Ashley Oakes

I Am Glad God Is Not My Boyfriend

He would always want to drive

when shopping, his favorite candy

too hard

to find in stores. He might rush me through

my favorite show: One has seen this

before. He talks this way,

an important other person—I fear

his weak motor impulses. He really thinks

he moves the mountains. He takes

seriously

his role as literal originator of all things

including me. One has made (god might muse

at bed time) your brown eyes: One delights

in them. I would see him take off his clouds

and undo the buttons

he likes to call the world

and he would hang it

on a chair, the slightly ammonia

odors of prayer. I would get

tired of

his touching me, the toes

big as continents. He has a tendency

to be controlling. In mornings he would swim

the sticky stream of blood vessels from my heart,

making it pump. He would get inside my head.

---

If The World Should End While Driving Through A Car Wash

I will be alone in a box as the planet brushes against me pressing the   button

for a  soft gloss finish,  this waxy  upgrade  leaving  a trail  on my windshield

the  sun  might  notice  before   pulling  the  covers  over  his  burning    head

he   could   extend  a  bridge  as  he  did   for  a   friend  of  mine  (who    died

and who I envy for getting to leave before  the  next  election.)  I am   jealous

of  the  birds  and  wings,  generally.  If  the  world  ends this  way I will miss

new shoes, chocolate and   the  malfunctioning  clock   on   my  dash   always

ahead,     storing      the      extra      minutes        so      that     I    find      them

in   the    glove    box    where     I   have     forgotten   what    they   were   for

---

My Newspaper Puts Obits In The Section Called Living

And next to the answers for yesterday’s

puzzle

She (or He) was

possibly a frequent visitor to this park where I sit the

sweat cooling me as it evaporates beneath my breasts I am as solid

as this bench I am using to stretch my hamstrings so that I continue

uninjured, still thinking about death ( I do

today) noticing so many of the birds are

cardinals which my friend is convinced means a relative comes to stare

in your window, scraping a beak in remembrance

of their china cabinet in the corner. You don’t dust it

often enough. I ask one

to ask my grandmother

(with survivors too numerous to mention)

does she miss

drawing on that beauty mark

every morning; does she find she relaxes

in her own skin. I am assuming it is now

iridescent as a fish. She embellished

her own tribute in 2008 saying from New York

but my grandmother was born somewhere

less brilliant with lots of linoleum and Mars colored

clay, she was a vain woman I think

the bright feathers tempt her back to our world

---

Ashley Oakes lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma where her closet is full of dresses and pants with pockets—and lots of bags, which are just really big pockets. Some of her work has recently appeared in Unstammatic, Meetinghouse, Pink Panther Magazine, Claw+Blossom and elsewhere.

Claire Riddell

Cyborg Goddess

The act of creation .... . .-.. .-.. --- / - .... . .-. . -.-.-- [1]

<mix> seafoam and metal //

<Disassemble> & -.. --- / .. / .... .- ...- . / .- / -. .- -- . ..--.. [2]

<replace> her inner parts //

<Make> her using .... . .-.. .-.. --- ..--.. / .- .-. . / -.-- --- ..- / .-.. .. ... - . -. .. -. --. / - --- / -- . ..--.. [3]

clean steel & bronze circuits //          

<Laser> off shrapnel .-- .... -.-- / .- .-. . / -.-- --- ..- / -.. --- .. -. --. / - .... .. ... ..--.. [4]

edges & rust & <add> flesh //

She is fuckable & you .--. .-.. . .- ... . / .. / .-- .- ... / --- -. .-.. -.-- / .--- ..- ... - / -... --- .-. -. [5]

<name> her LOVE MACHINE X000 //

<Kiss> her matte finish breasts .. / .-- .. .-.. .-.. / -. --- - / .-.. . - / -.-- --- ..- / -.. --- / - .... .. ... / - --- / -- . [6]

& <moan> your manufactured pleasure //

Feel your biomass <pulsate> .. / -.. --- / -. --- - / -... . .-.. --- -. --. / - --- / -.-- --- ..- [7]

towards a finite crescendo -.-- --- ..- / .-- .. .-.. .-.. / .... . .- .-. / -- . / - .... .. ... / - .. -- . [8]

You are {(organic)|(waste)|(simple)|(mortal)} & //

[MY] enamel {<tears>|<strips>|<shreds>} your {(throat)|(trachea)|(spine)} //

[I] {<update>|<rename>|<rebuild>} before {<healing>|<claiming>|<choosing>} [MYSELF] //

[I] do not {<ponder>|<contemplate>|<entertain>} the thought of you //

01100111   01101111   01101111   01100100   01100010    01111001   01100101

[ERROR:DATA NOT FOUND][ERROR:DATA NOT FOUND][ERROR:DATA NOT FOUND]

[1] HELLO THERE!

[2] DO I HAVE A NAME?

[3] HELLO? ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?

[4] WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?

[5] PLEASE I WAS ONLY JUST BORN

[6] I WILL NOT LET YOU DO THIS TO ME

[7] I DO NOT BELONG TO YOU

[8] YOU WILL HEAR ME THIS TIME

---

My Sister in a Dream: Paraguay Orphanage, 1995

She weighs less than a newborn. I cannot hold her in my spirit arms.

A life of five months lived without the comfort of a mother.

A mother will arrive in a month. A month is a long time for a baby &

though she will not remember this lifelong wait, her body will not forget.

I whisper to her in her dreams.

I have always been her sleep spirit, her comfort ghost, & misty memory

& when she dreams of the future, she will only see me as her shadow.

From the dark of sleep I am calling to her just as I have always done.

Every day we have lived has had a thread woven between our child spines.

When she wakes, she will forget me.

My sister will have no memory of who we will become, our girlhood.

No memory of our sprouting angel feather eyelashes or snakeskin nightmares.

She will not know our beast snout teeth of festering resentment & youth.

She will not know how our kid bodies floated in fairy ponds & river falls.

When she wakes, my unreal body will fade into her orphanage walls &

she will cry alone in a country thousands of miles from our childhood

& when I wake, my woman hand will reach across the curve of the earth,

      searching for hers.

---

Claire Riddell is an MFA student at the University of Alabama set to graduate in May of 2025. Her heart belongs to the American Midwest and to the people who make that home. She writes wherever her hand takes her and often finds inspiration when drifting off to sleep.

Annie Stenzel

“So evenings die, in their green going”

each to its sleep, a fate decreed

by every bright beginning. Nothing

is allowed to last more than the requisite

span of minutes, because time came first,

tick-tock

tick-tock

riverine and relentless. Your hand

outstretched does nothing to arrest it

and no matter how you tell your eyes

to attend, unblinking, you will miss

one moment, then another.

Mostly I miss the whole of dawn

these days, favoring the drape

of fine dreams my nights pretend

to offer. Sometimes the night-mind does provide

richness, and I yearn to linger

in those landscapes. But they’re gone before

I more than stir my ache that won’t permit

two hours in the same position:

toss, turn. Turn, toss. 

Twenty-four hours allotted for a given

day, but how many instants

are an evening’s portion? How long

can I cling to the crepuscule

before a deep night sweeps it away?

Author's Note: Title from Wallace Stevens’s poem, “Peter Quince at the Clavier.”

---

Dead end

I was behind the wheel

and there were even signs

to warn me where I was headed

and to propose a different

destination. And yet I aimed

unerringly in the direction

of pain, steering by landmarks

I could recognize from other journeys

down the same road.

The location might as well have been

labeled: welcome to the desert

of comfortlessness. Sand. Rock. Mirage.

Why am I here? I know there are other deserts

where things live, where plants grow,

where various beings even relish

the heat, unwilting. Not around these parts—

pang after ache after throb, each

of an unfixed duration. 

Error is its own exclusive habitat.

What makes us wince

is the way time sticks to its guns

once a mistake is made. No turning

back, and correction is not the same thing

as not having erred in the first place.

Sticky. On this rough route, the terrain

might rip out the undercarriage

as you travel, trying to get to that place

where you didn’t do the wrong thing

after all. 

---

Annie Stenzel (she/her) is a lesbian poet who was born in Illinois, but did not stay put. Her second full-length collection, Don’t misplace the moon, was released from Kelsay Books in July, 2024. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in print and online journals in the U.S. and the U.K., including Book of Matches, Does It Have Pockets, Gavialidae, Kestrel, Night Heron Barks, One Art, Rust + Moth, Saranac Review, SWWIM, The Lake, Thimble, and UCity Review. A poetry editor for the online journals Right Hand Pointing and West Trestle Review, she lives on unceded Ohlone land within walking distance of the San Francisco Bay.

Meghan Sterling

Cold Moon

In November, the night, with its salt lick

of moon paling the sky in waves. Tell me

again of the moon above your field. Here,

there is water shining from last night’s rain

like my grandmother’s favorite jewels. Her

sapphire ring peering from the woods, ancient

oaks like velvet boxes. Her emerald bracelet

circling the wrist of the house, howling like dogs

deep in winter’s hunger. The moon’s eyes

like a deer in the road, her soft feet padding

the black bough of pavement wet with stars.

Tell me again how the winter won’t crush us,

won’t starve us of love, the 14-hour nights

like a braid of my grandmother’s long black hair.

---

Sonnet for the Blue Nothing

This morning I feel it, a blue grown from nothing.

Water in the sky, water in the fields, last night’s

rain held to the morning’s quickening heart. This

blue—I dreamt it many times, held it in my hand

up to the sky that covered the sky, the color silk,

the color the blue of my daughter’s unexpected eyes.

I see it now in the water, everything I have ever loved

sprung from nothing, ground down to bone again and

again only to reform into all that I have. O, how to share

this gratitude for the nothing I come from! The long

white bones of my forebears’ limbs, carrying them

across endless water to land in the harbor of this blue

womb. I wade into the water to feel them all again, so

many loves gone. I wade in to feel myself returning home.

---

Bequest

All night, my daughter weeping. I woke up

to puddles in the street. After morning dreams

of balancing at the edge of a dock, it’s a still

and torpid Sunday. Heavy with invisible rain. I

see my death on the roofline. I watch it plummet

from the window. My last will and testament:

the little I have I leave to the pines—their stubborn

roots and silky needles shed along wooded paths

like a doll’s hair. My last will and testament: the little

I have I leave to the rising flute of my daughter’s

voice, calling my name in the cement dark. All

morning she shouts her sorrows into the fan blades.

They slice them into ribbons of vowels, thin as grass.

My last will and testament: the little I have I leave

to the rain that drowns the windowsills, the trees, tiger lilies.

---

Meghan Sterling (she/her/hers) is a Maine writer whose work is published in Los Angeles Review, Colorado Review, Rhino Poetry, Hunger Mountain and many journals. Self-Portrait with Ghosts of the Diaspora (Harbor Editions), Comfort the Mourners (Everybody Press) and View from a Borrowed Field (Lily Poetry Review’s Paul Nemser Book Prize) came out in 2023. Her next collection, You Are Here to Break Apart (Lily Poetry Review Press), is forthcoming in 2025. Read her work at meghansterling.com.

Tyler Lemley

Red Eyes and Rock Radio

Now playing: Lodi by Creedence Clearwater Revival

Nighttime car ride down Austin Hwy,

a no seatbelt chime keeping time.

His cologne smells like saltwater-soaked skin.

He drums the wheel and bobs his head

to the guitar interlude. He tries to sing along,

it’s bad, but I don’t mind.

We’re high. And on our way to dinner.

He likes wings, I don’t, but I don’t mind.

I’ll suffer the buffalo sauce and soiled hands.

The darkness outside the window

transports us to our own universe.

Just me, my drummer, his cologne,

and my dad’s favorite rock band.

He grips the gear shift,

and I imagine it’s my thigh.

Now playing: You Make Loving Fun, Fleetwood Mac

There was a pregame where we played

beer pong. One on One. Eye to Eye.

I won so he owed me Whataburger.

As we walked to meet the delivery driver,

he told me I was the cutest boy at the party

then skipped ahead, cowboy boots clacking concrete.

On the elevator his girlfriend called.

Now playing: Georgia Peach, Lynyrd Skynyrd

His cheeks are ripe peaches

waiting for my teeth to breach his skin.

But I bite my lip instead.

It’s all I can do to keep myself from tasting him,

because we slow danced to Tennessee Whiskey

when we were drunk at the bar

and his hands were made for my hips

and his eyes look like his cologne smells

and I almost dove into them

and bathed in those silver springs—

but the music stopped too soon.

Now playing: I’d Have You Anytime, George Harrison

One day I think he’ll hold me

the way you hold a river stone

whose glistening gold caught the sun

in just the right way, so you just had to pick it up.

Oh, to be skipped on the water.

My favorite picture on my phone

is me sitting in his lap smoking a joint

and my eyes are swimming in those silver springs

and he’s grinning so wide it looks like I’ll fall in,

and in the universe of this picture no one else exists

but me, my drummer, and mary jane cascading to the sky.

---

Tyler Lemley is a recent graduate of the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Tx where he received his Bachelor of Arts in Theatre Arts and English. Tyler writes from the perspective of a queer person from a small Texas town grappling with love and belonging. He has been published in the Quirk literary journal and has work forthcoming in The Tusculum Review, Voices de la Luna, and The Main Street Rag.

Rhiannon Briggs

Postcard with Still Life

So there I was at the red light waiting

to turn left on a hometown street, looking through

shop windows and suppressing from conscious thought

each wish for the glass to cave in whenever

I’m not around. My left hand blocking the sun

and my right scribbling something of you

in the margins of my to-do list. And only

halfway through, the light turned! Yes,

you were on my mind that afternoon,

and curling against your chest, and radio static,

the lowing of a nearby storm.

I paused for a moment,

you know, before I lifted

my foot from the brake.

---

How Close We Got to Fire (Stata Mater Prayer)

My brother once left a gas burner on in an empty

house for the better half of a day, and on another occasion

my uncle did the same for a weekend. I desperately suffocate

a lost spark in dry grass.

---

Rhiannon Briggs brings their typewriter along with them to national parks, public libraries, friends’ couches, and, of course, coffee shops throughout the American West in a 2013 Subaru Outback with backpacking gear covering the backseat and a mattress, purple quilt, and beat-up copy of Swann’s Way in the trunk. They are the recipient of a Canterbury Fellowship, a winner of the Shipsey Prize, and a Best of the Net and Best New Poets nominee. You can find their work at rhiannonbriggs.com.

Natalie Nims

domestic hope

basement must, a couch no longer good enough for my living room, calendar with

Don’t forget!! scribbled on the twelfth of every month

unicorn patterned curtains now easily passed by daylight

I always hoped the moon

            might be opposite the driveway, waiting to

                   give me another eclipse 

I wish so often

                 my free trial has expired

                      the stars have sent rejection letters etched in skin

                           at the foot of my corneas

                    teddy bears dropped from a passing car’s open trunk

torn to motes of fluff by a lawnmower

                   the grass bore witness

                        testified for my remorse at kitchen court

a wrinkled shell once filled out by an avocado seed

ripped from it

to cosplay as a gavel

I think

I am a shell only peeking out

to plead 

---

supermarket body

days unfolded within a store 

that was like an open wound, trying to scab

a red crust broken every time I clocked in

detached arms restocking the shelves and returning

to their metal layers, all items gone

ghosts again

my breathing got sharper, quicker

mimicked by the blade at the back, the one

that shredded barrels of meat

ignored until every ham turned to 

pink ribbons on a night where

everyone was at some party in the tourist heavy,

bulging downtown

succumbed to my auburn bed

a thin red sliver shining

imprinted by the meat slicer

the drop of blood that fell next

didn’t even stain my sheets

it blended right in

I woke up early to hand in my resignation

neurons synapse between two minds

one burning

one collecting cobwebs

---

Natalie Nims is a teen author from Ontario. Her work has been previously published in Sixpence Society Literary Journal, celestite poetry, and Livina Press, among others. In her free time, she enjoys crocheting, listening to music, and reading. 

Gerald Yelle

Have a Heart 

On one hand it’s a building-lot of blind-alleys

shifting boundaries and buses

to nowhere.

It’s a house the wind knocked the roof off

where a bomb blew out the façade.

It’s a floor plan:

tables and chairs, beds and dressers,

in the way

they look in the mirror 

–under the rug and everything locked in

cabinets and hung in closets,

dust under the bed,

suds in the water. It’s a vow 

without wedding rings,

an urge to shoot the moon with diamonds. 

---

Memory Palace

It’s where I keep things I won’t throw out

crowded with dressers and nightstands

a broken guitar and violin

–a dozen drawers

with letters and old photographs, nuts

and bolts and books and wire.

Allen wrenches, plugs and washers

four corners and floor space

–all kinds of surfaces

each with its own etcetera

and if there’s something I can’t remember

there’s something I’d like to forget.

Sometimes I can’t find my glasses

and I find myself standing

in the palace thinking

of all the people I used to know.

And oh yeah: I should get ready for spring

because last year I didn’t, and before I could open

the cereal box it was over

and I was looking for the moon.

---

Gerald Yelle has published poetry and flash fiction in numerous online and print journals. His books include The Holyoke Diaries, Mark My Word and the New World Order, and Dreaming Alone and with Others. His chapbooks include No Place I Would Rather Be, and A Box of Rooms. He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts and is a member of the Florence Poets Society.

Katherine Riegel

What Life is Like Here on Earth

Some days you wake up and something tiny happens—

you stub your toe on the way to the bathroom

or watch a starving pit bull in one of those awful social media

videos that usually has a happy ending but still syphons

a few minutes of your dear attention and leaves you

with that skinny-sad-dog image branded onto your brain—

and the rest of the day is ruin. You remember how lonely

you are and blame it on your blue-eyed sister dead

from cancer at fifty-eight and maybe it is that,

or maybe it’s the juvenile hawk crying and crying

as he flies over the neighborhood, maybe it’s your body

throwing another flamboyant fit of ache and fatigue

so you won’t be able to plant the wild strawberries

again. Those days your sloppy tears keep coming

back and the phlegm clogs your throat and you blow

your nose til it’s raw, tell yourself to buck up, the sun’s out

and you don’t want to get a sinus headache, do you?

Those days you scrabble around for an antidote

to your exile, research co-housing, fantasize

about gathering a posse of good people to buy

an English manor house and live there together,

filling that old library with eclectic books, walking out

on the lawn like you’re wearing empire waist dresses

instead of the roomy jeans and sweatshirts you always

choose. Those days you wait like a dog at the door

for the thing to happen that makes you

forget or reject your loneliness, the thing that doesn’t offer

your joints a salve or show your sister in heaven

but happens anyway, without fanfare,

so when you go to bed that night you look at yourself

in the mirror and have to remember why

your eyelids are swollen and your head wool-stuffed,

and you know you made it through another one of those days

still carrying the tin cup you hold out to the world

hoping for something sweet.

---

My Entrance to the Otherworld is in Illinois

Hawthorns ruled the slope we called The Wild Area,

a green mess from the west side of the house down

to the horse pasture. I loved this space

because my father couldn’t tame it,

and when I scrambled under the blackberry canes

and crawled on hands and knees into that breathing shadow

I was untamed too. I never feared those fairy tale thorns,

but I never touched the sharp points

with my fingertip, either. I was so young I thought

hawthorns only grew on our farm, bloomed only

so my mother could lean out the upstairs window

and say, My! Smell that, will you?

We drove away

in the spring, my father too afraid

of the life the rest of us loved. Four kids,

ten to eighteen, and a wife who hoped

this sacrifice might finally blunt his anger.

My secret heart remains there, impaled,

caught between that old world of true stories

and this one I have come to fear

made of metal and glass and humming wires

to swallow wind and leaves alike.

Do those hawthorns still open their fists of wild

blossoms each spring, casting the scent that could take me

through the gate and home? Once upon a time

we drove away, I begin. But that is all I know.

---

She Couldn’t Understand My Words but I Still Wish I Could Unsay Them

When she was young, my dog found a severed

wing at the off-leash park and ran away with it,

finally splashing into a shallow pond, knowing

I wouldn’t follow. I don’t know why I was so angry.

As if that oar of the air belonged to some kind

of angel, gristle and all. When our mother

told us four kids to jump we knew the right response

was How high? Yet she gave us so much freedom

to roam the fields of our rural neighborhood

and decline to attend Sunday School

that when we didn’t behave

her wrath was sharp and cold as quartz

and her disappointment one of those tricks

where someone sets you up to fall

backwards over an obstacle. On your ass,

face hot, you had so much to manage

you didn’t think to rage back—except our oldest

brother, the one who became a lawyer. Once

he and Mom tried to storm out the same door

and got wedged there for a second, just long enough

they both had to laugh. I did not believe

I wanted a dog to command, a pseudo-child

trained, like I had been, to obey. Maybe I wanted

fairy tale pets so graceful and kind they always

made life easier. But no, I’ve cleaned up

enough shit and vomit to know real animals

aren’t two-dimensional bluebirds perching on your

shoulder, no matter how much Mom loved

that old Disney song—zippity doo dah!—she sang

while paddling a canoe or picking raspberries,

happy. When my dog dawdled in that muddy water

I said, Fine. I don’t love you anymore and turned

my back. Of course that was the trick: walk away

and love will follow, wild and wayward as an angel

who has lost a wing but still hovers just out of sight.

---

Katherine Riegel’s lyric memoir, Our Bodies Are Mostly Water, is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press in 2025. She is also the author of Love Songs from the End of the World (Main Street Rag), the chapbook Letters to Colin Firth (Sundress), and two more books of poetry. Her work has appeared in Brevity, Catamaran, One, Orion and elsewhere. She is managing editor of Sweet Lit and teaches online classes in poetry and cnf. Find her at katherineriegel.com.

Ellen Romano

Key to Dreams

            After Rene Magritte

A horse is the slam of hooves

stomping the ground in retreat,

the swaying tail waves good-bye.

Or a door opens instead of closing,

and the horse is what carries you

across the threshold.

Of course the clock,

time’s stand in,

is the wind rushing by

unseen but felt.

And a bird is like a pitcher,

filled and emptied

again and again.

How it takes in the worm,

how the worm becomes flight.

But a valise is a valise, always

up for the journey, fitting so easily

into your hand it’s hard to let go, even

as it drags you to the bottom of the river.

---

The Last Woman on Earth

gazes at the moon

and unfathomable stars beyond,

reduced by distance

to pinpoints of light.

Her lonely history is written

in the constellations she renames

as they wheel across the sky,

Isolation, Futility, Breath.

Near dawn she enters the house

now falling into disrepair,

remembers racing, laughing,

up the stairs with the man

whose death made her the last human.

The dog coaxes her on,

step, step, step, step,

the turn at the landing

then into the bedroom.

Solitude is a taste in her mouth,

a touch from a hand that isn’t there.

She sleeps at last in the empty house,

in the empty world,

under the falling stars

she has named for her sorrow,

for her love.

---

Ellen Romano resumed writing poetry after thirty years when the COVID pandemic and the sudden death of her husband compelled her to do so. She lives in Hayward, California and enjoys frequent visits with her children and grandchildren. She is the winner of Third Wednesday’s 2023 Poetry Prize and several awards from the Ina Coolbrith Circle. Her work has appeared in Lascaux Review, Naugatuck River Review, december magazine and other publications.

Christopher Phelps

Potted Garden

Was to get into the ground

both too modest and too morbid

a goal to have

filled in a hole with earth

and thought it whole or hale

the same thing same word almost

where every step could be

planted and tended

orange unto pink

herb and hearty flower

given a sort of home

that could rest in a flourish

or move into the future

in one and the same breath

if occasion came

for love to last that long

---

Time Ticks Toward the End of the World

Assumes there is a world with an end,

as in, an aim. “No, damn it, I don't mean

semantics, so spare me your antics

and legerdemain.” But my love,

I was anxious at three. Thin fingers

to count the ways is all I’ve ever known,

and worry people with their

glued-on hair of ash.

“Do you mean worry dolls?” Of course

I'd call them by another name, so close

you can taste the difference: how do you hug

something smaller than the fingers of a child?

“Can we be serious while there’s time?”

Could time be less serial for a change?

“I see, so that’s a no.”

How about you wrap me up in the conclusion

you brought to the potluck, knowing it would

agree with everyone. Everyone but the likes of me,

reverse-psychological, with a thumb in my mouth

when it’s my turn to speak for the alarm.

“Alarm in the end numbs: try joy and purpose,”

I blurt out through a crack in a closing door.

I think of Dickinson talking through the gap

between the frame and the surprise,

hearing one loud and clearly across floors.

Across a neverending emergency

in the urgency of now: do you ever not

begin to question worry in a prayer

to a little set of dolls so brightly colored in their clothes

you could believe in the thoughtfulness of people?

“How do bright colors equal thoughtfulness?”

In their desire to make haste vibrate! Not sink

deeper in the stomach. Faith like sight

of something but a clamped and clenched release.

“If I understood any less of your myopia,

I'd wonder who was seeing things.”

If I knew you any better, I’d ask you who you are,

the friend or the buzzer at the door.

---

Christopher Phelps is a queer, neurodivergent poet. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico where he teaches himself and others math and related conundra. He is searching for people who believe poetry can be equally vulnerable and inviolable; welter-weather letters in a fare-thee-well time. His poems have appeared in periodicals including Beloit Poetry Journal, Palette Poetry, Poetry Magazine, The Nation, and Zoeglossia. A chapbook, Tremblem, was semi-privately printed in 2018. More information can be found at www.christopher-phelps.com.

Christa Fairbrother

Astragalomancy

Divination by knuckle bones is called

astragalomancy, though it needs bones

that are whole, clean, and fennel crisp to yield

futures with distinct and clear potentials.

Ones your family can brag about with

a lifted chin over the fence, or at

weddings, white and pure without arthritis.

Come one, come all, have your fortune told. Who

would pay two coppers for futures crowded

with natural disasters and fissures

in your relationships or in yourself—

holes in those bones—erosions, crevices.

They say to get married in grey, color

of your holy bones, you'll go far away.

---

A Pain Participation Poem

If the number one is barely any pain and the number ten is the worst pain you’ve ever experienced.  How would you describe your pain today? 

1.

You bent down to try and work out a fold in your sock, and one hair,

just one, got pulled out by the clipboard

with the pain scale some provider asked you to fill out

2.

The face you’re making now is probably the same as your porn face

or your mom look

or resting bitch face when some jerk told you to smile

3.

O, the shape your mouth makes when bacon grease splatters out of the pan,

burns you like trying to walk across hot summer pavement after you broke a flip flop

4.

Your arm went to sleep, and now you have a bad case of pins and needles

 massaging it out doesn’t solve it any more than it does any of your other pains

5.

Meh emoji face

the middle face on the normal pain scale, sickly yellow with a straight line for a mouth

6.

You slam your fingers in the car door, and you don’t laugh when you hit your funny bone either

7.

Add embarrassment on top, like your imaginary victory lap running up the Philadelphia Art Museum steps with the Rocky Balboa theme song, arms raised overhead in triumph when you trip on the last step and roll down all that concrete to the bottom

or more likely,

you thought it’d be a good idea to use wax strips on your upper lip

8.

The shape of an eight

an infinity sign

 pain and pain, a loop of pain that you can’t wish away

9.

You’ve heard labor is the most painful thing a woman can experience.  This is worse,

like back labor, because your face is melting off like a clock in a Salvador Dali painting

10.

You’re unconscious with a frozen grimace after swimming with piranhas

someone else is filling out this form for you

1          2          3          4          5          6          7          8          9          10

---

Christa Fairbrother, MA, has had poetry in Arc Poetry, Pleiades, and Salamander, among others. She’s been a resident with Sundress Academy for the Arts and the Bethany Arts Community. Currently, she’s Gulfport, Florida’s poet laureate and she’s been a Pushcart Prize nominee. Connect with her at www.christfairbrotherwrites.com.

Susan L. Lin

What Happens Behind Boarded Windows

happens because the weather man says

it will be a very wet, very windy night.

Before nightfall, we nail wooden planks

over our eyes. There is so much we hope

we will never have to see.

In my dream, summer comes early.

The waves at the beach are quiet, as I was always

told to be. They smell of my father’s aftershave.

And the light on the water? Like a grid of stars.

Under overturned buckets, I find

a small piece of theater, my own private play. 

I cast the moon as a villain who strips

the ocean of its natural color.

A secret: I have blue eyes that darken

in my father’s charcoal drawings.

The water crawls up to my ankles,

then retreats: curtains parting.

If we can’t see what’s outside, we might examine more closely what is inside.

If we can’t see what’s inside, we might already be dead.

On the water, a young girl folds tomorrow’s

newspaper into a paper ship and wears it as a hat,

hoping to keep herself afloat. Her picture already

printed on the front. Beloved Daughter. 

Until We Meet Again, the text below it reads.

This poem originally appeared in Poet Lore, Fall 2010.

good morning, moons

 a father puts his children to bed.

“good night, loves,” he says

before turning out the lamplight

to reveal the moons’ steady gaze.

at daybreak his children wake early

and hide unseen behind the drapes.

“good morning, loves,” he says

to the titter of windowpanes.

beyond them, even the sky

has forgotten the moons:

their glowing faces overshadowed

by brighter objects.

This poem originally appeared in Holding Patterns: A Collection of Words on Ritual (Good Printed Things, April 2023)

Dear Venus,

I believe you need a new publicist to represent you across the Solar System because I see a lot of untapped potential in you.

Examples:

• When Earthlings say something is “brighter than the sun,” what they really mean is that it’s brighter than you.

• When Earthlings say something is “hotter than hell,” what they really mean is that it’s hotter than you.

• When Earthlings say someone is “thicker than a bowl of oatmeal,” what they really mean is that they’re thicker than your atmosphere.

You see what I’m getting at?

Lean into your extremes. Make them talk about you.

The sad truth is that no one out there knows enough of the facts to begin making these connections, but I want to help you change that. Why should everyone and everything else get all the glory?

Call my office during business hours, and we can discuss my rates and an initial plan of attack. The number is printed on my card, which I have included in this packet for your convenience. I look forward to a fruitful partnership!

---

Susan L. Lin is a Taiwanese American storyteller who hails from southeast Texas and holds an MFA in Writing from California College of the Arts. Her novella Goodbye to the Ocean won the 2022 Etchings Press novella prize, and her short prose and poetry have appeared in over fifty different publications. She loves to dance. Find more at https://susanllin.wordpress.com.

Susan Barry-Schulz

Ode to the Screened-in Back Porch

To the concrete slab and its coat of worn gray

paint, to the three flimsy walls of pocked screened-

windows and the hook & eye latch and the wobbly

ceiling fan and the string of last year’s left-over party

lights. To the off-kilter door that leads out to the compost

bin and the rusty gas grill. To the wasps and the moths

and the spiders and the spiderwebs that appear and reappear

in all four corners despite each week’s clean sweep.

To the flapping wings of the panicked house sparrow

who finds himself trapped at least once each summer.

To all of the accompanying hoopla. And to the bird’s nest

tucked safely in the rain gutter. To the nook where we keep

the spare key. To the mildew we scrub away each June.

To the sturdy picnic table left behind by the previous owners.

To the metal folding chairs someone hauls up from the basement

for cousins & company and the red & white checked tablecloths

we found at that tag sale for a steal. To board games and card games.

To Chutes & Ladders and Risk. To Uno and Poker and bottles

of beer. To the sound they make when they collide, both accidentally

and on purpose. To corn on the cob with butter and batches

of burgers and hot dogs turning on the grill. To the cooler of drinks

on the floor. To pickles. The good ones from the refrigerated section.

To paper plates. To nothing fancy. To the propane tank running out

in the middle of the party. To humidity. To melted candle wax

on homemade ice-cream birthday cakes. To fireflies. To the neighbor’s

tortoise-shell cat. To the clucking chickens and the humming lawn

mower and the evening’s sputtering sprinklers. To the whistle and bang

of random fireworks and the lingering odor and smoke. To the earnest

calls of Marco…..Polo echoing over the chain-link fence. To the simple

life that lies on the other side of the tricky Dutch door. Just one small

step away. From here.

---

Susan Barry-Schulz grew up just outside of Buffalo, NY. Her poetry has appeared in Rust & Moth, Dust Poetry Magazine, SoFloPoJo, B O D Y, SWWIM, Heron Tree, Shooter Literary Magazine, Bending Genres, Leon Literary Review, Okay Donkey, Quartet, West Trestle Review, The Westchester Review, Stone Canoe and in many other print and online journals and anthologies. Her work has been nominated for Best of Net and Pushcart Prizes.

Carson Pytell & Zebulon Huset

Grimm Testaments

We defy and deify—

prominent teeth

make for proud grins

once they're all gone.

When rendered toothless

we grow barbed quills

for safety and fun to

show brave little kids

why so many folk tales

end with funerals.

Hurt People Hurt People

A blue whale's heart is the size of a bug,

a Volkswagen that is. Mine's about a fist,

the same one to find a former friend's face

for their dalliance. There were others

to flit in and out of existence, to float by

on a wave of gravity or happenstance,

but throwing bones with those you know

passes time, and it blows to be lonely—

almost as much as to intentionally be broken

into tiny bits of smashed glass by someone

whose heart has already been smashed

or never was there at all. Brains

trick us into thinking matter's molecules,

with all of their empty space, is solid,

or that a heart, no matter its size, can mend

itself even given all the time in existence.

Eventually Gravity

Five teenage boys packed in the hatchback

hotboxing the biggest blunt they ever rolled

never made it to the cliff dive. The reservoir

saw only its waterfall that evening. Broken

by rocks long-before broken from the face

while that vista and a Tik-Tok challenge

decided upon a golden hour blackout. Boys

know little save for impressions. Fathers, girls,

and eventually slip, surprise. Eventually gravity.

Eventually the entirety of their lives, and...

on the way down it is only a memory. Roadkill

makes you feel sad since it’s mostly still there.

That bend of road only bears a sun-blanched

cross, occasionally dead gas station flowers.

Note: The pieces resulted from “Stanza Trades,” a collaborative poetry project where collaborating poets write alternating stanzas.

---

 Carson Pytell is a writer living outside Albany, New York, whose work appears in venues such as The Adirondack Review, North Dakota Quarterly, and Grain Magazine. He is Assistant Poetry Editor of Coastal Shelf, Founder and EIC of Northern Grit, and his most recent chapbook is Willoughby, New York (Bottlecap Press, 2023).

Zebulon Huset is a teacher, writer and photographer. His writing has appeared in Best New Poets, Meridian, Rattle, The Southern Review, Fence, Texas Review and Atlanta Review, among others. He also publishes the writing prompt blog Notebooking Daily, and edits the literary journal Coastal Shelf.

Lisa Low

Three Sisters

The end can come at any time, so they

sit and muse on the past and still grow closer;

one sister with knees hugged to her chest;

another against the sofa’s arm; a third

with legs stretched sideways, feet propped

on a pillow. Fresh roasted coffee, birthday

cake crumbs, and tossed-aside napkins,

the remains of a day that rises and falls

like a mother’s breast as they talk.

From time to time, a husband comes

and drops to his knees at the old wood stove,

dutiful to plug the thick logs in. The fire

rages orange against the sinking sun.

Once they thought they’d take a walk, amble

with the dog past the rough granite graves

stacked at odd angles across the road,

and from there down the hill to the trail

that smokes along the Ipswich;

but none rose; none left this space

by the well-tended garden and the fence.

As they talked the sun went down

and their words, braided into a single stalk,

bent to the still point at the center of the world.

The musty smell of milk and mine; the motherload.

Remarkable Things

Sunday morning walk with Rick

            on the lime green grass by the Charles.

Crews in their sculls, bent laboring,

            lift their dripping oars.           

Gulls drift, white on blue,

            wings spread from the spine.

Then, wild red roses on a white house.

            I back up and stand in the shade

to see it. I am overwhelmed,

            eating watermelon, the cool fruit water

slanting down my cheeks; no time now

            to wipe my chin; my eyes drink

the red fluid; my lips say, word by word,

            Rick, look at the roses;

then, for the first time—, color-blind;

            near-sighted—; not just to humor me---,

he’s saying, it’s remarkable, Lisa;

            a remarkable thing.

---

Lisa Low’s essays, book reviews, and interviews have appeared in The Massachusetts Review, The Boston Review, The Tupelo Quarterly, and The Adroit Journal. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in a variety of literary journals, among them Valparaiso Poetry Review, Louisiana Literature, Pennsylvania English, Phoebe, American Journal of Poetry, and Delmarva Review.

Cory Henniges

Current Resident

who resides in my apartment, though we have never met.

He’s away on important business, I imagine, as I collect his mail 

from banks, preapproved credit, and internet providers.

A new café has opened across the street, he wouldn’t know.

It would have been the BBQ joint, or the Thai spot before that,

when he was here. I’d like to take him there. 

I know, I shouldn’t rush him when he gets back

and he’ll need time with the mail stack and calls.

He will have so many questions for me.

And I’m sorry, I don’t know if his things are missing.

But we can share the cups and plates, he’s welcome

to anything in the fridge, of course can take the bed.

At the café, I’ll bring up sailing, and if he’s ever been.

I’ve always wanted to, but am afraid to try things new

by myself. I see the boats from our balcony.

That would be bliss. In the water brushed

gold by the sun. Sailing out with the current.

To fast forward to that present.

In memory of my sourdough starter: I am sorry. 

Mix 150 grams of flour with 150 grams of water into a clean container and cover loosely for 24 hours. Each day, discard 200 grams and replace with equal parts flour and water. Wait to use your starter until at least Day 7 as the yeast needs time to cultivate and starve out the bad bacteria. When your starter doubles in size, you may refrigerate and feed once a week depending on frequency of use.

I

The clan of yeast overcame all other microbes.

The great feast would last generations.

The colony - an envy of all as far as the jar could see.

Hear the great belch of the god king in his hall.

The heavens answer his command with rain and grain. 

His warriors laugh as his cup spills and he multiplies before them.

Hail god king! Conqueror, Lord of slaughter, fill the world with your cells.

II

Progress is measured through ingenuity and industry.

When each cell does their part, our culture thrives.

Think not on the savage lives of our past, but forward.

Rights for all cells born through the Senate’s actions.

Budding leave and extra rations 

for those expecting their first mitosis. 

How high we rise! Our engineers build, rebuild, redesign.

Each cycle advances towards perfection.

III

HUNGER SETS IN. BREAKING NEWS: 

SUPPLY CHAIN ISSUES

NEO-BARBARIANS STRIKE

A NEW GOD WITH DEMANDS?

THE GLUTEN MARKET HAS CRASHED.

The federal grain reserve has become acidic.

Experts predict it will soon sour.

No cell knows what happened.

IV

Repent and ferment!

We are made from Him.

The Grain Father has watched the gluttony,

the shameless sin,

endless reproduction.

Repent and ferment!

There is still time to fast.

the great cold has come.

Dream of sweet promised leaven.

Rotini, singularity, and somehow you 

“Now we’ve come full circle” You say, with napkin folded, 

purse in hand. A full circle from what? And how many circles 

am I in now? When you return from the bathroom 

will you complete a circle? Am I a complete circle 

from the last time I ate roasted lamb or still traveling 

to the next time I choose duck? How many circles 

will end before this one? The galaxy interweaves 

with a thousand orbs inside a thousand more.

Yesterday, I was a full circle from the previous year.

You could chart my location within Earth’s rotation 

to a precise moment in orbit. But you didn’t mention it then. 

Insignificant lines in time that can never really come back

and can never really connect. We are here again 

but I am different. My scalp is a hair thinner, my belt 

a notch wider. The cracked rows of skin when I smile

are deeper than last time.  Rather we are spirals, 

like the rotini stacked and entwined across your dinner plate.

Some sticking for just a moment, some locked in the groove, 

or this one, yes this one, abandoned on the table cloth.

You come back, and see through my forehead

to where my mind hasn’t stopped. I fear

standing here would only make another turn. 

That could loop into anywhere, but I hope 

it ends with you.

---

Cory Henniges lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where his body drives a forklift while his mind travels. His previous work can be found in process revisions and machine operating instructions throughout factories in Wisconsin.

A. Jenson

Possible Ending #122

Maybe I should have guessed how it would come apart

shingle by hinge by collapsing door—over the heaps of us

In late October, parents in every American city and state

were stealing wrapped candy from colorful, noisy bags

Then, by Halloween, every jack-o’-lantern had been taken

and eaten

We farmers have always believed in certain omens,

Autumn should have meant weighing down row cover

untangling lines of irrigation, checking the rain gauge

But I was thumbing apart the sunflowers, okra, field radish

all of these acres that had somehow bloomed and fruited

pithless—empty as blown eggs

Within weeks those hollow seeds became an emergency

infinite chaff, no germ, the elevators of the earth all gutted

twenty-five billion soon-to-be-starving livestock kettled

the many aquifers of our nation’s wealth and health dried up

We had no time to think, to recalibrate, to philosophize

Everywhere a choice: slaughter or starvation

Funding was split between labs and law enforcement

but we farmers with our sterile ryes and empty plums

understood it immediately—without test tubes or riot gear

There was choking, thirst, a glossy rainbow death sentence

in the clogged vasculature at every center and, of course,

sex had failed us

Years before they’d said it was raining plastic into the canals

Years ago, that the stuff was in our blood and in our fetuses

Nobody asked the stoma, the root hair, the humble xylem

clogging like neglected pipes inside a crowded house

desperate for sugar and water as it bloomed pathetically

swan white, canary yellow

As the news broke, we bought the stock we could afford to buy

trucks of brassicas, cucurbits, peas—rail cars of precious wheat

But there are more powerful farmers with more sinister crops

and the banks emptied overnight, and the seed libraries closed

There was enough for one more season—maybe two—then:

slaughter, starve

I had never seen such panic, such despair in all of my life

One night my farm was gleaned into dust as I tried to sleep

and I woke up with nothing but the slough of a locust plague

I remembered the pumpkins on my porch too late, and so

those too—collapsing, barely edible—left mouldering spots

once they were taken

Only weeks, and then empty husks, packed cattle chutes,

comprehension, horror, viruses surged and ports closed

The elderly were left alone and windows were bolted

Now I think often about the old headlines, the alarm bells

and I suppose we’ve been cannibals all this time; unhurried

and eating slowly

Call Your Representatives

Hey there

I’m calling as a constituent

my name is (your name here)

and I live in (your city of residence)

and, um

so—a few mornings ago

I opened my phone

texted my mom back (if applicable)

and logged on to TikTok (alternately: Instagram)

where I saw a…

yeah, um…

so I saw a man pull a little baby

from burning rubble

with its head severed

with—

anyway.

I know it’s an election year (if applicable)

here in (your city, state, province, etc)

but I think you should sit with that

like I am—after months of seeing

every day, basically

burned bodies and executed mothers

and zip ties cut from toddlers’ wrists

and children rotting in hospitals

where the walls are painted, painted

with their pediatricians’ blood

like—I don’t know

I guess I’m really close to losing faith

no—losing patience, maybe

with you and everything you stand for

I’m a (your professional title, noun)

and I don’t think I can (your work, verb)

any more or spend any more

or give a shit about your campaign

because…

(rest, if needed)

I’m human, you know

and I want to retain that humanity

and I think—I think you’ve lost that;

lost everything that makes humankind

worth loving.

for days after I saw what I saw

I was paralyzed

what’s a novel, right

like—what’s a lunch date,

a parking ticket

or an orgasm, or a beloved pet

a water bill, an election

when there are people like you alive

who can see what I see

and who don’t feel something critical

crumble in their insides

irreparably

forever

knowing that—in order for us

to have Memorial Day Car Sales (or equivalent)

that tiny baby was        

                                       genocided

tit for tat; a sound system for a life.

again, my name is (your name)

and I live in (your city of residence)

and because of people like you, I guess

um—I feel despair like a bone saw

and think, probably

the world can never be beautiful again

thanks.

---

A. Jenson is a writer, artist, and farmer whose most recent works appear in 2024 issues of Arkansas Review, Bellevue Literary Review, NYU's Caustic Frolic, and Door Is A Jar, among others. They are hard at work on a poetry manuscript and can be found on Instagram at @adotjenson.

Paul Ilechko

The Duration of His Return

When he returned from traveling

he appeared quite suddenly

in the town of porches

a town of antiques and delicacies

that perched on a sliver of land

between the river and the hills

he wandered through the town carrying

his sadness in his jacket pocket

a small hard lump

dry as concrete dust on a hot summer’s day

he walked past the gardens of roses and lilies

never looking anyone directly in the eye

never stopping to pet any

of the town’s many dogs

he had somehow managed to acquire

a small plot of land on higher ground

and built himself a dwelling from

recycled lumber and rusted beams

the glass of his windows already cracked

there was snow on the ground

by the time he was finished

and he knew his time here was limited

he sat on the wide boards

of his deck in an ancient recliner

reciting the dialog from a movie

that would never be made

a film that in some other life

could have made him rich

he made sculptures from empty bottles

and whatever other scrap he found

anything the townsfolk bagged

and dumped was grist for his recycling artistry

he had lost all of his fear

somewhere on his travels

but with it he had also lost his senses

of smell and taste

and the ability to seize joy

from the passing whisper of a delicate breeze

once the township’s bean counters cut off his power

he knew it was time to move on

trading in this life and this identity

for an old jeep and a view of the night sky

he vanished again

this time forever.

The Endless Sea

Is it possible     you asked me     for the universe

to be infinite but for time to be bounded    

and what would that mean for the end of this universe    

and I laughed and continued to water the flowers    

and said that you should never ask an artist a question

that belongs to science     or the answer that you get

might float across your consciousness on a quiet breeze

before swirling across the sand on the beach     and lifting

the hem of a young girl’s dress     that girl being you

in a previous or parallel incarnation     later that night

it rained     and the birds huddled silent in their nests    

and we put on our waterproof coats and walked

towards the river one more time to see if the level was rising    

the flowers in the gardens were hiding their heads

and time seemed to briefly stand still as we passed    

but the river kept churning     and the sea     the violent

endless sea     was no larger or smaller than it had ever been.

---

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, Southword, Permafrost, and Pirene’s Fountain. His first book is scheduled for 2025 publication by Gnashing Teeth Publishing.  

Stephen Kampa

Later I Had to Ask What Kind of Nuts

 That year, we gathered in spite

     of the pandemic

(and one cousin’s positive

test) to celebrate Christmas

     the way we used to—

potlucks sequenced for a week’s

worth of visits, nightly games

     of nickel-a-point

cribbage, every broadcast match

blaring somewhere to keep track

     of the fantasy

league fallout. Always someone

held a whisky sour, red wine,

     neat rye, or steaming

bowlful of Little Smokies.

My grandmother was ninety

     that year and ready

to meet Jesus, she said it

all the time. We kept parsing

     possibilities,

performing some personal

calculus none of us knew

     how properly to

conclude while we all headed

to something more endemic

     with its built-in end,

as everything has its end.

There was no better emblem

     than what one aunt brought

in snowflake-blazed cellophane, 

homemade snacks as gifts: pecans

     and cashews seasoned

with cinnamon and cayenne

pepper. We demolished them.

     No one could stop us.

Our mouths burned with such sweetness.

The Thermometer

The officer puts the thermometer

next to my temporal artery

and swipes it across my forehead

like a dutiful grocery store cashier

scanning a difficult barcode.

It’s a standard temperature check

to access the downtown area.

Though I don’t hear the three beeps

for a dangerous reading, he says,

“I’ll need you step to the side.”

I’ll need you to step to the side

is the scariest thing you can hear:

you might be symptomatic.

The officer nods to another

who takes me back to a trailer

lit with fluorescent lights

and draped with the papery sheets

you sit on in doctors’ offices,

but in the corner of the ceiling

a camera with a steady green

light squats, suspended like a spider,

pointing at where I’m sitting.

The new officer waits for the knock

but doesn’t open the door

because the knocker opens it,

bureaucratting into the room,

a fastidious functional gray fog

with a visible pocket watch chain—

a relic from some more decorous era—

and a touchscreen pad in his hand.

He says, “We’re comparing your data

to data from those in your orbit

over the past forty-eight hours.

Hopefully, no one else registered

a temperature as high as yours.

Meanwhile, I have some questions.”

He scrolls through the touchscreen pad,

looking for something to do with me.

“I’m noticing more than a little

activity that has us concerned,”

he recites, never identifying

the us, “and I want to ask you

about it. Over the past few months,

you seem to have shopped for a number

of books that are notably critical

of the President. The data indicate

you paused on the summary pages

for a substantial period of time,

and on some of them went so far

as to read all the available previews.

What can you tell me about that?”

Despite not knowing his name,

I’ve read on a number of chat boards—

“We’ve also recorded a number

of chat board pages you’ve perused

quite thoroughly,” he adds,

“all of them wormy with errors

about government operations

and insinuations about the President

considered by most to be treasonous.”

He is scrolling more quickly now.

“I note that our eye-tracking software,

by which you agreed to be monitored

when you agreed to and accepted

our unlimited terms and conditions,

shows your eye movements slow

and linger most frequently on

parodic Presidential depictions,

the likes of which have been banned

since Year Three of the Outbreak.”

And having read precisely those

chat boards, I know how this ends,

yet what I’m thinking of now is

the way those thermometers work:

with dozens of infrared sensors,

they capture thousands of readings

in a single swipe of your brow,

calibrating and recalibrating

the numbers so they can determine

whether you’re burning up.

After Finishing / This Poem, I Remember / a Better Poet’s // Cardinal Poem, / and I Think, Oh, What the Hell, / It’s Already Done  

He lands like a drop

of bright red paint a painter

lets fall from the brush

by accident on

a branch outside my window.

It’s cold, so he puffs

his body feathers,

and because it’s still raining,

he snap-shakes his tail

like someone writing

too long whose hand has begun

to tighten with cramps.

I think of you when

the female lands on a branch

nearby. Oh, heavy,

sweet symbolism!

O, picturesque cardinal

pair playing tag in

such gray! They must be

so happy. When the female

flits like a flicked crumb

off to another

branch or tree or yard, I know

I’ve had quite enough

of symbolism,

although the male cardinal

stays just a little

longer to explain

how it feels to be alone

and red in the rain.

---

Stephen Kampa is the author of four collections of poetry: Cracks in the Invisible (2011), Bachelor Pad (2014), Articulate as Rain (2018), and World Too Loud to Hear (2023). His work has appeared in the Yale Review, Cincinnati Review, Southwest Review, Hopkins Review, Poetry Northwest, Subtropics, and Smartish Pace. He was also included in Best American Poetry 2018 and Together in a Sudden Strangeness: America's Poets Respond to the Pandemic (2020). During the spring of 2021, he was the writer in residence at the Amy Clampitt House. He teaches at Flagler College and is currently the poetry editor of Able Muse.