the road ahead

by Julie Stevens

They say the dead walk this road

every time the moon showers light

on steps caught in its glare.

A line of broken souls 

breezing earth’s warm crust,

before mounting the wind to the sky.

The chilled air catches memories:

sugar-coated, hardened, raw.

An eternal collection for the library of life.

We walk the same path

surging forward with ambition,

never knowing when our steps will take flight.

Julie Stevens writes poems that cover many themes, but often engages with the problems of disability. She has two published pamphlets: Quicksand (Dreich 2020) and Balancing Act (Hedgehog Poetry Press, 2021). Her next pamphlet Step into the Dark will be published by The Hedgehog Poetry Press. www.jumpingjulespoetry.com

I used to know your place in the dirt

by Gal Snir

when our eyelids were flowers and our minds were thick bark 

with ridges that curved — ribbons on the most exquisite of gifts.

During then, the ground was a place to grow words from

and deadweights more like roots and root systems

extending down Earth’s crinkly covering 

where tomato & basil seeds sweetly bud.

They call it companion planting.

Meaning anecdotal wisdom.

Indicating tried & true.

I employed this truth like a cancer.

Planted basil seeds until basil seeds

were nowhere to be found 

and blamed the swelling of green tomatoes

on their absence.

It is easier to indulge in an abundance of emptiness 

over an abundance itself.

Now, I stand over dead ground surrounded by winds 

and white walls 

and white-knuckles

made for punching.

Now, hands are meant to punch.

Hands are not meant to dig.

Now no more composted words.

Now no more people seeds.

No earthlier things to replant.

Gal Snir lives in Seattle, WA. She works as a medical assistant for a small primary care practice in the city. She enjoys writing poetry that peers into the bower of the self and explores cycles of grief, loss, and change. When she’s not suffering for her art or studying for the MCAT, she likes to annoy her sweet dog, Angel. 

2 poems

by Sadie Kromm

till’ solace due us part

my inner child now

exists in a balmy

cottage filled with

harvested books,

lemon loaf, and

a fireplace that keeps

the baby hounds warm.

it is all handmade and

habitually preserved

by me.

I often weep knowing

that she feels safe

and will forever live

rent free.

the two ferns are now dancing

to those who mocked

me for resisting the

emotional poverty

of materialism,

you taught me that

big homes often feel

too cold, but smaller

homes preserve warmth.

and your hatred was

because you could never

fathom why I could ever

be so happy with so little.

Sadie Kromm is a wordsmith and visual artist who is homestead in Ontario. She has pen’d a collection of irresistible columns and hosted an audience, leading local pioneers in the arts and culture sector – particularly independent music. Sadie is now inscribing her own life’s tale about mental health, childhood trauma, kindliness, and her unique relationship with animals through the medium of poetry.

the perfect weather

by Wheeler Light

The weather outside is your heart. 

The weather inside is your heart also 

but the weather outside is more of your heart. 

Inside is more like an echo like your pulse 

is a call and response. It’s like the weather. 

The tide goes out. It comes back every time. 

The good times go away. You could lose your job. 

You could lose your heart, your little sweet 

marching drum. Honey, there is enough time. 

I love you I love you. Cold and muted. Simple  

mirror. The weather outside is just atmosphere  

You know what the good times are like. 

They’re like summer but without the 

sweating. These days, you’re just waiting for the first snow, 

for that opportunity to dip your toes into the sky. 

I promise the good times come back 

but not before the bad times go away. 

Well sometimes at the same time, 

like snow melting while it falls and pooling 

at the edge of the sidewalk and when you 

walk over it, there it is, your reflection. 

Always there like the weather. It’s just the weather. 

Just something to talk about it. Isn’t it amazing?

Wheeler Light is an MFA candidate at the University of Virginia. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Rattle, Spit Poet Zine, and Pretty Owl Poetry, among other publications. You can find his work at www.wheelerlight.net.

I think of you

by Dave Nash

When your grandson comes down in the morning and I know that’s your gift he’s wearing because only you would search and search for the perfect pjs, when I crack eggs, mix flour, butter, water, listen to the sizzle, and study the pancakes for the golden brown remembering our big holiday breakfasts, when a friend stops by for coffee recalls your kindness and how you helped, when I think to call you about what the boys said, or there’s a too cute picture I have to share, a new show in the city we should go, let’s try this restaurant, I’ll meet you at grand central by the clock and that’s when I realize you're not coming back from this vacation and then I remember to hand wash those pajamas.

Dave Nash enjoys coffee in the city on rainy Mondays. Dave is the Non-Fiction Editor at Five South Magazine and writes words that can be found in places like Bivouac Magazine, Atlantic Northeast, The Airgonaut, and Roi Faineant Press. 

write the work

by Zary Fekete

Write the work.

Graveled drive.

Poet’s hive.

Reread. Resist. Write.

Lettre étrangère.

Étouffante au pair.

Pausing, musing. 

Daubing, choosing.

Widened field.

Years of yield.

Persist. Fail. Write.

Write the work.

Come back…

Attack.

Revise. Rephrase. Retype.

Pebbled slope.

Book-shaped hope.

Babaházat

Magyarázat

Write.

Write the work.

Consider.

Fritter.

Place in space.

Efface, erase.

Rows to tend.

Personally offend.

Amend.

Send.

Write.

Zary Fekete has worked as a teacher in Hungary, Moldova, Romania, China, and Cambodia, and currently lives and works as a writer in Minnesota. Zary has a debut chapbook of short stories coming in February 2023 from Alien Buddha Press and a novelette (In the Beginning) coming out in May from ELJ Publications. Twitter: @ZaryFekete

2 poems

by Emily Moon

always raining

It's raining 

in my left ventricle.

A flood flows 

through my aorta,

rushes to my brain,

drips out my eyes.

I want a hurricane 

to rip through my consciousness,

churn the seas of memory,

wring showers from my dark amygdala,

make a nest of driftwood 

for my inner demon to rest upon.

I want fat drops the color

of black plums to purple me clean,

refresh my brain,

make me want to 

lean into love again.

I want to be the rain 

falling like love,

falling like the ghost of love,

falling like the love that might have been

had we been 

the people we thought we were.

immortality

Our atoms 

are likely the only bits 

of us that will come close 

to immortality.

We carry the minute imprint 

of everything each of them

ever touched. 

Tinges of us

carried on our former atoms 

will join collections of molecules 

ad infinitum 

until they shred

into quarks and leptons

dissolving 

into the event horizon 

of a black hole 

at the heart

of a new galaxy.

In this way,

we shall live

forever.

Emily Moon (she/her) is a queer transgender poet from Portland, Ore. She is author of "It’s Just You & Me, Miss Moon" and Editor at First Matter Press. Her work includes appearances in or forthcoming from Pile Press, Boats Against the Current, Banyan Review, Culinary Origami, Roi Fainéant Literary Press, [in her space] Journal, and elsewhere. You can find her on Instagram @emilymoonpoet and Facebook at Emily.Moon.57/. Her link tree can be found at https://linktr.ee/EmilyMoonPoet.

bicycle

by Allison Thung

Exactly when did I get so wary, so overly vigilant I catastrophized seven different ways before attempting anything even slightly risky? She must at least be in hibernation, that incarnation of me who at ten decided the best way to learn how to ride a bicycle was to take off from the top of a hill with nothing but momentum on my side, throwing all caution to the classmate who had offered to hold my bicycle upright, but whose generosity was ultimately no match for my heft. I sure had life all figured out then, certain that triumph lived in eliminating all options but “succeed” and “die trying.” Two lifetimes later, I still recall with absolute clarity the exhilaration that coursed through my entire body as my thick brown hair whipped back from my sweaty face, the way the wind swallowed my well-meaning classmate’s words of assurance or maybe admonishment, and how my sunflower-yellow bicycle flipped right over at the bottom of the hill, sending me crashing to the ground, but only because I had slammed too hard on the brakes to stem the velocity I had gained too quickly, and certainly not before I learned how to maneuver that two-wheeled menace; to ride a bicycle. As I washed the massive oozing scrape on my right knee with murky seawater, bicycle unscathed and leaning against a palm tree, I knew that that was the way I would hope to live forever — with abandon, and without regrets.

Allison Thung is a poet and project manager from Singapore. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Chestnut Review, ANMLY, Heavy Feather Review, Maudlin House, Lumiere Review, and elsewhere. Find her on Twitter @poetrybyallison or at www.allisonthung.com.

after October

by Natalie Marino

It is morning. 

The sidewalk’s maple trees 

offer their final applause  

of leaves.  

A faraway field is faded  

like a fallen orange. 

I want  

to find a reason to make 

everything seem worthwhile 

but the street is vacant.  

Mountains in the distance  

reveal their blue hue. 

The air is as still  

as a broken promise, 

the sky an empty pasture. 

Natalie Marino is a poet and physician. Her work appears in Atlas and Alice, Gigantic Sequins, Hobart, Isele Magazine, Pleiades, Rust + Moth, The Shore, and elsewhere. Her chapbook, Memories of Stars, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press (June 2023). She lives in California.

put the chairs back

by Sean Selbach

the ghosts haunting me

kind of just ask what i’m looking at.

spirits who sweep up the pieces

& suggest i see someone.

put the chairs back where they were

& return to the great beyond.

my prayers always sound like diaries.

first person train wrecks, piling up 

at my knees.

under never answer skies, the questions 

all remain.

close my eyes, address the stars anyway.

run out of names for God, but not 

things to say.

there’s a bump in the night

& i greet the noise with a 

Where were you?

Sean Selbach is a poet living in Chicago, IL whose work has previously appeared in The Indianapolis Review, Sledgehammer Lit, and Door is a Jar.

and the rains fall

by D.C. Nobes

And the rains fall.

The fields are full to overflowing,

roads become streams

the streams are rivers

the rivers lakes

and the lakes become seas

broad and brown

where our minds meander

like small boats

caught in wind and tide.

D.C. Nobes is a scientist whose first half of his life was in or near Toronto, Canada, then 23 years based in Christchurch, New Zealand, 4 years in China, and has now retired to Bali. He used to enjoy winter, but admits that he doesn’t miss the snow or the cold.

ghostly sick / yellow memories

by Rachel Orta

Street light lined sidewalks 

Sunset rolls into dusk 

Flicker of iridescence 

Unnoticed by most 

Light will not let itself 

Be forgotten; 

As for ghosts – 

Young children wear 

Dandelion crowns 

Atop pixie cut heads 

Polka dot dresses 

Autumn leaf foolishness 

Lemonade mixed from 

A frosted can 

I thought Sunflowers were 

Everyone’s favorite 

Until after you were dead 

I’ll no longer 

Stomach yellow 

Touching my skin 

After watching yours 

Turn jaundice and thin

Rachel Orta is from Milwaukee, Wisconsin where she lives with her spouse and her dog Mumford. She gravitates towards dream-like themes, often inspired by nature and music. Along with poetry and flash fiction, she enjoys walks with her pup, cold brew coffee, and lately, Maggie Rogers' latest album. Orta’s writing has appeared in Limelight Review and The Aurora Journal.

tropism

by Julia Wendell

for Barrett

I lean toward you

like a plant in a window 

leans toward sun.

I lean toward you,

like a shadow to its body,

the way I am drawn to a fire, book in hand,

not afraid of being burned. Not now.

Yearning comes from loss, absence

spilling from the pen.

Night slips in and drowns the light,

the leaning,

the ease of being alone, the way

one of us eventually will be.

A car spins and settles,

light skews

at an unnatural angle.

Boots come tromping through the tall grass

at the verge of the littered highway

to see what has become of me. 

I am learning to lean away.

Julia Wendell’s sixth collection of poems, The Art of Falling, was published by FutureCycle Press in 2022. Another collection, Daughter Days, will be published by Unsolicited Press in 2025. A Pushcart winner and recipient of Fellowships from Breadloaf and Yaddo, her poems have appeared widely in magazines such as American Poetry Review, Missouri Review, Prairie Schooner, Cimarron Review, and Nimrod. She is the Founding Editor of Galileo Press. She lives in Aiken, South Carolina, and is a three-day event rider.

siren(s)

by Acadia W. Buro

thick swirls in the water

softer, and then gone

my nymph,

she wouldn’t look at me

her eyes –

could they see me?

clouds shrugged

in the water

she stayed there,

my face paralyzed too

sagging limbs,

stiff joints

was she smiling? 

i wasn’t sure

sirens, and a red sea

drop

your

weapon

Acadia W. Buro is a writer, researcher, and educator who has a doctorate but often gets asked if she is in high school. 

the king of Marmaris

by Carson Wolfe

He lifts me onto his blue suede shoes,

for two weeks a year, a father 

at a wedding, dancing me across 

the sunbaked boardwalk into his bar,

where I tell anyone who will listen

Elvis is my daddy.

I am blonde, blue as the Turkish eye 

jangling on my bartered bracelet.

Against the two medjools of his, 

It’s evident I am temporary 

as the tribal tattoo orbiting 

my belly button.

This year, his absence is a song

I know all the words to. His sequined 

suit hangs over our holiday, 

a white cloud blocking the sun. 

The ocean breeze fills it with life 

and it dances on the wire hanger, 

as if the fabric longs for his 

gyrating hips, the way he flexed 

the damp animal of his chest 

and strummed a woman’s 

bleached hair as she cruised by.

This is how he got customers. 

It’s how he got my mother, 

though her curls are a palette 

as foreign as his. 

The other Brits assume her 

his wife, ask in shouty English 

which direction the supermarket is.

Mum says prison in this country 

isn’t like back home. I think I know 

what she means, 

he’ll have everyone

in the cell block dancing 

to the jailhouse rock. 

Carson Wolfe is a Mancunian poet. In 2021, they were an Aurora prize winner and a Button video contest winner. Their work has appeared or is forthcoming with Fourteen Poems, Rattle, The Penn Review, and Button Poetry. You can find them on Instagram @vincentvanbutch.

as evening falls

by Claire Taylor

A woman on the street sees

My belly and says 

You must be an optimist

What else is there

but this moment

              — my life

a seed planted

straining

to survive

There is nowhere to go 

but forward

             — home

as evening falls and lights blink on

windows glowing 

like eyes

my five-year-old says 

our house is a face

I open the door and 

let the mouth 

swallow me whole

Claire Taylor writes for both adult and youth audiences. She is the founding editor of Little Thoughts Press, a quarterly print magazine for and by kids, and she serves as an editor for Capsule Stories. Her debut picture book, Benjamin's Sad Day, is forthcoming from Golden Fleece Press. Claire lives in Baltimore, Maryland, and can be found online at clairemtaylor.com. 

winterbirds

by Sam Moe

Fire birds. Soon, logs, calls, smooth stones, amber

lights in the shape of onion blooms, when I ask if

you want to sit near me for warmth you laugh. I keep

a series of ticks in my heart. Today I think you loved

me. Tomorrow, who knows. I swallow half of my

words, maybe more, trying to think about a way to

tell you about the forest. How it felt like I sank into

the earth and no one saved me. Why is this the only

thing I want to tell you. We could be talking about

tanagers, what flavor of champagne is best, you could

tell me when you get sick of me, promise me, I’m

begging you, to let me know if you’ll leave. I don’t

want bedsheet ghosts, I don’t want to keep howling

in the fields and eating with the sparrows. Are you 

glad I’m in your life? I’m sorry about the bonfires

and the jealousy.

Sam Moe is the first-place winner of Invisible City’s Blurred Genres contest in 2022, and the 2021 recipient of an Author Fellowship from Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. Her first chapbook, “Heart Weeds,” is out from Alien Buddha Press and her second chapbook, “Grief Birds,” is forthcoming from Bullshit Lit in April 2023. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram as @SamAnneMoe.

writing cranks a grinder and feeds the movement

by Karen Walker

A woman cranks a grinder and feeds the moon. A wonder cranks a grinder and feeds the morale. A woodland cranks a grinder, feeds morality. A wool cranks a grinder on a winter morning. Feeds porridge. A word cranks a grinder and also feeds mortality. A worker cranks a grinder to feed the mortgage. Bigger, a workforce cranks a grinder and feeds the corporate mosaic. Smaller, a workstation cranks a grinder and tries to feed the motivation. A worm cranks a grinder and, falling victim, feeds the motor. A worry cranks a grinder and, distracted, feeds the motorway on the way home. Tragic. A worship cranks a grinder, feeds mankind into a mould. A wrist cranks a grinder, feeds it another helpless mouse. A writer cranks a grinder and feeds the mouth. Bigger still, writing cranks a grinder and feeds the movement.

Karen Walker writes in a low Canadian basement. Her work is in or forthcoming in A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Bullshit Lit, The Bear Creek Gazette, Blank Spaces, Janus Literary, Atlantic Northeast Magazine, miniskirt mag, and others. She/her. @MeKawalker883 

Art Inspiration: Celestial Pablum by Remedios Varo (1958)

we have survived winter before

by Aishwarya Jha

When the cold cartilage of November

wore our fingers like gloves

and those we loved most

bleached into silence

that once grew song

amidst tulle mists

the echoes of a favorite 

dress and the crisp 

lash of betrayal

against our cheeks quenching

the sun

succulents to wrap

around our tongues, formerly 

named Spring, now septic 

and sequestered

from pleasure

in the ligatures of

flambéing logs a weary

prophecy: they both burn,

fire and ice, passion and

passion, a pillaged pit

of a world we could never save

we could never hold

so we held ourselves and 

each other 

steady

steady we stay

in fathoms we remember:

we have survived before

we will make it through again.

Aishwarya Jha is a writer, designer, and entrepreneur from New Delhi, India.  Her work was recently included in a digital anthology by Oxford University and has previously appeared in multiple literary journals, including Atticus Review.  Her award-winning one-act plays have been performed in cities around the world, in addition to being taught at workshops.  Her debut novel will be published in 2024 and she is working on her second as part of the Asian Women Writers program.

small mug

by Bryan Vale

later, 

after the dread has passed, 

i will enjoy my memories 

of a small child drinking tea 

out of my espresso mug. 

because you see, 

you don't know what it's for. 

red porcelain with a sloping 

exterior and a curving handle. 

small enough for a single 

espresso, sparkling water on 

the side — 

but you think it's for you. 

just your size. 

“i'm a lady,”

you inform us, sipping lavender 

tea mixed with water out of

the tiny mug that sits in both your hands. 

of course you are. 

soon your brother 

will be out of the hospital.

Bryan Vale is a writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He writes fiction, poetry, and (for some reason) technical documentation. His work has appeared in Trash to Treasure Lit, Unstamatic Magazine, Moving Force Journal, and Short Fiction Break. Follow Bryan on Twitter and Instagram: @bryanvalewriter