reed canes

by Tempest Miller

Weed him out in the reed canes.

Fashion a jousting stick of diesel-black.

Things need to be reeded out, worked out,

fleshed.

I say this because I have worked with trawls,

and my wife was a physician who would sketch biology.

And I would stand and stare

in the doors and halls

with mirrors

with houses with faces with vacuums and holes,

mouths.

It takes a lot of destruction to create the world,

I believe this,

and there is a life of destruction to realise it.

My wife and I, we are twelve-year-olds in the broken places.

We are poultry in the broken places.

Children, dogs lying on each other like hills,

sprawled footpaths.

In my dreams,

I see the reed canes

and mad cowboys with broken bones

riding over them, black and molten,

let down in fire

the size of a shopping centre.

A space carved out,

and even a cough can be beautiful,

even arrogance can make me wince.

Tempest Miller (he/him, twitter: @ectoplasmphanta) is an LGBTQ+ writer from the UK. His work has appeared in Swamp Pink and JAKE, and is forthcoming in the Chiron Review. His debut chapbook, “England 2K State Insekt”, was released in February 2024. He lives between a building and a lake surrounded by green trees.

when I grow up

by Rory Baskin

become the fresh summer air playing on your skin

(become the gnawing in your gut every time you look away into emptiness)

become the brilliant leaves floating to the ground before you

(become the wonderings and wishing about what comes after this)

become the sunset-simple warmth flooding your cheeks

(become the irresistible pull of a fire that’s growing every moment)

become all the everyday pleasures

and only the forgettable pains

before they become the end of you

Rory Baskin is a high school student in California with a passion for creative writing. Her work is published in Trouvaille Review, Cathartic Literary Magazine, Petrichor Magazine, and Dream Noir Magazine. She is also an editor for Flare Journal. 

disco ball

by Lexi Pelle

The disco ball has become domesticated 

like a lion that can lick a face without 

eating it, sidled up beside houseplants

and framed photos of another Disneyland 

vacation. Gone the voracious nights, 

strobed spots, bell bottoms ringing out in the church 

of bodies. Consciousness is a planet 

of mirrors: the Gods of my childhood 

shine, reflect, refract

when I get too close. 

Gourd which guards us against 

solemnity. Atom of a dwindling audaciousness. 

We electric-slid from the seventies to settle 

it here, sparkling among the white 

wire covers and throw pillows.

It still does what it does.

When was the last time I prayed 

for the sake of praying? I’m tired 

of pleas and promises decorating 

the next dimension with desperation: 

Let the lump mean nothing;

the prettier poet not win 

another prize; his eyes, 

stop them from lingering too long. 

How can I be true in my devotion 

to the sliver of light shifting

between the curtains—

I can’t feel it, though I see 

ghost stars dancing up the wall.

Lexi Pelle was the winner of the 2022 Jack McCarthy Book prize. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Rattle, Ninth Letter, One Art, Abandon Journal, and 3Elements Review. Her debut book, Let Go With The Lights On, will be released in May.

everyone smiles but the clown

by Arvilla Fee

“Because no retreat from the world

 can mask what is in your face.”

― Gregory Maguire, Wicked

Always part of the circus,

juggling a thousand pins

beneath the big top.

White-hot spotlights cast

a golden glow upon a face blurred

beneath charisma and paint. 

The audience roars as he trips over

his too-big feet. He’s up in an instant,

bowing, enticing the crowd to eat 

his antics like popcorn. They don’t see

sweat circles under his arms, don’t feel

the jagged edges of his scarred heart.

He’s a performer—and has the cash

to prove it, but as the lights go down,

and the laughter fades, and he slips 

like a phantom into his dressing room,

he alone can battle the demons

behind the looking glass. 

Arvilla Fee teaches English Composition for Clark State College and is the poetry editor for the San Antonio Review. She has published poetry, photography, and short stories in numerous presses, and her poetry book, The Human Side, is available on Amazon. For Arvilla, writing produces the greatest joy when it connects us to each other.

If I ever go back to confession, I’ll say

by Angela Rona Estavillo

when Rage makes her way 

to my door, I ask her how she 

likes her coffee. Not as bitter as

you would expect. In fact,

a glut of muscovado in the

stippled mug. I oblige such a 

gracious guest. Offer her

tsinelas when she takes off her 

shoes. She compliments the granitic

countertop, spots the hushed garnet, 

remembers it is my sister’s 

birthstone. Says of course your mother’s 

pandesal isn’t too dry. I think she 

must be lying—but she would 

know better than I do. Unlike me

Rage has known my mother since

she was a little girl. To speak of 

girlhood: the mired carabao, 

bellowing. A craterlike scar on the shin 

left by a splinter without a home. Know 

that a foreign body will always find 

its way out. Know that my mother does 

not believe in confession. Tell me my 

penance for when I do not listen 

to her. Tell me my penance for when I 

do. 

Born on Te Āti Awa land (Wellington, New Zealand), Angela Rona Estavillo is a Filipino-American writer working primarily in poetry and creative nonfiction. She holds a B.S. in English from Towson University, where she was also a Writing Fellow. She served as an assistant nonfiction editor for volume 71 of Grub Street. 

2 poems

by Wendy Freborg

bermuda buttercups 

Bermuda buttercups have taken root

among my gardenias. 

They are weeds but they are so yellow,

I find them bright and welcome in February.

Valuing their yellowness, 

ignoring the garden book’s instructions,

I let them grow.

I am generous, benignly tolerant,

arrogantly neglecting

to ask the gardenias their opinion.

measuring my life in pills

I sometimes measure my life in pills, 

watching my days elapse

a  dose at a time, three times a day. 

Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Pill case half empty

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

another week gone.

Another week closer to …

don’t say it

If my stock of days is dwindling,

let me mark their passage 

in things accomplished

time with the ones I love,

hours with children

poetry written

humor appreciated

letters to friends

books I’ve read

If my time is running out,

on Saturday, when the pill case is empty,

let me refill it and say, 

“Here’s to another week.”

Wendy Freborg is a retired social worker whose work has appeared in Rat’s Ass Review, Right Hand Pointing, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Misfit, and WestWard Quarterly. Her life includes one husband, one son, two grandchildren, enough friends, too many doctors and not enough dogs. Her pleasures are her family, crossword puzzles, learning new things, and remembering old times.

puddle

by Christopher Phelps

Originally diminutive
of ditch, it clung

to lagoons and pools

as well, which,

to me, is a happy,

humble hold:

this little lake

a pond,

a luke-cold puddle
to ponder on—or in,

water, a nervous waiter.
Water, I know you

stagnate without moving

through peoples and pebbles,

through the glimmer of springs

and the glamour of worms,

through drafts and drifts through

the valves and vaults of Earth,

the salt and sedge of Earth,

the wide-eyed sky of Earth.

Airth, I start to hear it as;
start to want to call it.

After days of rain,
who knows

why words cease
and wrens sing

and prayer bows
from the preposter

all the way to us,
just now, rinsing off

time’s line—turns to fill

a hole into a shape

of water—whole
as any other.

Christopher Phelps is a queer, neurodivergent poet living in Santa Fe where he teaches math, creative problem-solving, and letteral arts. He is searching for others who think poetry can be equal parts vulnerable and subversive communication. His poems have appeared in Poetry Magazine, Palette Poetry, Beloit Poetry Journal, The Kenyon Review, Zoeglossia, and The Nation. A chapbook, Tremblem, was privately printed in 2018. Details can be found at www.christopher-phelps.com/poetry.

on the lake

by Paul Ilechko

They asked us to choose

between cherries and grapes

but I went with acorns

and the way in which the fog rested

so delicately on the surface

of the lake in the early morning

I paddled a kayak wearing only

a pair of borrowed shorts 

when we took off from the narrow

beach and headed to the far bank

people who grew up locally

think the lake is small

but that’s because they are comparing 

it to the immensity it had 

when they were children

there are more mosquitoes now

and the undergrowth is denser

and I worry what will happen to this place

as the century proceeds 

later I will call you on the phone

we will talk of my day and your day

all of the things we might have done

if we had been together

and I’ll tell you about the texture 

of the fog and the colors exposed

by the rippling waters 

as the sun rose over the eastern hills. 

Paul Ilechko is a British American poet and occasional songwriter who lives with his partner in Lambertville, NJ. His work has appeared in many journals, including The Bennington Review, The Night Heron Barks, deLuge, Stirring, and The Inflectionist Review. He has also published several chapbooks.

all he knows

by Holly Day

as they pause from playing games

feet

soil slicks past me as

will drag them under

cilia around their warm ankles

the bright shards of crystal spires

the world of bright sunlight, blue water

I will come down from the trees to rest bare

on the solid ground. wet

the sunlight, new flesh. I

wrap long tendrils of hunger

pull them down to where I live

far below

family picnics, thick tree roots.

Holly Day’s poetry has recently appeared in Slipstream, Penumbric, and Maintenant. She is the co-author of the books, Music Theory for Dummies and Music Composition for Dummies and currently works as an instructor at The Richard Hugo Center in Seattle and at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. 

moonlight

by Breia Gore

Ocean Isle, South Carolina

In June, we stayed at a beach 

scattered with nests for local science

with a marine life museum down the street, 

where I cried at the informational video 

showing baby turtles dying and racing. 

Only one in a thousand hatchlings

make it to adulthood. They emerge 

from the dark place and the predators start. 

Breia Gore is an Asian-American artist from the south. A Pushcart Prize Nominee, her work has appeared in G-Mob Mag, Pink Apple Press, and Corporeal Literary, amongst others. Follow her @breiagore. 

2 poems

by Claire Gunner

an altar

This afternoon my mother bisque fired then glazed and fired again

an altar, ready for someone’s incense, prayer candle, fetish. 

I always take the object of worship for the thing that conveys it–

the queen for the sedan, the golden calf for the desert.

For the longest time I thought the tabernacle was a microwave,

that other purifying fire:

nuke my body for two and a half minutes at fifty percent power.

Now my body has hot spots. Ready for redemption.

Eat it.

On my mother’s glazed altar I place a wedge of clay, 

a tobacco tin filled with sewing needles, four wooden spoons.

I turn my back.

accidental renaissance

On Thursday, I sat in the middle-left

as the 102 bus slowed at 96th Street.

I watched a hatted figure, jacket-clad

(not on the 102 bus)

cross the February street in front of traffic

extend his hand, palm up, fingers forward

and graze its emblazoned side panel

as if he were God, or Adam

as if he were not of this world

but becoming it.

Claire Gunner lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two cats. She works as a staff attorney for a legal services nonprofit in New York City. Her work appears in The Cardiff Review and Paddler Press.

courses

by Susan Shea

Face in the sun eating heat 

like a pansy in a greenhouse 

I only want to be here

warm in provision until

it is too loafing hot

then I miss being cool 

so I’ll hide here in grey

working on a plan of

my own making

being industrious

until I’ve had enough 

of this alone time 

I want to drive to a talking place

take in all their make believes

their feats their foes 

their families

feed their shadows 

with tastes

from my sunshine

wait in vain for one 

to want to know 

how my life is going

‘til I want to go again

to my next stop

I could use 

a bounce in my step

right now to 

a place that calls me out

to play among 

my portions

Susan Shea is a retired school psychologist who was raised in New York City, and is now living in a forest in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania.  Since she has returned to writing poetry this year, her poems have been accepted in a few dozen publications, including Feminine Collective,  Ekstasis, Persimmon Tree Literary Magazine, Military Experience and the Arts, and the Avalon Literary Review.

dad

by Britta Adams

My father spoke softly, 

like wind before the storm:

Don’t stop imagining

the life of the aphid, how it sucks

the watery marrow from each

leaf it encounters. Don’t neglect

the way raindrops dance

on car windows or how wiggly worms

cry when exposed on wet cement. Don’t

ignore a small girl caught in the eye

of a hurricane or the single shy tear

unnoticed by those who rush by —

the day you do is the day

you die.

My father whispered “goodnight”

like wind before the storm.

I can still hear him

typing away in his dark corner closet,

while we girls were supposedly sleeping.

But I would stay up and listen

to words coming to life:

The drip drip drip of keyboard clicks,

echoing down the hallway.

It sounded like rain.

Britta Adams is a poet living in Orem, Utah, with a passion for binging documentaries, playing video games, and baking delicious treats.

some poems are anecdotal like this

by Stephanie Trenchard

Anecdotal in painting is to depict small narratives, like a woman sleeping on a picnic table as the blue-sky spins and a winged lemur, a nocturnal animal, fluent in the language of dreams, waits nearby looking away from the vortex.  Reading in bed, my membrane bound matter, my cells, search for what is missing, what is available. Music, meaning images from a dream state, a daydream break, invites the unexpected, the surrealism of my layered memories, and even if, even when, a judgment pricks and forces an exhale, a resignation to time, to ego again,  I fold back into the sleepy realm and gravitate to the rhythm of patterns, novel thoughts that pair images, for instance, of Jupiter and someone from years ago, Eileen or Scott, unfinished, unopened presents from the psyche, left deep within. A hello again, together, surprise, surprise! A divertimento that feels like a key. Some dreams are like this.

Stephanie Trenchard is a nationally recognized artist whose narrative cast glass work in many fine collections and museums. She runs a hot glass studio in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin as well as teaching her technique internationally. Her writing has been published in Dillydoun Review, The Closed Eye Open, upcoming in Black Fox Literary Journal, and The Write Launch. Her artwork is in many fine collections and museums and can be seen at popelkaglass.com

gretna days

by Nate Castellitto

I could sit here all day, watch you read

that novel. You purchased it 

yesterday at the market; I left with a 

collection of reprints

of the coffee table variety. I think 

I should read it again.

Spend more time with acrylic river 

and mountain and lilac. The 

kettle has boiled a minute too late because

neither of us wants tea anymore. We 

forgot to pick up honey

 yesterday. I could 

go out again but today is a 

nothing day.

The comforter on the 

living room sofa remains inviting. I remember 

you mentioned your novel examines an unsolved

sequence of crime. This time I 

light a candle by the stove and bring

you a glass of rosé.

Nate Castellitto (he/him/his) is a poet and flash writer in Pennsylvania. His poems have appeared in wildness, Sojourners, and elsewhere. Read more at natecastellitto.net.

nature

by Bianca Sanchez

Earth is a puzzle 

green and blue pieces scattered

the details get lost  

Aloe Vera, healer 

extends her green leaves like hands

soothes burns and cuts

Fresh Ginger, yellow

sunshine for gloomy stomachs

tastes spicy, acts sweet

Hard workers, you Bees

our gardener without gloves

so much life you bring

Trees, lungs of the earth

leaves inhale and exhale

so we can breathe too

Even gray clouds bring 

a belly of gifts, brown grass

sticks out its dry tongue. 

Bianca Sanchez is a writer living in San Diego. She has a BA in English from San Diego State University and currently works in publishing. Her work has appeared in 50-word Stories, Every Day Fiction, and San Diego Poetry Annual. Her Instagram handle is @sanchezbianca1.

poor room for a sonnet

by ​​Matthew Nisinson

after Poor Room - There is No Time, No End, No Today, No Yesterday, No Tomorrow, Only the Forever and Forever and Forever without End 

by Ivan Albright, in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago

No, I am going to make my endless world

in a confined space. No time, no end, no today

no yesterday, no tomorrow. Now my world

will be flatness on flatness, layered forever

and forever and forever without end. No room

for depth, for nuance, for insight. Flat. No, you

will just have to gaze. Flat hands, flat feet, no

room for pain, no room for the absence

of pain. No room for absence, only flat now. 

Everything here, everywhen, always and contin-

uous. No order to it. No disorder to it. At once

and always. Poor room, we press on. Flat forever 

and forever and forever flat. We are. We both just are.

​​Matthew Nisinson (he/him) is a proud New Yorker living in Queens with his wife and daughter and their two cats. He has a JD, and a BA in Latin. Each summer he grows chili peppers. By day he is a bureaucrat. His poetry has appeared in en*gendered, Hyacinth Review, and Milk Press, among others. You can find him on Instagram or Threads @lepidum_novum_libellum and on Twitter and Bluesky @mnisinson. 

sloth at the Cincinnati zoo

by Ashley Kirkland

Maybe

 it’s the temperature, 

but I can’t

be rushed; I like

to take my time, take it

                slow. Clawed fist over

clawed fist, branch 

to branch. It can be

so lonely in winter

– so few visitors 

that time of year. Not like

                      the summer when the kids flock

for summer camp

to spend their days among 

the trees and those of us 

hiding in them. 

I play this game

– it takes all night– 

where I find a new hide-out

in the greenhouse and the children 

try to find me in the morning. 

There’s nothing quite like 

the sound of a child 

squealing with joy, calling

his friends to 

come here. 

Ashley Kirkland writes in Ohio where she lives with her husband and sons. Her work can most recently be found in The Naugatuck River Review, The Light Ekphrastic, and boats against the current. 

I wasn’t going to tell you, but

by Lisa MacKenzie

I put the avocados,

which were in the fridge,

back out on the counter to ripen.

You wanted to make guacamole 

for dinner tomorrow

with these stones.

I don’t mind if you’re mad,

but they won’t taste good.

Like you,

no softness,

no yielding.

Lisa MacKenzie is enjoying the free time of retirement in which to write poetry.  Her work has appeared in boats against the current, Visual Verse and Literary North. She lives in Maryland with her husband and two entertaining cats.

Note: The title of this poem is inspired by This Is Just To Say by William Carlos Williams

daybreak and the little moon in the sky

by Charlene Langfur

The sky is a sweet, deep, dark blue before the light breaks.

The little moon, an arc over the tall fan palms.

A single star glowing over a hot planet.

This is a birthday poem in the Sonoran Desert.

The poem tracking where we are, marking it safely.

I think this is what the poem does now. Saves us.

Reminds of the best we can do, remembering the miracle

of stopping to see what was around us all along.

Fan palm leaves alive, green, deep green, swaying,

in a place of sand and scraggly wild grass.

Mesquite covered with small pods all over it,

cactus on fire with yellow flowers and red fruit.

What goes on living no matter what. I follow along

after what lives, what goes for more where there is less.

I think, why not grow older along with the universe,

eat cupcakes with lemon icing, blow out the candles on top,

on a planet of bombs and threats, a pandemic

that does not quit. And I keep going back to the poem and the sky,

my rescued dog’s wild kisses, the idea nothing’s amiss even if it is,

and I open up the day this way, all in, agog with the new, exactly who

and where I am in the desert in the pandemic in the recession

at the beginning of earth changes.

Charlene Langfur is an LGBTQ and green writer, an organic gardener with many publications in Room, Weber, The Stone Canoe, most recently in The Hiram Poetry Review, Poetry East, Acumen, an essay in Still Point Arts Quarterly, and a short story “The Force of Atoms in an Imperfect World” highlighted on the Hudson Valley Writer’s Guild website.