackney Literary Awards; the poem subsequently appeared in the Birmingham Arts Journal. She was a finalist in the New Millennium Writings Poetry Awards and received a 2019 Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards Silver Medal for her debut picture book. As her writing notebooks seem to end up finding their way into different rooms, she is always finding both old pieces to revisit and new inspirations to work with. She is a current reader for the Baltimore Review. You can find out more about her writing by visiting: www.brachaksharp.com 

never

by Mykyta Ryzhykh

The morning noise is gentle and supreme

And the soul of the body is fitted with whitewash

When the cherries ripen in the garden

Never

When the morning sun is at 

Wake up and it will be day again

Never

When the blood is warm and cold

Never

Never

Never

Never

Mykyta Ryzhykh (he\him) lives in Ukraine (Nova Kakhovka Citу). He is the winner of the international competition «Art Against Drugs», bronze medalist of the festival Chestnut House, laureate of the literary competition named after Tyutyunnik. Published in the journals “Dzvin,” “Ring A,” “Polutona,” “Rechport,” “Topos,” “Articulation,” “Formaslov,” “Colon,” “Literature Factory,” “Literary Chernihiv,” Tipton Poetry Journal , Stone Poetry Journal, Divot journal, dyst journal, Superpresent Magazine, Allegro Poetry Magazine, Alternate Route, Better Than Starbucks Poetry & Fiction Journal, Littoral Press,  on the portals “LitCentr” and “Soloneba”. He received a scholarship from the President of Ukraine for young authors.

a poem in the moment

by Sol Kim Cowell

smooth sun-bite upon my cheek, 

dappled green grove tattooed upon my

arms, i kiss the wet nose of the dachshund

and wipe the smushy drool from my lips

with the back of my hand. 

crisp croissants crumple beneath my fingers

real, real, i am in this moment — 

even the tickle of hair at the nape of my neck

and the fine crust of dirt beneath my nails

grounds me: real, real.

Sol Kim Cowell is a transmasc mixed British-Korean writer and local café regular. Through his writing, he seeks to embolden the whispers of the subconscious and to confront the ghosts of the past, with a view to tell stories that resonate across borders.  At his doljanchi, he picked up the pencil, and he hasn’t put it down since. 

ship of Theseus

by Ross Creason

This body is a vessel – 

               eroding, rolling, roaming             

borne on the sea, with brittle sails; 

the hull’s been strengthened, 

frayed out rigging swapped for 

sturdier lines. 

Sails patched, broader. 

New technology and navigation – 

               lessons learned laboring 

If the truth of me is in my veins, 

in my bones, my skin, my eyes, 

if my truth is in my body it’s gone now. 

Every seven years, 

every cell is exchanged, 

               dividing, duty-bound, decaying 

but there’s something that remains, 

the paradox of identity. 

After the close, after the lights 

               exit stage right, sans everything 

echoes in the waves, eternal 

as the ship of legend. 

               Tempest-toss’d, traveling. 

The story is the essence, and the truth 

of me is in the telling. 

Ross Creason is from the swamps of Northern VA where he is working towards an English degree. His work has been published in unstamatic, and he might be several possums, in a clever disguise.  

here in

by Lauren Suchenski

the silence of November, 

I tuck a little piece of my 

beating heart 

under a leaf; under a mushroom cap 

to let it ferment; 

maybe it will walk itself off, 

dizzy itself clean, wild itself new, 

maybe it will root itself pure 

And in the snow and tumbled ash 

of January, maybe it will curl around a seed; 

nugget itself into something 

that can grow; maybe my eyes 

will spin me around, 

and let me see the water run clear 

Tuck a cap full of acorns into 

my shoes and teach me how to 

float, a red leaf in the wind, tracing 

itself in the light that bounces 

off a telephone wire 

phoning home

Lauren Suchenski has a difficult relationship with punctuation. She has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize and four times for The Best of the Net. Her chapbook “Full of Ears and Eyes Am I” (2017) is available from Finishing Line Press, and a full-length collection “All You Can Measure” as well as a chapbook “All Atmosphere” (Selcouth Station 2022) are forthcoming. You can find more of her writing on Instagram @lauren_suchenski or on Twitter @laurensuchenski.

proprioception

by Matthew Herskovitz

I learned today to tell an oriole

by the black on its beak, that arrowhead,

instead of any kind of orange chest

caged by black. Sat, rain treeing down, I told

what I now know to be a robin — oiled

head, yellow beak — how I can move my legs

without thinking. Rain came down through the leaves,

and she laughed birdsound, ruffled, stared at me,

drowned iris. Do you understand me? 

Rainwater poured into my lap. Wing flap. She

knew how I moved. Her head twitched, and grass blades

grew break heavy, darker green, whistled wind

when they smacked each other. She called this play,

jumped in the puddle, rainwater singing.

Matthew Herskovitz is a poet from Baltimore, Maryland. He is currently a senior studying English at the University of Maryland, College Park with plans to pursue an MFA in poetry in the fall. His works have been published in Red Lemon Review, Stylus, and Laurel Moon. He has upcoming work in The Shore.

cozy writer

by Ali Beauregard

I can hear the nib of your pen screeching

against the page. your pen exudes dark 

scrawls: the scratching of your pen 

breaking the tranquility of your mind.

yellowed pages, stained with drops of 

coffee. little magnolias and blossoms 

growing out of the white vase, paint

peeling off. and you grab for the tart, 

the sugar sinking into your hands as 

the viscous jam appears on the tip of

your rosy lips, dripping like clots of 

blood. then you grab for the fruit 

and viciously delight on its sweet flesh

as the seeds sprout new ideas, and sparks

your mind & you write once more: 

words flowing like the tributaries seen afar.

Ali Beauregard (they/them) is a queer creative based in the U.K. Their work tackles universal themes like heartbreak, teenage angst and pain, diaspora, and the erasure of BIPOC+ voices in history — through powerful, raw, and sacrilegious ways. Find more about their work here: songofali.carrd.co

a kitchen

by Sam Moe

There is a kitchen beneath my mattress, tucked

away over the years, there are pots of flavor and

silver mussels, gold minnows, cookies shaped 

like eyes, there are garlic hearts hanging from the

ceiling, cubes of thunder on the cutting board.

I am invited to prepare a phoenix heart, I am

unprepared for tenderness and the secrets, which

escape when I make the first cut, this is how you

recreate my universe. Someone’s telling me

not to ruin things this time, someone hands me

Verde artichoke hearts, crying tomatoes, reborn

leaves and a puffer fish, I am the saunter and the

sonder, I am losing to chocolate-covered lobster

shells, I learn to recreate my heart from scratch,

following a recipe etched on the dining room

table. 

Sam Moe (she/her) is a writer of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. She is pursuing a PhD in creative writing at Illinois State University. Her work has appeared in Overheard Lit Mag, Cypress Press, and others. She received an Author Fellowship from Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing in June, 2021.