July - Poem 23

Conjugating Rain / Clayre Benzadon

 -after Agha Shahid Ali

How many times can I ask for you, raining pain?
Too often, I’d preserve remnants true to raining pain.

It wasn’t acid, but every time it hit me, I knew I would get sick.
You brought me to bed, tucked me in, knew raining pain

was a spell that could kill me if I spent too long under it.
I ran over hills with my back to the world, blue, raining pain

inside my legs like needles stabbing me senseless. I yelped
like a dog, you massaged my calf, my phew after raining pain

stopped me from oxidizing my skin. Today I might finally die, I told
myself. Clayre, you’ll overcome this, even if you must shoo (away) raining pain.

Did you feed the girls? / RJ Ingram

To whom was I supposed to feed the girls? / There are no monsters under the bed no rotary phone screaming about check declensions / We fought an honorable man over treacherous moral failings / Tailpipe potatoes & the feet of a dozen rabbits drying on the clothesline getting ready to be swapped a trade shows for fresh pretzels covered in flakey salt / We don’t even use the bad man’s name in this house anymore / Can’t stop the screens from peeling or stop the sans serif fonts from taking off their patent leather pumps / What Garbage Pail kid are you? / I got the molten lava flourless chocolate cake again I’m so predictable! / She looked out the window & pointed & asked “what’s that?” / I had to basically explain the whole Star Forge to the woman who invented it / It’s like a kaleidoscope that collects the starlight from a thousand suns & bends the material we call Sky Armor / Catch a falling star & make it run a million laps / And the Star Forge can bend enough metal to dress an entire outfit / But metal bent in such corrupt ways curses the user which only deters those tied to humanity as a bevel.

5:45am / 5:45pm

Death is Humanity’s Plotting Sister / MeraBaird Kuar

with lines by: Ada Limon, Jericho Brown, Tracy K Smith, Joy Harjo, Natasha Trethewey, Evie Shockley

Didn’t that bare square ask to be played
After the birthing of bombs of forks and fear 
chorus of a whispery blues. She has decided to live another day.  
on our return, over the net of eternity thrown out for stars. 

And all but ferried to her lips, I could see
Trail markers for those coming behind us on
Like blind birds, palms empty
Always a question

Will poetry change the world, no one asks
her cold corpse down upon this little plot of earth.
How it smacked of all that had grown slack
someone will take your picture: 

high and fevered above us, winter coming to lay
by my spine afterward. So I sang and sang,

outline / Kes Maro

shriveled onions on the gas stove top.
cat litter collecting under the window
’s corner. three pieces of cardboard re-
-cycling with cat tooth punctures. mold
growing under the bathtub’s unsealed
caulk. a coat of dust on top of the metal
lamp. at least three centimeters between
the baseboard and the wood floors. a tube
of lipgloss wedged between said baseboard
and floors. blue, orange, red, and white
ceramic broken ashtray on the fire escape.
illegal grill on the roof. the cracked freezer
drawer. the impression of my body in the
graying white carpet. crime scene cat out-
-lines left in shed fur on the couch. rice
noodles stuck under the drain catch’s lip.
a white cast heat ring on the kitchen table.

The Forest Knows Your Name / Azmia Ricchuito

I keep looking out the window
at the trees, reaching for the sky,
their branches, scratchy and rough
touching Heaven,
whispering to God. 

I’ve looked for Heaven
in the depths of hell

and I’m still searching.

I want to tell the trees
and the crows

what you did.

The mycelium
spares no one.

There is a
buried language,
older than memory,
older than
inherited wounds
and fresh cuts,
that belongs to the trees,

and I long for their
giving embrace.

The way their branches
tenderly held me
as a child.

I am
no longer a child
but still carrying
the scar tissue
of loss.

When I’m surrounded by
a garden of stones

six feet under your feet

will I become part of this
wood-wide web?

I told the trees and the crows
what you did.

To My TBR Pile  / Tammy Smith

Stacked high on my nightstand
beside my queen-size bed,
spine against spine,
titles tingling
like lovers spooning
before the devouring.

I can’t wait to get my hands on you,
feel your softness in my lap
or resting against my chest,
like a cat purring.

So many novels,
poems, short stories
demand my attention.

Have you heard me
compare a bookstore
to a candy shoppe?

Rows of warm, gooey,
mouthwatering samples to taste.

All those quasi-complaints—

I really shouldn’t.
I don’t need them—

melt faster than milk chocolate
in the middle of July
when the girl behind the counter,
in a faded college t-shirt
and tortoiseshell glasses,
rings up my purchase.

“How much did you splurge this time?”

My teenage son rolls his eyes
whenever he catches me
hugging a book.

“Mom, why don’t you just
go on a date?”

In Your White Heaven Dream / Daphne Stanford

The walls of your bedroom are painted 
In a pale lavender shade of white called 
White Heaven. On the stereo, Japanese
Psych rock band White Heaven croons
About “The Look of Love,” and surely
That must be what this is: hazel eyes 
Watching mine as I come; the waiting
For it; the coy upturn at the corner of
Your mouth; the daylight fading, slow.

July - Poem 22

The Absurd Wardrobe  / Clayre Benzadon

I won’t lie; I wear food shirts, with sour-
dough engraved on a white tee, plums
packaged on the front, but current fashion hour
invites a little more absurdity: rubber gums
stuck onto the pockets to mimic messy,
animal print galore; the proportions are off-
putting: boxy jackets with skinny jeans, dressy
leopard paired with flower brooches, a Molotov
cocktail waiting to explode. We always come back
to the ‘90s, neon and preppy, hip-hop and grunge,
some days I wear my Lizzie McGuire T shirt to snack
on nostalgia again. Darker, Avril Lavigne has me plunge
into my emo self: netted gloves and deep eyeliner. Today,
I watch a man only wearing Yeezy slides dance. I yell Slay!

Blunder Policy  / RJ Ingram

If the holder misses a move this policy will sharply boost speed

Crab apples & neonanobots / Surprise inspection! / Tarragon & rampion shellfish shells prickly in paper wrappers / Dachshund weaned away from blue milk & stratosphere / Hooligans squash their toes in apple butter / Cowhide dundermuffin / Extrapolate pizza I double dog dare ya / Heinousburg population Rex Fowler from high school / Dug tunnels straight to the silo / Found eight or nine reasons to give up trying / Wish I was kidding / Wait that one doesn’t count / It just has to come true / Thought you knew that.

Sleepless / MeraBaird Kuar

A poem comes
in the night before dreams
children run through
the halls ignited
by a mythical fire
that may have tinged
my finger in sleepless
night in the kitchen
hungry for something sweet,
baby waiting in the room
for my scent to return
it's a charred aroma,
half-wild, half-bought
if the sauce, to you,
is as integral as the flesh.

watershed tanka / Kes Maro

this muffled thing, two
centuries of white paint, lead,
sundown, polluted
river—the drainless hills flood
again, spilling down the road.

Houston, We Have a Problem / Azmia Ricchuito

I woke up today
and the sun was
ablaze

sending light
that left home
long before I
was born

my inner space
resembles the cosmos
dark, cold;

there are so many
worlds inside me
some I am afraid to
explore because
they will suck the
oxygen from my
lungs

across the universes
inside me hangs
a no trespassing
sign

even though I’ve
been waiting
for first light
and signs of life

there are no suns
in my solar system

nothing that my life
revolves around

just galaxies
collapsing inward

until somewhere
in that darkness
your light

breached my
atmosphere

I learned the
name of gravity

the force that
holds me to earth

The Ghost of a Little House Called to Me / Tammy Smith

A cento inspired by Netflix’s 2026 adaptation of Little House on the Prairie

The ghost of a little house called to me.
To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee.
In this America, this wilderness,
the surface rolls and fluctuates to the eye—
the memory of near delights in all the longed-for town,
and my youth comes back to me.
The ghost of a little house called to me.
Ah, have you thought of the bravery,
remembering our fathers in their wreck:
sullen fires of sunset, fading,
the growing wheat, the growing weeds,
the toiling horses, the tired men.
Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud;
strange to me now are the forms I meet.
The ghost of a little house called to me.|
The soul selects her own society—
conquering, holding, daring, venturing.
As we go the unknown ways,
we take up the task eternal,
the burden and the lesson—
now I possess and am possessed.
Here I saw a city rise and say
to peoples round the world:
Listen, I am strong, I know what I want.
Happiness, not in another place—
but this place—not for another hour,
but this hour. Let it be the dream
it used to be. America, the plum blossoms
are falling. America, when will you be angelic?
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
seeking a home where he is free.
The little house can hold all things.

Cento from “The Little House” by Fay Inchfawn, “To Make a Prairie” and “The Soul Selects Her Own Society” by Emily Dickinson, “To the Western World” by Louis Simpson, “The Prairies” by William Cullen Bryant, “The Prairie” by Rudyard Kipling, “My Lost Youth” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The West Country” by Alice Cary, “Prairie Spring” by Willa Cather, “Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Pioneers! O Pioneers!” and “A Song for Occupations” by Walt Whitman, “Prairie” by Carl Sandburg, “Let America Be America Again” by Langston Hughes, “America” by Allen Ginsberg, & “The Little Home” by Edgar A. Guest.

Gatitos, Dos / Daphne Stanford

With white paws
golden eyes &
orange tabby fur
kitten siblings (two)
wriggle backsides & 
whip tails in pursuit
of feathers on a stick

July - Poem 21

A (Brief) History of Salt  / Clayre Benzadon

Salt is as precious
as currency,
 life-essential.

My dad has a habit
of putting salt on food
before even trying it.

My favorite type
of salt is the thick
Kosher coarse beads

that one puts on
soft pretzels (now
all I can think about

is a melt-in-the-mouth
savory tang of enhance-
ment—I throw salt over

my shoulder, draw salt circles
around me…). Biblically
speaking, Lot’s wife was turned

into a pillar of salt as punishment.
Covenant of salt. Salted offerings.
One of my favorite books of all

time is Monique Truong’s The Book
of Salt. My book is titled Moon
as Salted Lemon. I’m thinking

of all the ways salt
      metabolizes,
in our bodies, our lives.

Mother / RJ Ingram

We take shark week very seriously in this town there’s no doubt about that / The young ones pass right through the trials at the tower & then some there’s no doubt about that / Sabrina checks in on me now & then she knows how to see through walls you know / We play checkers between the headstones & the shadows on the walls can tell you everything you need to know about that / I’ve decided to marry the fair headed boy I fell in love with / I wanted to tell you myself & I’m being honest about that / He’s been playing army man with those gentle kids from down the lane / Time has got the better of all of them I guess that’s all I have to say about that / I know how you feel about his second sight / Everything disappoints you I already know all about that / But his kindness is as ferocious as the mice he trains & the floating magnets the Lieutenant uses to jump among the debris of the fallen cities / You already taught all of us all about that / voice you hear in the back of your throat when the cards start singing / My worlds my pantheon of convalescent overlapping vineyards & apple orchards all of that & more. You gave us that. -Erica

And if I am alive by the time you get this
Which I doubt
Please come to the wedding.

Another Chance to Say Goodbye / MeraBaird Kuar

Czechia is a place I can envision
because of your stories, I didn’t take 
the job to learn from my students
it was more to correct the confusion
of my teenage years and the loneliness
I abandoned my home, not because 
I carried your sense of bravery under my tongue
it was a coppery bloodthirst, some spilled
in my cousin’s death, some spilled at my birth
I was looking to bridge the two–but really
it was depression and forgiveness,
assumption and anxiety, it was need 
and an agreement between my parents
that I would switch from one home 
to the other, but I never believe the plot
point is that simple, there’s always more
to the story and I wanted to discover
yours, not at first, not before I met you,
but after I consoled you, dotted with tears
my language all pin-pricked with your
need, and yes, you deserved the hug
and understanding and love, you deserved
to be seen as the girl from Czechia, 
new to this country and state and city
and the home, you wanted to home
and lets not forget the horses, so you
switched homes, and switched homes
after switching homes in a foreign 
landscape, and all three of your brief
mothers took me back to my teenage
trauma, the way they pulled at the heart
on my sleeves and pock-marked it
but I pulled through until my body 
couldn’t thread itself through the needle
any longer, did I split into a thinning thread!
I unraveled for months, unable to recognize
my own children, or anything that life
is supposed to resemble, at least 
that’s what I thought of life, before I saw
how death and mortality masquerade 
in shadow and shushed utterances,
anyway, I left my body and you left 
my country, I had said no goodbyes
nor did I say good mornings to my children
or my husband, he switched roles everyday
as if I was dead. When life allowed my hands
to wrap around it again, I thought of you
wrapped in golden ribbons, not because
of a horse competition, or your return to 
the states to learn at Yale, but because 
you seized so many days, in different countries
and I’ve always stayed in my lane, no matter
how close I get to crossing a border 
I just look over, reach for a hand, but never
traverse to foreign terrain, your domain
becomes more here and there each time
your book is stamped and you skin absorbs 
my sorted sky I recite a poem into
because I never left this side of a goodbye.

The Housewarming Party / Azmia Ricchuito

I wanted to turn
a house
into a home,

tea on the stove
my mother’s recipes
in the oven.

The same stove
that as a child
I was warned
was hot

but I still had to
touch it myself

because it was
the only
way I’d learn;

I had to leave
my fingerprints
on the burner.

I took the trash out
last night
before the end
of the world began;

my demons
kept watch at
my bedside
ever vigilant

while the ghosts
of the past sat
at the foot of
the bed, telling me
bedtime stories
singing soft lullabies
asking me not to

do this to myself
again.

I search the horizon,
but there is no phoenix.

I look down
at my hands.

They are covered
in ashes.

The Unveiling / Tammy Smith

Two cemeteries, two funerals,
two days in a row. Poor Sheldon,
my stepmother sighs,
shrugging her bony shoulders
so high they touch her ears.

I hold her hand as she steps
out of the passenger side
of my rental car.

We’re on the way
to Dad’s unveiling,
but her thoughts
have drifted toward another friend’s
grief. Loss travels like a vagrant
bird.

I spot Dad’s burial plot
by the red flag the cemetery
staff placed there, the same shade
as a summer tanager.

Sheldon wanted to be here—

My stepmother stops
in the middle of her sentence,
staring past me, past the flag,
past a row of graves,
her pale, watery eyes
reflecting the yellow-gold
of the Douro River
she and Dad once cruised—

one of the last big trips
they took before he died
of bladder cancer.

Ah, the irony of a river
glowing at sunset
the color of urine.

That’s a pisser,
Dad would snort-hiss
if he were still here.

To lighten the mood,
he’d probably also joke
about my brother
peeing in our backyard pool
to warm the water
whenever I dipped in my toe
and gasped.

You were so gullible.

My stepmother takes another step,
holding my son’s hand now,
and asks if we would mind
helping her search for the graves
of her mother, sister,
and grandmother.

How many people do you know
buried here?

Only a kid could ask
a question like that,
but I’m dying
to hear her answer,
so I forgive
his bluntness.

Lughnassadh, Almost / Daphne Stanford

Nine days away. Lettuce shorn using
Kitchen shears, not a chef’s knife.

Renegade iron skillets must be 
Seasoned & scrubbed & wiped &

Purveyors of sweet potato latke
& quiche known the proverbial

World over. What does that even
Mean? I imagine it derives from 

The humble classroom globe.
Blue seas & oceans, golden 

Axis, sphere spinning. Not
Unlike a merry-go-round, old-

School style. Triple-dog-dare-
You style. Yukon Golds sauteed

Over a campfire in Seven Devils.
Come September, night air is

Brisk enough to whisk fire 
Into the atmosphere, away 

From the riverbank & tent,
Closer to the constellations.

July - Poem 20

Heartwood  / Clayre Benzadon

I want to go back
to who I was: less

sad and more serious.
Somewhat untouched

by illness. I sat near 
an oak and steadied

my ear near its heart-
wood. Inside of it,

I heart a splintered
drought. I braced

its branch-shoulder,
told it I had recovered,

but at a cost. In the treat-
ment center, I was lost.

At first, I couldn’t eat
or shower myself,

I couldn’t even speak.
Then I was racing 

with my thoughts,
running and rambling,

risky in stupor.
When I came back

to ground, I felt all
plants had crushed

beneath my feet. I 
apologized to the tree. 

Told it I needed
a year of sleep

before I could 
come back, not

to my old self,

but a more grown,
enhanced version.

14 Facts About The Nursery  / RJ Ingram

1 The train doesn’t stop here.
2 That would have defeated the whole purpose.
3 Mother’s Menagerie was still attached to the train.
4 But Sabrina managed to detached the nursery during her departure
5 It was an orphanage for the enchanted animals born in the menagerie.
6 Baby foxes asleep with their eyes closed & tapirs with rumps caked in mud & one or two haunted teacups there were quite a few ostrich eggs which have hatched since then too.
7 Sabrina saved them from living as mother’s slaves chained in the traveling menagerie.
8 But the mime was too dangerous to be left alone in a nursery according to mother.
9 Even without trying an untrained mime can conjure anything from nothing.
10 Even if the stuff the mime creates is invisible it still counts as chaos magic.
11 Even if the barriers fall down when the mime forgets they’re there.
12 Even if a mime wants to just pantomime doing something the mime’s power still makes nothing happen.
13 A Midas touch without having to touch anything.
14 Which is why Sabrina hired a babysitter dancing assassin to watch the mime junior.

The Importance of a Thumb / MeraBaird Kuar

I forget the pain until I move the wrong way, 
I keep falling asleep with my hair still wet
poems play merry-go-round in my mind
I pull my daughter away from the edge
she doesn’t fall from the bed, she whimpers
in her sleep, chills blanket her skin
I have something to say, the curtain
whispers in my ear and I can’t catch 
my thoughts are to take her back to her bed
but my thumb is asleep, it feels permanent

instructions for going to bed / Kes Maro

first pull out everything from underneath
your desk. spread it across the floor and pull
out all the trash. feel bad for thinking of it
as trash and swallow acid when you think
about moving it all under another roof again
eventually. put everything back on the shelves
this time in small bins that you bought to change
everything but really change nothing. wipe down
the window sill. kill a spider. it’s small and pretends
it is a speck of dust. you spray it with clementine
cleaning spray. feel spiders all over your skin. want
to cry. instead, rearrange the closet. finally pull that
cardboard box of shit that just had to go away
out and put it away. find a tub of paint you’ve been
looking for. put the cat in the other room. turn off
the big lights. walk through the kitchen without looking
at it so you don’t have to clean that too. trip on some
of the recycling. pace more. turn off all the lights. lock
the door and touch all the knobs on the stove in the dark.
clear small objects from the kitchen table. go into the bedroom.
sit down. look at the dirt on the carpet and remind
yourself that it is too late to vacuum. the task is too loud.
get up and go sit at the desk. move objects from one pile
to another on the desk. make it better. go back to the bedroom.
look at the contents of the bedside table. sunscreen should go back
to the bathroom. turn around and lock the door again.
your feet are itchy. so itchy. go brush your teeth and put in
your retainer because you paid too much to have just okay teeth
to make them worse by not wearing it. worry you’ve destroying
your gums by wearing it. go into the dark kitchen. fill the sink
and run the dishwasher. thats enough. go back to the bedroom
and sit down. lay in the dark and grip the edge of the bed
until your body surrenders or sunrise comes. fall asleep
when the light’s back, just for a while.

No One Filed a Missing Persons Report  / Azmia Ricchuito

I’m sorry that
the version of me
you know

is a person I never
imagined I’d be.

There was a time
when I had dreams;
now I sleep through
alarms

and remember nothing.

That’s why I didn’t hear
the smoke alarm
screaming
when the house
was burning down.

I hit snooze
and went back
to sleep,

inhaling embers,
breathing through
corrupted lungs
blackened with soot.

I don’t know
how much of me
survived the fire.

There was no one
to file a missing
persons report,

so sometimes
I search the ruins
for clues

to understand
what went wrong;

to find something,
anything,
that’s salvageable.

Some will say
what is lost
can never be
saved,

but I’m not
seeking salvation

I’m looking
for evidence
so I can remember

who I was before
the flames came.

I don’t know if
I’ll ever find out
why the earth
scorches beneath
my feet,

but I know that tomorrow,
when the alarm sounds,

I’ll try harder
to wake up.

Beneath the Surface: A Pantoum   / Tammy Smith

Summers by the town pool, my thoughts swim
like hammerhead sharks circling beneath the surface.
In chilly water, they sink so low they seem to disappear.
We’re both naturally shy, avoiding humans.

Like hammerhead sharks circling beneath the surface,
I crave the depth of solitude.
We’re both naturally shy, avoiding humans,
until the woman beside me says her daughter died.

I crave the depth of solitude.
Boisterous crowds at the pool’s shallow end annoy me
until the woman beside me says her daughter died
last summer, no one even knew she’d been sick.

Boisterous crowds at the pool’s shallow end annoy me.
In chilly water, they sink so low they seem to disappear.
Last summer, no one even knew she’d been sick.
Summers by the town pool, my thoughts swim.

Today’s Spread / Daphne Stanford

This morning’s soundtrack:
Bowie’s “Quicksand” & 
“Strangers When We Meet.” 

Aleister Crowley’s imagery:
First card out: The Sun. 
A dawning of the new.

Desert landscape quenched
By an Empress, crossing: 
Four queens in one; fertility

Crowned by the Two of Swords. 
Heel head over, but we’re strangers
When we meet. Rose & thorns.

Unconscious foundation: 
the King of Pentacles. 
Forget my name, but I’m over you.

In the recent past, the King 
of Wands. I'm in clover, but
We’re strangers when we meet.

In the near future, Temperance. 
I’m closer to the golden Dawn.
Me, now: Four of Cups. 

I’m sinking in the quicksand of 
My thoughts. Energy surrounding: 
Five of Swords. Stalemate. Fold.

Hopes & fears: Queen of Pentacles. 
Vines heavy with grapes, trees 
Bearing apricots, oranges, peaches.

Outcome: The World, clarified by 
the Ace of Swords. This is the 
End of the beginning: sword as

Sharp as the road she travels.
Unconscious: the Eight of 
Cups, clarified by the King of Cups.

Leaving for more fertile soil, away
From this desert landscape, holding a
Chalice out before him, waiting for rain.

July - Poem 19

Foreshadowing  / Clayre Benzadon

-after Sarah Green

Bins of shit 
strewn across 
my room.

Soccer match
gaining traction,
rivalry, political

battles. Stem
of a honeysuckle
knotted through

the back of my ear.
I hear sirens plow
through the neigh-

borhood, all the time. 
Time is an ice cream
truck whistling Bad

Bunny’s “Callaíta”
On the street, I sing
whims of beach,

try to get back
to where I 
 came from.

Calisthenics   / RJ Ingram

Pick up the pace she shouted & Erica reached out for him but couldn’t grab him & for that Erica lost her life / I don’t need you alive I just need your talent mother would warn us between stops at the gymnasiums / Pick up the pace she would shout again & another pair of hands would grasp at that little golden tapir / The pace was an anxious animal who could hypnotize anyone who looked at him which made him an excellent escape artist / Mother would notice his absence & draw a card & knew exactly where to look for him next / Pick up the pace she would yell as we approached / I got him I got him I got him! / We gave him a washer tied to a string to help him focus his talent but it only made him more unwieldy / The slippery sucker’s gone again but we’re going to circle back mother would shout from her alter in the caboose / The pace was back for a day or two before he would slip off the train wandering the countryside looking for his children / Erica loved him more than the plants that hung in her cabin / But she was so short / He’s on the right side this time pick up the pace! / Erica used to call him Hypno bc of his talent before she lost her arms reaching for him out her window / Now we don’t call him anything but grab him & quickly when mother tells us to pick him up.

Foreshadowing after Sarah Green / MeraBaird Kuar

I see Chaka Khan everywhere after
I dreamed of her the time I woke up
and said “this was not just a dream”

I sign up for open mics, and arts festivals
every week

the terrier from two doors over scurries
onto the porch, scaring my infant son

he’s always trying to slide out of my arms
to crawl on the ground and palm something
to his mouth

there is only 1 sunflower left in the garden
but it has 3 more blooms, while its first
head hangs lovingly in watch and waste

it’s full of heavy seeds, it is drying and dying
but meanwhile, it keeps birthing blossoms

this year my husband and I both work
in the garden while we process 
the ramifications of the months last year

when I was too sick to move from the bed

the children built a chaos garden all over
the backyard, in the closets, under beds

I forget that life kept moving
it felt like one long day 

I missed so much sunshine, watering
pest control, even trellising

my husband had luck with the tomatoes
but he lost most of my other seeds

the youngest children always leave me
when he wakes up

I keep finding blankets I forgot about under dirt
my favorite wooden furniture is rotten now

the older kids don’t ask for my advice

the tent is still out since the hurricane
the fire pit changes its occupation daily

the little trampoline turns the big trampoline
into a castle

just add beach pails and Legos

clean up takes more time than playing

I ask the kids why they don’t listen anymore
I forget I abandoned them for months

I was too busy dreaming and drying out
it felt like dying but it was more a hibernation

my brain told me I was alone
I didn’t see all the things growing around me

distance, contention, depression, clutter
now that I’m upright again, 

I’m armed, up early every morning
cutting it all back

If I keep it up it will bloom again 
the way it should

artichoke / Kes Maro

green thistle.
once i dreamt
us swallowed
by unpleasant
waters. it was
a relief then.
i woke up &
you were out-
-side yourself.
artichokes grow
furry spines
around their hearts.
they bloom as
purple arms. to eat
them, use the dull
edge of a spoon
to scoop out their
sharpness. steam
in a shallow bath
of lemon & water
i orbited you.
i don’t understand
meter, so i make
a sauce with fennel
seeds and tomato
to eat with white fish.
i scrape the buttered flesh
off the artichoke leaves
with my teeth. i eat
the heart. i feel like
an animal. i was out-
-side myself. i’m
nineteen again. i drink
orange vodka & tap
water. i am caught
in the rain with holes
in my shoes. i have
never searched
for your obituary
but soon i will try
to make myself
the dull edge
of a spoon. soon
i will try to be gentle. 

Google Maps Can Never Find Me Now  / Azmia Ricchuito

I gifted you
a map of my wounds;

but you crossed
every line —
even the ones
you drew.

We move past
each other, 

our histories creating
friction, grinding
salt into the wounds.

You run when
the earth shakes,
abandoning the safe house,

splitting the ground
between us.

But it’s me who
lives on the edge
of the middle you
destroyed.

Whose fault was it
when the San Andreas
tore through us,

opening an
all-consuming abyss
that swallowed us whole?

Where were you
when I was
mastering cartography,

alone in a dark room
with no sunrise for
a compass…

directionless?

I’ve learned the language
of wounds so well

I know the name
for everything that hurt you

while forgetting the words
for what you did to me.

I forgot the words,
but my body remembers
when the whole world
shattered. 

Triolet for The Weight We Carry    / Tammy Smith

Does despair weigh more than guilt?
Both are a burden to carry
across the bridge pain has built.
Does despair weigh more than guilt?
Suffering has become this quilt,
a patchwork of pain we marry.
Does despair weigh more than guilt?
Both are a burden to carry.

Letter to My Eight-Year-Old Self  / Daphne Stanford

You were fearless. You rode your red bicycle around the neighborhood without knowing which street to go down, but you didn’t care. It excited you, the not knowing: beachside air rippling shirt sleeves, sandy brown bangs. The way your toes dug into the damp waterline, how you scooped up sand crabs, felt them scurry from your grasp back beneath their saltwater mirror, sand bubbling its surface. Your yearning to become a seabird lifting off with its gull brethren, white wings flapping higher toward the sun till they’re soaring over sparkling ocean, out past the buoys, toward the next shore. I want to say, You can still join them. You can do anything you want to do, sweet Daphne. You don’t have to go it alone. 

July - Poem 18

Putx Punk   / Clayre Benzadon

-after Diane Seuss

In the heat of it,
In the heart of it all,
I found gawd. Lawd,

I felt fantastic, fanatic
in my love for the music.
Percolating heave of a growl

growing louder and more
intense, into the mic. Hair
in my face, eyes all raccooned.

My guitar. My Back Velvet Rose.
I yelled out Death! and the crowd
went wild. I jumped and the crowd

catched me. Us band members
 nicknamed each other putxs
to remind ourselves that us sluts

strut down the street with lust,
our butts bulging out of our jeans.
We run, and punk follows us.
We dance and the funk refuses

to end. In the heat of it,
our electric acoustics lit
on fire. In the heat of it all,
us putxs ran away and lived

up in a farm together, feeding
goats and nourishing each other
with awesome knowledge.

Backrooms House Arrest   / RJ Ingram

The mime was rescued from the backrooms accessed through Sabrina’s gymnasium / The florescent lights flickered against the peeling pale yellow wallpaper you know the place aisles upon aisles of empty & endless backrooms / Sabrina found the mime cowering in a corner helpless & alone / Only a toddler / The mime junior wore a muted expression for centuries after emerging from that horrendous prison / She tried bribing him with ice cream & cans of caviar & even pickled ginger with saltwater taffy pulled from the Earth’s last surviving oceanside boardwalk the poor black & white capped child / But an eternity spent in that labyrinthian yellow series of cells fatigues your imagination / The mental gymnastics it takes to starve off the madness those re occurring dead ends those cords dangling from nowhere all that furniture that looked like it was designed by AI / Sabrina had no idea how she heard the mime child he was by his nature completely silent even the creaks in the chairs beneath him quiet when he moves around picking at invisible grapes on an invisible tea tray Sabrina offered him & putting the grapes on his finger tips like a witch’s claw that only the mime dared to see / The pebbles she scried with were meant to show her sound waves & she was trying to see if they could hear the train / But there was a particular quietness coming from a far off corner that did not typically exist in her enchanted gymnasium / The spoons to practice kenisis hummed their usual hum / The carpet stifled even the most normal day to day sounds / But something was there her stones just couldn’t hear & she realized the great clock was opening a door to an eternal prison & whoever was inside must have uncanny abilities just like her & mother or more likely

Mother found him first
And sentenced him
To house arrest

My Infant Son Teaches Me About Myself / MeraBaird Kuar

He doesn’t know he can walk yet
each step he’s taken has been lost
in the kerfuffle of a contagious cry
in the music of my voice, not the words
in the half-need for nourishment at my breast
when I praise him, he praises me too
because I answered his call, removed him 
from the trenches of war with the mind
as it tries to move the body, not an inch
here and there, not a moment to moment
motion, but an isolation choreography
meant to convey the whole story, command 
of society’s level-up process, not just to climb
a ladder, to be prepared for the boss at the top.

If I had to define it / Kes Maro

We were a century
of cows, the end
of a composition.
We were a particle
or prefix implying
assent or compliance.
You were free
from all connection
to the outer world.
I was a weaver’s
shuttle. Our home
was a fence, an outer
wall. We were smokeless,
You were any young
animal. The world
was the clearness
of a pearl and our home
was a sort of key.
We were the same
as water, clarified
butter, a collection
of three cities.
We were anything stamped
with an impression. I was
the stalk of a lotus.
We were no different
than an egress from a house.
I was the slope, ridge, side,
flank of a mountain, a place
of cessation. I was causeless,
groundless, useless, needless,
unnecessary. We were
the payment of a debt.

As a Poet Participating in This 30/30 Project, I Admit I’m   / Tammy Smith

An Abecedarian

Adrenaline-driven, a word junkie
Buying books I’ll probably never read,
Charging multiple devices at once,
Distracting myself from finishing
Everything on today’s to-do list,
Faking that I’m fine when I can’t
Generate new poems from old prompts.
Heaven forbid I give myself grace
Instead of beating myself up—never.
Jeez, dear reader, can you relate, or am I only
Kidding—or kicking—myself for acting
Like an entitled brat? But I digress. Maybe it’s
More than grandiosity, this relentless
Need to write at such a sophisticated level that
Opportunities arrive and renowned indie
Presses begin soliciting my work. Imagine how
Quickly I’ll become famous,
Running spectacular poetry readings and facilitating
Stellar workshops, surrounded by other
Type A personalities who write even more than I do
Under circumstances more demanding than mine. What’s the point
Vying with poets half or twice my age if all I’m doing is
Worrying about who’s winning the submissions game,
Xeroxing copies of poems they claim they wrote
Yesterday, perpetuating the myth that it took them
Zero effort to survive this thirty-day project.

Ode to the Riffle Shuffle  / Daphne Stanford

The way you bridge-
curl cards into a 
Gumby Arch—

then merge both 
piles, card deck
riffling. Then a circling.

Then a crumbling away.

July - Poem 17

Panophile   / Clayre Benzadon

There is an omen
embedded in bread.

Salt on the tongue.
Unhatched belly.

Once I entered
the garage and jumped

from a sudden croaking.
It was a fog-frog, I learned

later, one that half-fades
in shade. When I tried

holding the little guy
in my hands, he slipped

through, like a haunting.
That loaf in my stomach

started to rise. I almost
threw up, until Mr. Faery-

Frog spoke; I almost
completely lost it: “Señor

Frog, how many bites
does it take to get to

the afterworld?”
I asked him.

Mr. Frog addressed
me as panophile.

I asked him what to
make of the focaccia

baking in the oven,
and he said the dead

always arrive warm,
trying to break through

crust. When I tore
off a piece,
the room croaked.

I have salted my
tongue to enhance

its flavor, bring out this
dough’s unearthly mark.

No Poem Today   / RJ Ingram

After Nancy Friedland

I’ve got no poem in me today / No alligator sulking beneath the swampy mirth of consciousness / No waterpark packed with images sliding down plastic chutes & metaphors pissing in the wave pool / The kitchen staff of my mind is clocked out for lunch & everyone’s either on the back patio smoking cigarettes they can’t afford or sneaking sips of schnapps in the walk in & frankly I don’t blame them / It’s hot out it’s July & everyday feels like the world is ending / Not today I told my little notebook & squashy armchair / Not today I bleated at the goats at the zoo who refused me a single greeting or polite chit-chat about the weather / Kim Stafford said his father hated the weight of a blank page / The looming buzz of the white noise radiating with untapped potential / But today I think I’ll keep my notebooks clean & replace the sheets on the bed with a fresh set in solidarity / I’ll roll a pencil on the desk for fourteen minutes instead of writing a sonnet / And still call it a sonnet / I’m not afraid of nothing / After all poetry makes nothing happen anyway.

On Being a Bad Mother, Citizen, Woman / MeraBaird Kuar

Failure is the best option today
I will away the pressure
to report in a timely manner
my manner is defiantly late
but my defiance is whimsical
bellydance, my hips wonder
if they should lie, walk 
a cemented line, ignore
the daily pain that charges 
in the stagnant energy 
if I should knead away the short
circuitry of womanhood 
or should I say motherhood
I wouldn't know, but I will say
I feel like a mother, in my hips
even when my mombrain
forgets my children's names. 

there's this shipwreck / Kes Maro

a short walk from the ferry. it’s peeled back undercarriage gives in
to the rocky shore in an unwanted embrace. rusty skeleton broken

open and warped. where there was once a crew and cargo, i see
a broken jaw, askew and hungry. the weeping metal has washed

the shore in orange dust and glass. billions of pin-sized snails live
in its shadow, drying at low tide. i don’t know

how to hold anything, but i’ve looked down at my own wreckage
and mistaken scattering the broken glass of my body over the shore

as creation. i too have misidentified the shadow of debris as a shield.
the wreck is a sighing beast. our breath caught and escaped at the same

time. how can you forget how to breathe when there is salt in the air?
from here i see a pair of jackdaws balanced on the bow and

a fern like newgrange rises from the caved in cabin roof and even though
the sea is crashing, it’s quiet and the sun is out and like,

it’s nothing

The Hospital Was Never Meant to Be Home / Tammy Smith

The nurses called us girls,
but we were women—
an awkward assortment
of shapes and sizes.

We weren’t supposed to talk
about bodies or weight in group.

I slept better knowing
Myra on night shift wore bright blue
scrubs and never complained
when she crushed my pink-and-white pills,
mixed them with applesauce.

I couldn’t sleep knowing
my roommate, Grace, watched,
jealous of each spoonful.
She complained about her allergies,
wiping her stuffy nose
until the ward ran out of tissues.

Twenty years later,
I still remember
the johnny coat Grace cried inside.
I wonder whether she remembers
the way time dragged
as we sat through group therapy
learning to take turns when we spoke.

Now, trained in trauma,
I shudder when I remember
how I measured myself
against the girl-women beside me—
their skinny arms
tattooed with daddy scars,
grief for dead mothers,
and whatever other wounds
they opened again

during the night shift.

Ode to a Beaver  / Daphne Stanford

On the bank of the Boise River Greenbelt 
in Garden City—upstream from river surfers &
winery patio goers, leashed dogs whimpering 
at kids & couples sauntering by—sat a giant 
beaver grooming his stomach in slow, Zen

scratches, down & across, wet fur gleaming
in afternoon light. He watched the river flow 
by him for a good, long while, taking it in—
oblivious to teenagers with phones flashing 
Snapchats or videos to share, for later. 

Beaver slowly lowered his front legs onto the
bank & pushed himself offshore. Underwater, 
his tail trailed, a flat paddle wide behind in
concentric half-circles spreading outward, 
head atop the surface for one moment 
before descending again, below.

July - Poem 16

Butch Baby   / Clayre Benzadon

Wear your carabiner
on your sleeve, err,
pant buckle. Wear 
me like rain.
I don't want to cling
onto you, but your
hard-drawn shoulders
makes it hard for me
to resist. Resistance
is your favorite game.
We play tug o' war
and you win every time,
pulling the rope until
I trip over from friction
and force. You tell me
you feel like a coconut,
 soft on the inside.
Butch baby, I call out
to you:
I don't
buy it.

One Thousand Eight Hundred & Fifty-Two   / RJ Ingram

This game is not for me but alas here I am playing it / This newspaper is not for me but alas here I am skimming it / This website this browser this laptop: again not for me / This room is not for me so I will walk out of it / This building is not for me so I might burn it / This parking lot is not for me so I will get in my car & drive & drive as far away as I can go / This car is not for me so I will abandon it on the freeway / This overpass is not for me so I will wander into the bushes & hope never to return / This field is not for me so I will close my eyes until I’ve left it / These eyes are not for me so I will open them & plant them in the field / This body is not for me so I will drop it next to my eyes / The spirits I pass as I float upwards are not for me so I speed on to the next half baked satellite / This planet I guess must not be for me either / Pshaw.

A Golden Shovel After Declaration by Tracy K. Smith / MeraBaird Kuar

Sleep whips around the world in
twisted detail, gold-plated every-
thing smudged with prints, we stage
our deaths in this way, pillows of 
satin and not-feathers, these
lies hold onto their oppressions
conflicted by the tossing of time, we
don’t remember what rights we have
until they turn to dust, petitioned
by those who re-call what we stand for.

catalog as erosion II / Kes Maro

it’s like this, thistles caught in deep tissue
without tearing. a house fearing it could be
made passage. it makes me unsure that i
belong to the limbs of my body. horsehair
plaster walls flaking, more delicate than just
the day before.        fearing it could be made
      . like i am a frog meant to be a body
of sense. horse hair              delicate        just
      before. a clown with an oil paint face
pressing monoprints to the sidewalk.
          meant to be a body       .       like      
thistles caught in deep tissue       tearing.
              an oil paint face              the sidewalk.
       makes me unsure that i               .              
could be        a      passage. a clown        paint
face                .                caught        without      
.       frog               body      .              paint
        ing        the sidewalk.              or              
.                            body               .                      
            passage.                                          
the day               .              unsure              
belong              s               .                            
t      o              .               thistles              
deep tissue    

A Tony Soprano Summer  / Azmia Ricchuito

Hot girl summer
was all the rage,

but I am
rage personified.

A Tony Soprano summer
in which I remind myself
that someday

the objects of my anger
will be dead anyway.

I got a guy, you know.

The Grim Reaper
spares no one,

and I, like
Kurt Cobain’s
meat-eating orchids,
forgive no one
yet.

My therapist
doesn’t think
we made any
progress.

She’s already
a voice inside
my head.

I’m lounging
in a bathrobe.

The absurdity
of life: it’s like
the regularness
of life is
too much
for me.

I repeat after
Christuhfaaa:

there is no
chemical solution
to a spiritual problem.

There’s no
long-term parking,
either.

E.T., phone home.

Plot twist:

I poisoned
the pond.

Even the ducks
know better
than to call this
home.

A Lesson About Mister Lincoln   / Tammy Smith

I’m surprised to discover
Mister Lincoln is a variety of rose
and not the bearded president.
A spry, silver-haired veteran
wants me to share his passion
for plants. He settles into my dark
crimson office chair, compares it to the deep
velvety petals of a Mister Lincoln,
chuckles about this tall, vigorous shrub
with such a strong presence—oops,
he meant to say fragrance,
but when he doesn’t correct 
his mistake, I let it go.
Six months into therapy, he’s taught me 
how to cultivate grace. I discover how
important a garden is when he asks me 
if I grow my own vegetables, and if I do,
do I know that tomatoes and peppers
bloom until the first frost,
that they’re simple to prune.
I ask him why he loves Mister Lincoln.
He tells me how this rose was bred in 1964
by Swim & Weeks, and he explains why
Mister Lincoln remains one of the finest—
thriving as a foundation
plant—framing the home’s base
and boosting curb appeal. Mister Lincoln 
does need strategic pruning.
Six weeks shy of his eightieth trip
around the sun, tough
enough to survive 
the threats of disease and pests,
brave enough to still bloom.

Summer Road Trip, 1989  / Daphne Stanford

Tucson, Arizona: turquoise pool 
In desert heat. Red clay formations

Shield us from sun on patio chaise
Lounge chairs, beach towels draped

Over them to catch dripping limbs
Hair smelling of chlorine, Sun-In.

It’s today’s Chevrolet on the television
Screen & Mom packed PB & J sand-

Wiches for lunch, along with apple 
slices & Capri-Sun. Sunny D & 

Milk for morning cereal in the 
Mini-fridge. Falling asleep to the

TV flashing, volume low, casting
Shadows onto the walls, our beds.

July - Poem 15

Closing Time Half-Sestina   / Clayre Benzadon

I hate Semisonic’s “Closing Time”,
didn’t realize there was a hidden metaphor
lurking in between the infinite homes.
I’ve never stayed up late enough to have experienced
this phenomenon: lights on, getting kicked out
of the bar, waiting to pick someone up at six

in the morning. I wake up sick as a six-
headed dog, kneeling on linoleum tile, time
to vomit once again. Now I let my dog out
and try to hold onto my soul, a metaphor
for almost-death. What I never experienced
was a new beginning from some other homes.

Today, I reach towards sobriety. Many homes
convince me that I don’t belong within its six-
story boundary, that I don’t know experienced
architects who can fix the clock of rum time
within my system. This is all just a metaphor
for enlightenment. Dear Semisonic, I’d like to take y’all out

(some time).

Enchanted Stone Acrostic   / RJ Ingram

Evolution blesses the luckiest among the foxkittens / Not every foxkitten gets to jump between the realms of dreams & into & out of every apocalyptic nightmare / Cat-eyes & whiskers whistling like blades of grass / Hermits used to breed the foxcats to guide them through the elements of chaos / Anthracite & its submetallic lustre of fur from pours dripping with molten rocks or bolts of lightning like honey like water weeping from the fountain like diamonds raining down like ice / Not every foxkitten grows up on a balance beam overlooking an arena full of paying customers waiting for an animal of any sort really stand up on its front paws in a handstand / Tonight folks you’ll get to see our main event our dancing family of foxkittens / Each & every one of them a trained performer a prodigy at the cascading lines between what’s real & what’s really there / Dusk is more than a time of day to them it’s the ringing of the faded light that activates the magic of the stones / Stories tell of heroes guided by the foxcats between the worlds like crossing between the pages of a book / Together we would accompany our grown up foxkittens from one part of our story into the next / Owed nothing for their help in the travels they cross over with us because they want to / Now for their next trick let’s see what the enchanted stones will unlock in the youngest / Evolution blesses the luckiest among the foxkittens.

Always Underwater / MeraBaird Kuar

There’s a princess-sized pressure
to perform when your name is known
when your reputation bubbles around
you, when you are put under protection
that heavy cloak of hidden dangers
feels like an itchy wool-blend, looks
like a collection of remixed trinkets
there are better days when life travels
a predictable path, but even then 
seashells litter the way, alerts
the resourceful, foreshadows
& sabotages what’s next, but I frame
this pain in song and shiny things
too busy finding the next to weigh
the price of silence-- the only true
thing of value I’ve ever owned
so I’ll be here, all smiles & naivete
but in my mind I am always home.

long island deer / Kes Maro

the blue jays in the yard are massive,
overgrown. we spot twin fawns
in the late morning. my grandmother
complains that they eat everything.
we remind her, not the roses. they don’t
like the thorns. the yard is so green.
the lawn is bright and muddy, but the deer
eat the hostas and some of them
have antlers and when you scream at them
to “get!” they freeze. the fawn’s mother
is big too, like the birds. its what happens
when there are no more natural predators
and no more natural habitat. just cars.
just green curtains between the houses
on the hill and strip malls below. there’s no
coyote out here or anything else that could take
game this size, but there is so much fertilizer.
so many gardens. too dense for hunting
bows or rifles. my grandmother wants
the squirrels off her deck. she wants
the cats gone too. she wants to know the grass
is being watered every day. she wants to see
the hostas from her window.  

My Love Language Is Illiteracy  / Azmia Ricchuito

They say the pen is
mightier than the sword;

my tongue is sharp
but my pen is sharper. 

I am fluent in fatality.

A trash can
full of dead trees

a crime scene
like something
out of a low-budget
slasher film.

There’s blood on your hands.
I’m hemorrhaging pages,
finger-painting
lethality.

My heart is the
worst kind of weapon—
fragile and unreliable,
a beating war drum
that has forgotten
how to sing.

When the war is over
and the writing
is on the wall,

two sentences
survived:

I love you.
Come back home.

It Was Not Sickness—Then   / Tammy Smith

A cento after Sylvia Plath, T. S. Eliot, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Charles Bukowski, Anne Sexton, Langston Hughes, Louise Glück, William Wordsworth, Wallace Stevens, Dylan Thomas, Robert Hayden, Robert Frost, Mary Oliver, Marie Howe, Walt Whitman, and Emily Dickinson

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead—
like a patient etherized upon the table,
like a ghost in marble of a girl you knew
who would take away my hours—

a cave of mirrors,
where the doors are doors of paper,
where you forget where you are.

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
the path sick sorrow took, the many paths—
men without eyes, men without faces
rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Then, with cracked hands that ached,
what did I know, what did I know—
the darkest evening of the year.

It knew no medicine.

Meanwhile, the world goes on—
and I have promises to keep.

I’ve been thinking: This is what the living do.

I celebrate myself, and sing myself.

Tomorrow, of course, I love you.
It was not sickness—then.

In Your Atrocity Exhibition Dream  / Daphne Stanford

Ian Curtis starts out singing & 
dancing maniacally on stage, yes, 
but then plateless SUVs swarm & 
masked agents push people to ground.
Gill Scott Heron singing The revolution 
will not be televised and it wasn’t & 
it isn’t but also it depends on which 
screens we’re watching. Now the 
multiverse is everything everywhere & suddenly rainbow wigs replace toupees & 
the same clowns are pointing & grinning
but nobody’s laughing. Smiles painted on.
Funny thing, performing. Funnier still, 
writing to conjure action from lines & sets 
& character names: as if it really is possible
to imagine worlds & speak words into being.

July - Poem 14

Staples / Clayre Benzadon

Potatoes and pickles
are both Jewish and queer

staples (think deformed
latkes, Passover, Kosher dills,
pickle juice in the Talmud.

I take out my recipe book:

“Peter’s Pickled Potato”:

-1 baked potato
-(vegan) mozzarella strips
-diced pickle cubes (as topping)

Three years ago, food
became my enemy, my worst
nightmare.

Nowadays, though, I crave
fries almost every other week,

and hold a spear in between
my teeth, pretending it were

a crunchy, tangy
       cigarette.

Don’t Tell My Parents   / RJ Ingram

Listen up nerds
Gather all your pogs & etch-a-sketch drawings
Unplug your lite brites
Roll up your parachute pants
And stand with me in the deep end
Of an empty pool
Because my parents are out of town
And I have exactly 48 hours
Before my neighbor checks on me
Let’s have a good-old-fashion local area network party
And steal music the hard way
By waiting for shady websites to load
In between videos of kids older than us
Doing tricks on skateboards
Chain smoking cheap cigarettes
And pranking each other
With a slap to the groin
How is that a prank? You ask?
It’s not but we’ll say it is
Listen up nerds
I’ve been waiting all night to tell you
There is nothing quite like watching ice cream melt
Next to the refrigerator
Because you left the carton out
And the door to the fridge open
Spoon in hand just waiting
And waiting
For someone to remind you
That you were getting everyone ice cream
But you know this about yourself:
The lack of focus that keeps you from buying the good stuff
And you can throw the tub away & try again next week
And you can set a million reminders on a million different apps
But it won’t help or at least won’t help forever
And one of these days your parents aren’t gonna come back
And it’s just going to be you
In the deep end of an empty pool
Looking over your shoulder saying
Listen up nerds
I think we forgot something

I Watch My Children and Recall How I Looped Through Childhood / MeraBaird Kuar

You know you can’t trust your eyes the way 
they invent movement in the dark-- dashes
tracing each other in the background
of an unanswered mind, thinking its way
to maturity, scaffolds form valleys 
in the neuroplasticity, you wrote this poem
before, in fact, it has been written an infinite
number of times and you remember this
not as a memory with a time or place
not as a tangible record written in lead
or ink but something deeper, a night of echo
that spreads it wings through the soul
ripples of rings visible in the invisible aura
look closer and you’ll see them in the irises

American Idol / Kes Maro

Taylor Swift (2017 & 2023), George W. Bush (2000 & 2004),

       The American Soldier (1950 & 2003), Barack Obama (2008 & 2012)

soldiers look at the camera
& hold guns in both
hands. always, green
light in the right eye.
gaze weighed
& serious shadow
radiating. clever blue
light, red absences.
hope is an excellent way to market 
war. he looks away.
he wears a gun on his back.
the message is whichever one
will make us let go
of our gag reflex.
whichever one will make
us swallow. the music

The Brothers Grimm  / Azmia Ricchuito

The stars remind us
that the past is real. 

By the time 
their light
reaches us, 
they’ve already shed 
their mortal coil. 
We teach our children
to wish on death. 

Jealousy Monsters   / Tammy Smith

My jealousy monster sinks
to the bottom of empty,
crushes me like ice
in a tall glass of Sprite.

Yours sticks to the fitted sheets
of a four-poster king-size bed, torn
from twisting and turning
through sweaty, sleepless nights.

We're supposed to share our stuff:
fast-food straws, even dirty forks, 
soft shirts smeared with strawberries, wine
ketchup or blood, pillows smelling of sex.

Jealousy monsters thrive
at jobs where bosses flirt,
in “Guess How Many Jelly Beans
Are in the Jar” contests,

at baseball games and poetry readings, 
where scores and high marks become stains,
above tight breast pockets
or below belt buckles

hugging the hip bone.
They learn to breathe
deep underwater,
howling inside grief,

spreading guilt like frosting
over triple-layer fudge cake,
licking wounds like raw 
cookie batter left in our chipped bowl.

The Art of the Artful Dodger  / Daphne Stanford

Is to get crafty with the moon. I mean
Really get crafty with it. Witchy, even?
Because even the lodgers take cover &
Like Bowie, cover their ears & move in 
Their mind to Berlin, or something—

This new moon has us all throwing our
Hands, yelling Bullocks—if I only knew 
About Jupiter in Gemini or some such
Rubbish, even as we’d all fancy a cup of
Tea, I gather the crowds won’t take to it

As the Mad Hatter would—Fancy another
Cup of tea?!? He always slurred so dreadfully
As if he was a bit tipsy the entire time—but
Of course he was. I mean, what was the 
Caterpillar doing atop that giant mushroom

Anyway? As I was saying, the art of the 
Artful dodger is just that—the artful dodge. 
A turning one’s head to redirect the eyes 
Elsewhere, to allow one’s train of thought to
Wander, then charge straight toward it like

A locomotive—

July - Poem 13

Goodnight, Flaming Moon / Clayre Benzadon

In the dark, every-
thing looks different.

I mistook a bird
for a small drone.

I mistook light
for neon hazardous slime

oozing at the outskirts
of my bedroom, a Goodnight

Moon flaming eeriness.
Null of uncontrollable

distortions: shadow-
making. A coconut 

rolls down a stair-
case. A dog sits

atop a mini moon
in the corner. Empty

slippers squish
berries, and my tooth

is a wound lapping
up the cloudriver.

Inside my violin
lives a moth, machine-

made. When I lie
in bed, I’m saturated

by the vivid magic,
its magic. This is 

fine, I tell myself,
this is   swell.

14 Facts About The SS Anne     / RJ Ingram

1 She sank just off the coast & just outta screen.
2 Gambling was illegal but popular & while accessible on shore it was inevitable aboard the SS Anne.
3 The chef rotated his menu according to the weather.
4 The day the ship sank the chef served rockfish & ghost coral.
5 A friendship was shattered hours before the storm.
6 Their lives diverted over a rat a mouse & a lightning bolt.
7 Everyone who remembers their first betrayal can understand.
8 Not to mention the man with purple hair who summoned a dragon.
9 If all we are is a reason for them to take back control I say let’s give it.
10 Clearly the animals have more right to the elements than we do.
11 But that boy’s rat didn’t have to die.
12 And the ship didn’t have to sink.
13 What happened to that miraculous orb?
14 Oh yeah that sank too. Hop on, we’re going down.

Daughter / MeraBaird Kuar

Fingers lifted, cramped, a hint
of lavender still spread under
the nails the rhythm, pace
choreography, joy flung 
around the porch beneath
her hopping feet, the gap
between her teeth house
little bubbles, full of echo
and locate, here always 
seeping out, multiplies 
enough times to have formed
exact replicas that infect
those of us, who bear witness
to her youth, as it dances
eyes closed, everything else
wide open.

how to live forever / Kes Maro

sticky with salt, press
against the sand & hear
how the sea howls
at the shore. become a piece
of fish breaking between
a giant’s tongue & the roof
of her mouth. taste like
butter & fennel underneath
all your salt. yesterday, you
were a fluke, sideways-eyed
traveling close to the shallow
ocean bed. the day before that,
you were the layer of rot
blanketing that same floor,
a fractured fish bone. eventually,
you might want to be
the jellyfish, moon-faced,
thoughtless & reborn over
& over, the same in changing
waters. instead you’ll be
a question of decay, a consistency
you’ll never touch.

13 Things I Hate About You  / Azmia Ricchuito

I hate that I have no home,
that I exist in a haunted house.
It’s not like the movies at all.

I hate that it’s been years
and I’ve never unpacked.

I hate that there’s no space for me,
not even as your savior,
and that I’m breaking bones
to fit inside garbage bags,
suitcases, closets.

I hate having to buy things I already own
because a car can only hold so much.

I hate feeling like I’m one bad night away
from the worst night of my life.

I hate the smell of alcohol.
I hate it when you breathe kerosene.

I hate guns—
that I have one hidden away for safety.
I’d like to throw it into the Atlantic,
but that’s bad for the environment.

I hate when the phone rings
because I always think
it’s going to be that call.

I hate waking up
and already wanting
to go back to sleep.
I’m fresh out of copium.

I hate that you’re not
who I wanted you to be.

I hate that I know
what you did that summer.

I hate that you chose drugs over me.

I hate that I still care.

Sickly Sweet   / Tammy Smith

Death, may I call you pretty,
or is that too gruesome
on the tip of my tongue—
pink and wet,
slick enough
to slide down my throat
like candy?

When I open my mouth,
you are sickly sweet music
my childhood memories pluck,
a toy violin
tucked beneath my chin.

My overgrown body plays
a medley of oh no,
it can’t be, and
when I think
no one is listening,
the rhapsody
of why me.

Two Tercets & Three Lines Missing from an Unfinished Villanelle  / Daphne Stanford

For clinking trinkets lost to first sun rays
At dawn, you searched the barely fallen snow
Before a moth could fly toward flambé

In restaurants that overlooked the bay 
Bakers of Puget Sound tossed high their dough
Dusty triangles shiny with gold lamé

July - Poem 12

Late Summer Instructions / Clayre Benzadon

 -after William Carlos Williams

Even now, the last peach
on the tree feels like an
incarnation of William

Carlos Williams reaching
out to warn the picker of
WCW’s excessive juiciness,

his ice box cold crystalline
core. Let the ice thaw in
summer, clingstone or free-

stone. Let the body of fruit
sway in slices. When WCW
plunked down onto the grass,

the leaves enveloped him
in a shiver of wind. The former
picker no longer holding 

such a role becomes fruity
bystander instead. He runs
over, grabs WCW, and holds

him in his hands, peach fuzz
tickling them. The peach speaks
to him: “So much depends…” 

“In summer, the song
sings itself.” “That which is
possible is inevitable”.

Games To Play Instead of Hangman    / RJ Ingram

1 Racquetball / Offer it but don’t mean it & don’t get upset if its selected / A good compromise if it comes down to it
2 Tic-Tac-Toe / Not a great game but if you’ve got the tools for Hangman you’ve got the stuff you need for this step in the wrong direction / Don’t recommend it but it’s definitely an option
3 Wet My Whistle / Each player takes a drink when they skip ahead retelling the plot on a agreed upon novel / Also known as the book club game & fun without alcohol but may still cause the hiccup
4 The gods don’t agree / You’re buying time for what? The red demon waved his hand / Hangman is perfectly appropriate under the circumstances
5 He plucked a live one from the river & hung the ghastly head from a hook dangling at the end of a chain /
6 The severed head sang out I’m thinking of a seven letter word for death & if you get it I can walk home free.

My Five Year Old After Learning of Javeayah Harris / MeraBaird Kuar

Is God a place, she asks and I recall the route I take paved with pain, desire and need, the culmination of connected dots, a picture pixelated and titled, gluten free, dairy free, the capsaicin giving my belly sparks, don’t know yet if it will bite, and so we take this gulp of security, collecting saliva to wash down the aftertaste, in this place I have a nostril blockaded, the other flooding with blood, and there are millions of ways for us to perish and be perishing, an apricot for anchored whimsy and an english embed, watermelon for waived utopia, tangerine for a strip of grounded sun, brown sugar for the swallowed idealizm, a bit of water just to push it through, cells drink up realism, like spirit gulps the sacred.

only four and five
mountain of pink balloons
out the car window

I've Earned My Morning Glory  / Azmia Ricchuito

Last night 
my bones were tired.
Not enough calcium;
weight-bearing exercises recommended.
Doesn't the doctor know
my restless bones
have carried the weight 
of multiple universes
across their lifetimes?
They remember death
hurtling through space
supernovas dying
detonating
volatile and mercurial.
My bones are not weak.
They have survived 
millennia
and landslides.

They are a
champagne supernova
in the sky.

Don’t Allow Your Fears To Destroy You    / Tammy Smith

Don’t allow your fears to destroy you,
no matter how quickly they spread—
rampant, windswept
across fertile fields—
remember how wild
their reach, how high
and endless their climb.
Watch them twist
through tangled roots.
Imagine their relentless pull,
their putrid stench—
Don’t let them block the sun.
Don’t let them flood your last patch
of black-eyed Susans.

After “The Death of a Moth,” I Write a Villanelle  / Daphne Stanford

Before a moth could fly toward flambé
In which its wings ignited bright but slow
Dusty triangles shiny with gold lamé

After Annie fished Lake Pend O’reille
She might have sailed the Puget on a bow
Before a moth could fly toward flambé

But timing’s always funny, in a way:
Cuckoo clock hands chime & shadows grow
Dusty triangles shiny with gold lamé

Before a moth could fly toward flambé
Bakers of Puget Sound would toss their dough
Dusty triangles shiny with gold lamé

Neither Crepes Suzette nor brandy want to stay
Aflame before knowledge of where to go,
Before a moth could fly toward flambé
Dusty triangles shiny with gold lamé

--

July - Poem 11

Stairwell Cosmology / Clayre Benzadon

The life I almost keep touching
is measured in stairwells. By how
many I can climb, and see, I keep
going until I run out of steam and
almost faint. Every rotation is another
entry into the cosmos, full of salt
and sand and possibility. The first portal
led me towards a dream dollhouse, mini-
ature village of my life. I was a small
figurine trying to figure out how to exit
this imaginative utopia. Then I climbed up
to the second floor. This time I was trapped
in The Platform situation, scarcity filling my
plate. I crouched onto the floor, started writing,
engraving my name onto the wood, hoping it stays.

Crossover Episode   / RJ Ingram

The one where the main characters fight over their seats at a table & absolutely nothing else / The one with the trip to the zoo & the lost girl who asked uncomfortable questions / The one when the laugh track broke & laughter punctuated every line every door closing & every awkward silence / The one we skip when the kids are watching bc we don’t want them to know where their uncle Randy went / The one where one of them wins money in the lottery & everyone fights over how to spend the money they miss the window to cash in their prize / The musical episode bc there’s always a musical episode / The one that follows a single character the whole time told from their perspective from beginning to end / The one guest starring that famous actor from that one show playing the role we know them for & will only remember them by for the next one hundred years / The four episode trip to Hawaii / It usually is Hawaii but it doesn’t have to be / It could be a well known European city or a secluded ski lodge somewhere made up / The important part is they’re away from home & one of the couples break up or someone unexpected leaves the show or dies / The one that tries to return to normalcy except a side character has elevated their reoccurring role after an award show nomination / And of course the season finale cliffhanger. 

broken pantoum portrait of w / Kes Maro

red under the cheek like split cactus fruit
boiling. red like the great forest’s stretch

marks. red like rot, like a deer melting off
its bones on the way back home. red like

speckled mushroom warnings.        the great
forest’s stretch marks. red like bruises, like nails

in the back’s skin.       speckled       warnings.
red like love opening a pomegranate & spilling

garnet across the kitchen.           bruises
in the back’s skin. red like hands stained with

beauty supply store dye.
         spilling across the kitchen.  red like a bird’s

round eye.       hands      under the cheek.    
a       round     rot, like               home.

Two-Sided and Scratched  / Tammy Smith

In Memory of Bonnie Tyler

For a few minutes, we connect
without blame—
no lousy Wi-Fi, cracked screens,
or static.

My brother texts me:
“Another One Bites the Dust.”

He heard the news:
Bonnie Tyler died yesterday.

“It’s a Heartache”—
our family’s soundtrack,
two-sided and scratched
like an old record.

“It’s a Heartache”
meant middle-school girls
with big Aqua Net hair
bullying me into eating
my Ring Ding alone
in the cafeteria,

eyes closed, listening
to “Total Eclipse of the Heart”
on my Sony Walkman,
with no one to turn to.

Pathetic.

I started writing poems
and short stories I could fold
and tuck inside the cases
of my Madonna and Whitney Houston
cassette tapes.

My brother’s favorite song
is “Don’t Stop Believin’.”

His journey took him
to dark places
where doves cry,
though Dad, if he were here,
would say I’m pushing it.

More heartache.

Every time I turn around,
I remember something else
Dad used to say—
his voice as relentless
as his Reagan-era rhetoric,

another product of the eighties
my brother and I still replay,
along with the price
of listening to his soundtrack:

“Bat Out of Hell,” “Livin’ on a Prayer,”
“Born in the U.S.A.,”

and Bonnie Tyler—
especially every now and then,
when one of us
gets lonely.

July, Dusk  / Daphne Stanford

Wildfire plumes indistinguishable from cumulus covering horizon. No rain to wash the grey out, and deer scattering between traffic from lack of shelter. Beaver swims a wide fan steady beneath the footbridge, head emerging, tail puncturing the surface just enough to distinguish it from catfish or turtles. Blue heron watches for fish, eyes piercing, beak still, from the edges, picks one leg up from cattails, places it farther into the stream. Red-winged blackbird trills, piercing the silence.

July - Poem 10

Hours of Desire / Clayre Benzadon

I.

Dawn desire is just rest-
lessness. At this hour,
it’s a bubble gum fro-
yo pink, irresistible and
earth-scented like Play-Doh.

6 am desire dabbles in sky-
liquid, splashing against
rhubarb watermelon vision-
scape.

II.

Morning desire is heavy
like a log. It leaves you
hanging, and hard. It is
too early to ask for what
you want. Desire at this

hour is the texture and
color of butter. Easy to
slice through. It smells
like hay now, a little sour
and stale. It asks you

to stay awake and alert.

III.

Noon desire tunes
into the after. Orange
peel, burnt orange
lines the light of this

time. This type of want
slows down in the middle
of contemplation. It asks,
where can I inhabit a body

at this point? Where is my
  beginning and finish?

Noon moon ends soon.

14 Facts About Vermilion City    / RJ Ingram

1 The train doesn’t stop here.
2 But it used to.
3 The lighthouse used to be important too.
4 But it moved.
5 Not once but twice.
6 Our leader was married in the lighthouse.
7 Gerd wakes him up mouth aflame with foam.
8 Mice migrate through the city.
9 About a day ahead of the passing train.
10 Our leader pours sea water in his coffee.
11 To cool it off.
12 His playful mouse surfs across live wires.
13 Before nesting in the lighthouse.
14 It’s become both their home & tomb.

 Haiku At Night / MeraBaird Kuar

The night sky
holding anxiety
like the zodiac

spring aubade interrupted by cat / Kes Maro

the landscape: cello
on the L train platform

mourning doves building
a nest on the fire escape,

and falling magnolia petals.
the city cracks its wrists

and stretches out
that half sleep cats do.

the sycamores on my block
have bright green leaves. i saw

cops pull five people
out of a car in the middle

of traffic on 6th ave
one morning. the postman

and i wondered about how
young they were. an obstacle

course of purple graduation
photos descends on the park.

morning sounds, furniture
being pushed to the curb in piles,

chickadees and hissing bugs. light
coming in the windows. i wake up

to the cat retching down the crack
between the wall and the bed

where the quilt has been
conveniently pulled back

by formless too warm nightmares.
her yellow bile spills down

this trench and over both sheets
and gets stuck between the wood

floor and the poorly aligned
siding. i want to get a new mattress.

i want to get a new wall.
instead i wash the sheets. i pat her back

gently. later we will play a game
where i try to convince her to take

the pills that will make her feel better
and we will both lose when i wrap her

in a blanket and shove them
down her throat.

Table for One in the Smoking Section  / Azmia Ricchuito

My Roman Empire

is building Rome in a day

just to burn it down again

and again

and again.

Victim of circumstance

or arsonist?

Armageddon eyes

Breathing gasoline

Accelerationist.

This is what they call

insanity. 

Out of the Picture    / Tammy Smith

I haven’t seen my mother
in fifteen years. Imagine—a Jewish mother
not missing her daughter or grandson,
not caring we don’t talk
by phone or text,

not missing us at simchas—birthdays,
bar mitzvahs—not needing to stick
her nose into our business,
not worrying whether we’re safe.

I cover my eyes
when I light the Shabbat candles.
Wax melts like grief.

How can my mother
not feel the warmth
of family? I doubt she cares
if she ever sees us again.

My son met her once.
He was three.
Half a day.

She flew into our lives
like a blackpoll warbler—
no landing, no rest,
no refueling.

My friends mutter
strange bird
and crane their necks
to look past my tears.

No one understands
this kind of loss,
its unnameable shape:

a fist in the middle
of a bar mitzvah, a shiva call,
a poetry workshop, Mother’s Day—

where people pass around photographs
and stories of their mothers
while I sit there
with empty hands.

In Your Spinner Dream  / Daphne Stanford

It is Los Angeles in
the year of our Lord
2019 & you are inside 
a Blade Runner spinner. 


Harrison’s here too, but 
he’s not talking. All is
not quiet, nor is it 
illuminated. Only 
dusk & dim neon
lights overhead from 
billboard girls &
storefront windows. 


You drop Harrison off at the 
all-night Chinese take-out
place, flying till you reach 
Santa Monica Pier, sailing 
high over the ocean till the 
sun sinks. You keep going.

July - Poem 9

Dream of the Deep End / Clayre Benzadon

Inside of me lives: musk, all shades of olive and teal, the dream where I reconnect with my three old (dead) friends, the obsessive young dream of imagining I can swim towards the deep end, honeysuckle season, night jasmine. I carry rainrods in my stomach. A torch of sandblossoms tied to my wrists. There are ways to measure a body’s burgeoning. A nostalgia that never leaves, shakes with rice and beans and beads that I accidentally swallowed when I was a kid, pennies especially. Outside, I plant peonies, lined neat fuchsia folds budding at the tip of soil. I’m in the season between hurricane and ski-time. I blindly reach for a shade of matches, a shadow work of my own devices.

Inside me, I dream: olive, swim, honey, pennies, peonies, a fuchsia that never stops burning.

14 Facts About Viridian Forest    / RJ Ingram

1 The train doesn’t stop here.
2 The bugs are so big they could total your car so you can’t drive here. 
3 Dana was the children’s den mother & took real good care of them.
4 She asked for the tree’s forgiveness before she cut into it.
5 A real dear.
6 A foxcat guided Dana into the forest to live among the bees. 
7 Children seek her out by opening & closing their palms.
8 Grasping for merit badges.
9 Dana doesn’t deny any of them what they want.
10 A bookcase full of novels.
11 A swinging tree in the backyard. 
12 A foxkitten of their very own. 
13 Write a poem then 
14 come & get your merit badge. 

Before I Cry Again, In the Kitchen / MeraBaird Kuar

Four is a lonely number
tears a peculiar collectable
pink a sharp signature

Cherries pack a sweet tang
a heart a tart temptation
birth a tender test

Twenty is a sneaky start
Anger a chokeberry
nature a nurtured curse

A peace sign gets a blurry nod
life is a curated exhibit
a smile–smoky ice

A baby is lavender unflowered
to bring light, water and food
is a responsibility beaded in magic

Believing in magic is an innocence
dinging doubt as in pinballs through
the museum of everyone’s body

Doubt is your doggy paddle
in a pool garnished with debris
Who will bring the net?

catalog as erosion / Kes Maro

green. carnation. wilde. wolfe.
wolf. wood [forest, morning].
maine. lighthouse. buoy. jetty.
running barefoot across wide
flat rock. frost. marshes. red-
winged black birds. black-eyed
susans. finger paint forget-me
-nots. mourning [doves, straw-
-berry shortcake backpack,
man-made ponds]. new jersey.
hydrangeas. purple [hyacinth,
angels, people-eater]. drawing
blush onto a doll’s cheek with
red crayola marker. waiting for
books to visit my dreams from
under my pillow. waiting for
wings to break open my shoulder
blades and for fairies to take me
back to the other world. night
lights. running away. mulch.
furby. possession. making a ouija
board out of recycling with h and
k and speaking to a demon. arm
hair [mine, k’s].

I Survived the Wreckage  / Azmia Ricchuito

Eyes that glisten 
like broken glass
shattered window
Barefoot 
walking on broken glass 
Put all my hopes
Into a heart-shaped locket
This was an 18” chain 
How did it become a choker?
Somewhere on interstate 95
is where legend says I lost it
A quarter mile at a time
horses under my hood
a black stallion for a coffin
You’re inside me
under this skin
that I’m trying to crawl out of
there’s only room for one
winning is winning
whether it’s by 
an inch or a mile 
Proof of life
I survived. 
But did I ever 
really live?

If I Talk About This Today I’ll Cry: A Villanelle    / Tammy Smith

“But that’s another story,” the veteran sighs
when I ask him about his son. He turns his head.
“If I talk about this today I’ll cry.”

It isn’t what he meant to say. I know he tries
to open up, though therapy tears him to shreds.
“But that’s another story,” the veteran sighs.

Every Wednesday, I help him recognize
the battles his body can’t shake: insomnia, night sweats,
“If I talk about this today I’ll cry”

about the war. He struggles to describe
rice paddies, leeches, close calls with death.
“But that’s another story,” the veteran sighs.

I blink back tears as I watch him agonize
over why he lived when his buddies died instead.
“If I talk about this today I’ll cry.”

Every Wednesday, I do my best to empathize
with his grief while he catches his breath.
“But that’s another story,” the veteran sighs.
“If I talk about this today I’ll cry.”

In Our As If Dream  / Daphne Stanford

As if we framed our faces with muffin tins, bottoms cut out of them, eyes fitting inside two muffin rounds, nose fitting one below. As if jewelry. As if patrimony. As if we actually needed some token of partnership to prove we exist outside tacos or selfies or pictures of things: tire-crushed cans in a Winning Company parking lot; baby shoes left behind after a picnic, before the rain; blurred outlines of tunnels in caverns, pitch-black, full of stalactites & bats-–upside-down but right-side-up, asleep.

July - Poem 8

The Hesitation / Clayre Benzadon

I hold my hand out
to a startled fawn,
a tender imprint in the for-
est (best place to rest).

Clover, berries, acorns.

The fawn hesitates before
she slightly begins to nibble,
nuzzle my hand. My other
hand reaches out to pet her,

but she flinches, jolts, even.

I connect to this creature.
I am slight in response,
fawn in trauma. I nod
my head when I mean to shake

no. I voice ok even if
it is not. Mostly, I’m
silent and paralyzed, like
I’m watching a movie play

out in front of me. Finally,
the fawn trusts me enough.
We both stare at each other
for a moment before she

leaps away and I am left
motionless in the forest,
alone and unsated.

After Patricia Chapman   / RJ Ingram

Freeze your accusations & wander do not run / A bespoke vest a splintered cane a hospital gurney & a gun / Revisionists always play back the last three scenes but learn nothing from the retracing / I’ve got another thing to say about that too I’m sure / You invited me over but I’m not going to take off my shoes & I’m not sorry / Although I am sorry about Thanksgiving / Each of them / Stop drinking from both sides of the glass / Keep a pair of gloves in your purse next to the penknife / Cracks in the stereo sound / The pops resemble topographic maps or old fashioned hole punched computer programing / I can’t be sure / There was a ring & then a riot & then a bow around a yellow box / Toast in the yokes.

A Poem for Javeayah Harris / MeraBaird Kuar

In the morning the sprinkler spreads glitter
in my peripheral and I see you
running through it, face shiny, laughter
ripe with colors hidden in the work
of survival. But in my mind you dance
and stickers don't hide what you endured
they are just precocious adornment
in my dreams the first story is true 
you walked off and wandered into
my yard where you can grow to five,
like my daughter who even when 
she refuses to have her hair detangled
and insists on wearing clothes too big
or too small, gets handled with care
because someone would have taken
care from your mother if given a chance
but now tears trickle throughout town
for those of us who never knew you
but waited for the chance that we might
see you alive and lively, forgive me 
as I write another poem about you
which is a poem about humanity
and how we don't know each other
how every child could hold horror
in their eyes and we would never see
it until it was too late to find the root. 
Now that we know your name, 
which is every name of every child
gone too soon, maybe we will call
out to each other, host children 
in our yards, know the parents
better, be the village again. 

it was like being a deer / Kes Maro

on a long ridge. you
couldn’t mistake it
for walks home from work
or errands. the angels moved
like they had never heard of moving
on or time healing. they were more
like those oversized deer
on long island, sleepless
without an ordinary habitat,
the bags under their big deer eyes
have a hungry shadow; it estimated
the world owed them attention.
they put the balance in quotations,
unreasonable and still often missed.
this confirmed the angels’ fears
or assumptions that the world has passed
over them. it was almost a comfort
to be right. 

If Lil Wayne Was a Life Coach  / Azmia Ricchuito

We think that to change our lives
we must do so with grand gestures

that we must rebuild Rome
with a fifteen step
Instagram-ready
morning routine.

“Get ready with me while I
sabotage my life/burn it to the ground
and create an entirely new life
in which I am my ideal self!”

Lil Wayne said real g’s
move in silence like lasagna

and I’ve learned that
lives are rebuilt
in the quiet moments
in the liminal spaces

deciding.
taking a first step.
sending an email.
making a call.
rolling out the yoga mat.

doing things without thinking
before you can
talk yourself out of it

that’s how this poem was written
from a hospital bed at 4 a.m.

because I told myself I didn’t
need to write a masterpiece.

I just needed to show up.

Stupid and contagious;
put some words on some pages.

I can always trash this some other day.

But for now, it’s evidence
I was here

and for a few moments,
I tried. 

Notwithstanding, Albeit / Tammy Smith

An Abecedarian

Actually, “notwithstanding” isn’t the only word
brilliant minds like my friend Brian use in casual
conversation. Even my dad, bright enough to
discern the difference between smart and genius, thinks Brian
epitomizes both. I’m flabbergasted they
fail to recognize how pompous they are, pumping their own
gas, quoting Goethe and Wordsworth while washing dishes,
holding their grimy hands dramatically over their hearts,
imitating the faux patriotism they’ve witnessed. I can’t tolerate
jokes about bad grammar when all I really want is to
kvetch about my dad and his annoying habits. But Brian
laughs hysterically and reminds me I’m just like him. I’m not a
man, though I sure as hell work my ass off and sweat like one.
Not for nothing, Brian smells worse than my dad. I nod, my mouth
open, tongue sticking out. “Albeit” was another fancy word I heard
professors in college use when they tried to teach us how to
quote from sources, cite them properly, discuss them. Brian summarized his
research articles using a cheat sheet he designed. So clever,
so succinct, his roommate stole it from his backpack. I caught him
trying to sell it all over campus—one more example of
upperclassmen taking advantage of the system before everyone
vanishes after graduation, tossing their caps into the air like confetti.
“Wait until you’re my age,” my dad tells Brian. “More tests than school.”
X-rays to check for broken bones; colonoscopies to check for cancer.
Yelling doesn’t help. It’s not worth anyone’s time to care anymore.
“Zero effort to stay silent,” says the man who can’t stop speaking—
notwithstanding, albeit, my dad still can’t define decency.

Letter to Captain Jack   / Daphne Stanford

Puffin, that is. Captain ‘cause you’re bone-stiff 
& weary of gawking ragamuffins snapping 
Insta-captures with Los Angeles filters.

Those ornithologists sold me your likeness for
Twenty-five dollars & damned if it wasn’t 
the best $25 I’ve ever spent on a souvenir—
though my green feather fluorite sphere is 
a close second. Now I almost feel prepared 
to commune with los angeles de mi pasado, 
though Mom always reminds me, El pasado 
ya está pisado. Translation: don’t go back; 
you’ve already stepped here; or there, on 
that stone, there. Lucky you, tufted sea 
parrot who prefers waddles to flying. 
Oh Captain, my Captain Jack Puffin,
next time you do manage to catch air 
over roped-off nesting grounds & 
tide pools, please—take me with you

July - Poem 7

Drawn-Out Turns / Clayre Benzadon

Whenever I hear a limp-
kin squawking, gawking

at open morning roads,
I think of you, Maureen.

How many times can
I write the same poem

to you, relive the dream
of time? If I wanted to,

I could change the form of this. Because you taught us to fuck with it, structure of a puncture more stretched out. Yesterday, I was watching a video of a man ski down Everest and even after struggling to breathe, stay alive, he was still making beautiful, drawn-out turns. If he falls, he dies. I didn’t get to the end of the footage, because we switched to watching The Bear, but all I know is that I fell too many times and still didn’t die, unlike the man in the astronaut-looking suit high up on the mountain. I guess I’m luckier, or smarter, for not taking that risk.

Maureen, I see,
feel you everywhere.

Whenever I get on
an elevator, you

and Lori are helping
me exhale through my

anxiety. Outdoors,
on campus, I see you

petting a peacock
and naming it Olive,

or Poppy (subtle nod
to your favorites).

I’m trying to keep this
poem resplendent,

not by watering it (down),
but by continuing to add

just one more line, to reach
you just one more time.

I did not use the internet to write this poem  / RJ Ingram

The last time I wrote to you the sky looked like a lava lamp dripping upwards / Periwinkle purples against aquatic blue seal shag rugs / Misty rides her metallic starfish like one of those hoverboards at the zoo / The last time I wrote to anyone we still had that little tugboat that could travel between any of our drains / Gosh Misty missed the good ole’ days / Fishing for sea birds on the flat docks throwing fried potatoes from the shark cages & watching the coral shake of thirteen centuries of slumber / The last time I wrote to you was the summer we returned to those magical beaches & washed the sand from our feet in the neighbors swimming pool / Mother was furious / The neighbors didn’t noticed but it didn’t matter bc mother was still mad / She cut Misty’s hair as punishment / She parted her head into pigtails & handed Misty the scissors & said I love you baby you get to keep one / And neither of them cried although I think they both wanted to / And I handed her a starfish she had rescued from the beach & Misty put it in her had & let the darling glow / And that starfish made her hair grow back just like Misty said it would. 

Aftertaste / MeraBaird Kuar

All this death runs through the woods,
burnt leaves chase after them,
the sun holds them–lifts them up,
they swing back and forth in the air,
their arms wave wildly, sweat splatters
everywhere, they laugh too loud,
their tongues loll, tiny puddles collect their drool
and we plop into them unexpectedly, but sometimes
we’re laughing, heads cocked back, feet up, we warp
like waves, our mouths carry magnets for death to land in,
we swallow without knowledge, we only slightly pause
and purse our lips at the bitter juice,
just enough bite to be aftertaste.

 i don't want this phone, i want to kill god / Kes Maro

title borrowed from Nature by Bianca Stone

i don’t want personalized ads, i want strange
texts from my grandmother with screenshots
i don’t understand. i don’t want to share my location
with you! i don’t want facial recognition,
i want to kill the idea of surveillance as security.
who is doing the watching?
i don’t want to have a face, i want to swallow
the steady stream of catastrophe and spit
lighter fluid. if the government is
going to call trans people terrorists. fine.
what’s a word? i don’t want this phone,
i want to kill god! no more hierarchy, no more
punishment renamed mercy and no more punishment,
no more carceral lens on love.
i don’t want to be the product mark zuckerberg or like
whoever is selling, i want to see like whoever, billionaire traitor,
gut like a fish and strung up, gossamer sheets of gold
flaked flesh poached and flayed so thin light shines in the sky
again and does not burn our skin.
i don’t want predictive text, i want to spell things wrong
because i am bad at spelling. i want to learn to spell better.
forget what i said before about a word not mattering,
it does. i was just hurt more than i thought i would be.
the difference between running and bolting,
how the second can contradict itself, the way we speak
can change what we believe. the distance between us can
change how we feel about ourselves. like, the correlation between
likes and the rate at which young people want to die.
i don’t want this pacifier, baby binky tracking device listening
to all my calls and guiding my thinking. don’t let it parasite us,
don’t let it colonize our syntax, our thoughts just because we know
its happening doesn’t mean we’re resisting it.
i don’t want this phone, i just want to call home. 

What’s In My Bag: Emotional Baggage  / Azmia Ricchuito

I’ve become a bag lady.
My best friend thinks it’s a maladaptive coping mechanism

trying to fill an empty void with Coach bags.

But I’d rather have a closet full of handbags
than one filled with skeletons.

No one understands that I loved
the Loved Leather collection
because it looked like
Dean Winchester’s worn-in jacket.
Now we both have aged leather
and matching daddy issues
except I’m not sure Coach makes a bag
big enough to hold all my baggage.

I bought a blue suede purse
because it was the same color
as my cat’s eyes —
both my deceased cat and my living kitten.
That bag in my closet is better than having under eye bags from crying.

How do I explain the feeling of carrying
a bag that Carrie Bradshaw wore
when she used to be #goals for me
as a writer
until I realized how much her character actually sucked
but her fashion sense didn’t.

And isn’t it remarkable 
that a brand can have
such a comeback?

If brands can
take archival designs
and re-release them
giving them a second chance
why can’t people?

If brands can reinvent themselves
coming out of the closet, literally,
with main character energy
finding their redemption arc
why can’t people?

One day, my purse won’t be so heavy. 
I’ll make a “What’s In My Bag” video
and when I spill the contents of my purse
there will be a sparkling crystal wallet
lip gloss
perfume
car keys

and notably absent
will be all my emotional baggage.

Ode to a Saddle-Stitched Chapbook  / Tammy Smith

Lightweight, portable,
not perfectly bound,
more affordable
to print. It lies

flat, opens fully,
makes poems easier
to flip through,
more comfortable to read.

There’s no room
for an author’s name
or title
on a stapled spine.

So thin it floats
into the hands
of drifting poets
carrying university-press
first editions
at open mics.

Chronicle of Sea-Drifting  / Daphne Stanford

Of mooring, then unmooring—
Rowing my way toward the sunset.

Six of swords leaves something behind, 
ventures somewhere new: somewhere, 

anywhere people don’t recognize your face. 
Please excuse cliched impossibility of running

away from oneself. Perhaps less a running away than some kind of scene change, purview of

train/bedroom windows to different mountains & oceans. No matter how many times you try.

Leave town, the rubber band tethers you: extending, then bouncing back. No ability to 

resist reverse momentum. Attempt to alter
the location of your imagination, instead.

July - Poem 6

Fluid Delay / Clayre Benzadon

I arrive too late
to the party, where 

I crushed confetti, tied 
the strings to my hairends.

Laughed at the clowns 
whom were hosting, 

foolish, coconut pie
crusting their faces.

I never know when
to leave. In this city,

I always abandon
my body in the car:

throat closes, heart
hurts hard in my ears.

I want to say heavy
but it comes out as

heaving in this heat-
stroke zone. Back

at the party, at least 
my face stays put. I 

almost growl at the apples
in the tub, blue basket

another symbol for
fluid delay. Dilly dally

at the fun-
ction, sink your whites

into a more crunchy,
crisp afterwards.

I did not use the internet to write this poem  / RJ Ingram

Imagine for a moment a witch’s road a windy enchanted pathway that connects all eighteen layers of the same story landed upon themselves like sheets creased & tucked into the top sheet / Victory road as they call it snakes around the most quintessential hellscapes / Boxcars pepper the desolate terrains & strung up like catch & release deniers / Each tiny faction of survivors of their own apocalypses is governed by a sovereign leader who lives beyond palaces & your standard public gymnasium / Parents beg their children not to run away from home & follow the train tracks onward / No one who tries to leave returns unless their guided by the foxcats / Shepards between the realms or at least their own / Every world came with a family of foxcats & the young ones latch onto a ten year old of their choosing / The parents can hardly refuse the honor / Plus to be guided by the foxcats was an important position in the villages & citadels / Guiding travelers between the eighteen apocalypses / Consider the foxcat / The evolutionary champion & harbinger of change / Consider how the foxcat wanders around the silo looking at the old tech as if hieroglyphs & consider how quietly the foxcat leaves.

Extinction 7.6

Children leave
Foxcats guided by
Citadels
Consider how quietly
Extinction

Red Velvet / MeraBaird Kuar

My apples get sauced, my stars get striped, 
and stripped and paraded through the streets
My good southern Gramma drives 40 miles
To church every Sunday, she screamlaughs
She watches the news religiously, hands
folded in gracious ability, she bakes 
15 cakes every holiday, she bakes
Songs you can never unhear, no 
Nursery rhymes ever moved on
from her possessive voice, she is
So quiet but when she’s hot, fresh, baked
In her full color, her voice tastes 
of thick honey and it's everywhere, 
everywhere

She is an American dream, lips slanted
Drool-dripped before the day slipped
A noose around its neck, danced
A floppy rhythm to fall and be fooled
Yes, but to survive everything

sonnet for a crab's soft body / Kes Maro

when the stars fall in october, their husks calcify
hollow, space’s fruit rotten even before it bruises
against the soil. i can’t escape what the land looked like
at 4 o’clock, walking through the woods to your house
with the dog, lazy, pulling me back. sometimes,
the world’s noise breaks me. i always wish i had a better way
to put it, but there are only a few truths. your shoulder
was chicken wire stapled to the frame of your body
i remember us in beds of queen anne’s lace and clover.
i remember us framed by the act of falling as we now know
bodies do. did you know? i grew afraid to touch you
in case you’d realize i wanted to be near you.
most secrets are the same few things,
no matter how they take up residence in our throats.

Never-rary, Never Rarely, Sometimes, Always. / Dallas Outlaw

My stay
was measured
in almosts
in folded clothes

that never learned
which drawer was home
in promises

that grew roots
in borrowed soil

Never-rary

the place between
never and temporary
where i knew i should leave
but still watered

what was wilting
because sometimes
dying things

still look alive
when you love them

Never Rarely

because it wasn’t nothing
because the laughter had witnesses
& the memories did not disappear
just because the of yesteryear

because pain is a poor
historian when it only
remembers the fire

and forgets
there was warmth

Sometimes

we were exactly what we said
we were: two people trying
to translate languages
we never learned to speak or write

holding dictionaries
full of definitions that kept
us changing in plain sight

finding forever in moments
that could not afford it

Always

not as a promise
or as a sentence
we have to prove
and not as proof

that leaving made loving a lie
but as a place that existed within
a chapter with no periods

a book with no author
a lived experience in my imagination

yet it still knows my handwriting

And another also

is not a replacement
it is the quiet truth
that life keeps adding
another reason

another beginning
another version of myself
also deserving

also becoming
also present

Existing On the B-Side  / Azmia Ricchuito

When I woke up, I didn't much want

to be awake

Aimless. 
Nameless.
Endless.

Hidden on the B-side

I found it hard.
I was hard to find.

Oh well. 
Whatever.
Nevermind.

The garish sun is intruding
I close the curtains 
but it still won't go away.

It persists like 
the dishes in the sink
the need to figure out what's for dinner
every night for the rest of your life
(wouldn't it be easier sometimes to just not eat?)
like tomorrow

that always comes too soon. 

Repetition Compulsion / Tammy Smith

A dream is an unfulfilled wish. Freud admitted he used his own to demystify repressed desire. He never understood women or what they wanted. Only a man puffing on a cigar would claim something so symbolic. His own anxiety drove him down the royal road to the unconscious, where a dirty syringe in his dream revealed the guilt he felt about Irma, his former patient.

pieces of glass
we step on
walking barefoot

I wonder if the therapist I saw in my early teens ever thinks about me. Does he realize I dream about him every Thanksgiving, after I run a Turkey Trot? Would he remember my name? Recognize my face if we passed each other along the New York State Thruway? What if I bumped into him buying coffee at a rest stop?

rim of the cup
coffee refills
burn the tongue

Freud believed unseen psychological forces dictated one’s destiny. I search for my old therapist everywhere I used to eat with my father—all-you-can-eat, stuff-your-face smorgasbords. No one understood better than the man I paid to listen to me the significance of my father calling me fat before ordering dumplings, glaring as I gnawed on a spare rib until my teeth caught the bone.

therapy bill—
counting my change
the receipt ripped to shreds

Letter to Gull from a Driftwood Log  / Daphne Stanford

You, for whom this sleep thing comes 
So easily: tell me, how do you do it?
Your one orange webbed foot tucked 
Under, into bird-version of tree pose. 
Without this log where I lean, I’d be
Forced to sit cross-legged & upright
Sin vergüenza—shame having been 
Instilled primarily from the pulpit—

Aquellos ojos verdes/cafecitos—
Ojos para mirar el quién quiero tirar 
De mi alma—wordsI’d rather not 
Translate for anyone, let alone myself.

July - Poem 5

Tea Time for Ghosts / Clayre Benzadon

Dearest __________,

I left one muffin crumb
on the counter, for you.

You haven’t been home
in ages.  The house

is a mess. One silver shoe
oxidized outside the front

door. Clay dolls daintily
displayed on a shelf 

in the foyer. Tea time
for ghosts. Saucers

honeyed mint in the sink. 
All I’m trying to say

is I was eating break-
fast and a war plane

shook the walls
of this place, and

the fridge held
the leftover rice

salad with mayo,
chopped carrots,

manzanilla olives,
and boiled eggs.

On the couch
you left your head-

phones, water bottle,
a plate with a the last

half of a hot dog bun.
I’m not trying to be

patriotic, but I think
this is all a sign,

to remember
absence. How

all the things
you left behind

left me as hollow
as an empty pool

float, the last scrap
of you discarded.

I did not use the internet to write this poem   / RJ Ingram

Remember when we greased up the swing set & hoped less friction would help us throw ourselves onto the roof? / We didn’t know anything about aerodynamics or friction but we knew oil made things slippery & slippery things travel fast / Remember the way rain would sneak into the sandbox & we would have to let it dry out in the hot August sun? / Grandpa would fill the green turtle with fresh sand every summer & I don’t think we even noticed bc we stopped playing in the sandbox in the backyard & started playing on the computer in the office / Remember when they turned the boatyard into a strip club & when we drove out to the water tower to watch the the sun set behind the Adultmart marquee? / The radio was turned up to twenty & we thought the guitarist was playing just for us as we watched the truck on the freeway burn down to the tires / Remember when the kids sailed into the harbor on their little ships & we threw confetti at them & the fish came up expecting the confetti to be more than strips of plastic & pieces of paper / When they warned us not to feed the fish they forgot to mention the confetti / Remember when grandpa would fall asleep in church? / We used to bury him in the cemetery & it would sometimes take him weeks to dig himself out he used to be so furious / Remember when we got caught cheating at bingo night at the YMCA? / Mrs. Newman couldn’t prove anything bc we ate up all the evidence including the prizes we won before she had the chance to call the police / Remember when we got so good at disassociating we could make our arguing parents just disappear? / Pepperidge Farm remembers. 

two hundred and fifty / Kes Maro

we keep calling this period
of time ‘these times’ and i hear
myself saying it too,

referring to now as now
more than ever or charged or
maybe even divisive if

people are feeling combative.
how to sum up an era
of catastrophic violence

towards people and earth
as it relates to the patterns that birthed
it? as it relates to the relationship between

river and sea? pink triangulated on my chest?
a city shut down for new royal wedding
while the heat climbs outside?

we use vague terms like they can hold
every unvoiced shame and horror
in meaning’s vague walls. we talk

around what we mean. the poem fails us too.
i keep hearing 45. divided times. anthropocene,
we’re so delicate with our language, so afraid

to condemn. when did specificity become
such a burden? i remember
watching tv as a kid and hitting pause

when the crux of the drama, the plot of an episode
came from miscommunication
where someone could have said something obvious

and undone the whole issue. i called that bad writing.
who talks like this?  

He Studied How to Stay  / Azmia Ricchuito

It’s easy to miss things as a child
when you’ve never heard
the words depression
or anxiety. 
The only melancholy I knew
was Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness,
a Smashing Pumpkins record
that you were thoroughly unimpressed by.
Billy Corgan,
after all,
was no Pavarotti.
I saw the books
lined neatly on your bookshelf:
Listening to Prozac.
The Noonday Demon.
But I was ten, so I thought Prozac
was some sort of authority figure,
like General Patton. 
And I thought The Noonday Demon
was a work of fiction—
a horror novel,
something Stephen King
might have written
about the things that go bump
in the night. 
And in some ways, 
I was right about that part. 
Years later, I finally understood
what you meant when you said
“The more intelligent you are, the harder it is to be happy.”
I realized those were 
not just books about depression. 
They were books
about surviving it.
I didn’t know
you weren’t studying psychology.
You were studying
how to stay.
How to quietly 
carry your own darkness 
while showing me 
the tiny pinpricks of starlight 
scattered across the night sky. 
You taught me that 
paying attention
comes with a cost. 
You paid it anyway. 
You spent your career 
exploring the universe
at NASA. 
But your greatest discovery 
wasn’t somewhere beyond
our atmosphere. 
It was teaching
a frightened little girl 
that the universe inside her
was worth exploring too. 
You taught me to 
ask the right questions. 
To look directly 
at the darkness 
And still 
find the stars. 

The Heart’s Chambermaid / Tammy Smith

Go to your bosom; Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know—
—William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, act 2, scene 2

The last time I checked
my pulse, placed my finger
in the soft groove
between bone and tendon,
death was a faraway thought,
one of those destinations
eager, young travelers shove
to the back of their minds
like brand-new baggage:
lightweight, whisper-wheeled,
designed for easy storage.

How easy it was
to disregard the body’s girth,
to board a plane without measuring
aisles, worrying about seat belt extenders,  
the nearest exit door
or defibrillator.

The last time I checked
my pulse, I guiltily wondered
if it was only
the heart’s chambermaid—
tidying private quarters,
drawing a bath,
changing the sheets,
washing out stains.

In Your Golden Dream  / Daphne Stanford

Gulls & cormorants circle the sea stack—ancient monolith that’s been there longer than any of us has breathed—any of those among us now, anyway (here’s hoping no ghosts, that is). My stuffed puffin, Sailor Jack, nuzzles me with fuzz: plush velour; tufted ear-cheeks, emerging. For the birds, as some used to say. No longer. Walk in the opposite direction from hordes, despite fireworks, which Maya P. reminds us can problematic—depending who you are. Depending upon who has chased you. Depending upon the color of your skin/clothes/eyes/hair/teeth. The colors of everything will blend in the pyrotechnics. Golden retriever at the parade nuzzles his nose & ear into my pant leg, presses his body soft against my leg as if to say, “I’m here. No, everything’s not okay. No, I’m not leaving your side.”

July - Poem 4

Skin Costume / Clayre Benzadon

I love, I mean leave
the flesh around
consciousness.

I do not fit
inside the wound
of my mother,

which is really
just a metaphor
for body.

Last night,
I dreamt of my
dead friend holding

me, we were both
crying over what 
our forms could not

protect us from:
not just mortality
itself, but the appearance

of gender. I was trying
to bind my body against
baggage, bias, backstabs.

My friend was hoping
to keep his breathing.
I choked. For a second,

I could see myself
inhabiting a different
frame, a more attuned,

intuitive self. Anatomy
of a hearth-pulse, warm
and giving. I gave up

my friend, woke up,
and still ended up
having to live in this

skin 
costume.

Softboiled   / RJ Ingram

A serenity of nurses emerged from the cave they were raised in & canvassed about the healing power of sandwiches / It was a cult really but their magic worked so we let them descend upon the villages to take care of us / A really symbiotic romance us with our scrapes & bruises & each rose-y-cheeked nurse looking from behind their clip boards feeding us egg salad sandwiches & tucking us in at night / The nurses hatched from a nest in their secret Serenity Cave / After picking through the shells with their stethoscopes & reflex mallets the nurses wandered around looking for smooth stones to take care of like babydoll survivors of car accidents / Each baby nurse wobbled around checking in on the stones a flock of nurseries on a tight rotation / The largest nurse watched over the serenity like a mama bird unable to see anything other than precious Faberges & oh! How she could still remember the designs on everyone’s shell every pattern identical to the scrubs they emerged wearing / The serenity was a harmless boon for a very long time & when the curly haired older ones were ready we sent them out to find more survivors more hospitals to add to their rounds / Serenity Cave had to be kept hidden & protected at all costs / Poaching nurses was a big problem for the community hundreds of years ago / But lately something darker & sinister has been occurring & more & more guilds of assassins show up in the villages looking for the keeper of the nursery the Joyous Serenity herself & the exquisitely thorough & ethereal ledger on her clipboard / The tiniest pieces of her children’s eggs cost millions but Giovanni wants to corner the market & put an end production / Nurse Joy wants to battle / So we battle.

Big, Bad, Wolf / MeraBaird Kuar

The night sits still though I ask it to scoot over
though I howl into its face, though I run all over 
it does not break apart, it just hugs me tighter.
No matter how I try to escape, or how loudly 
I scream, no matter how often I say 
I don’t love you, it does not flinch, it is not injured
It stays whole and full and its color never fades
there is no flushed face, no back turning, no 
tight grip on my shoulders, no rasp in its voice
but mine scrapes my skin, scrapes through
the thick air of my desperate gasping breath
scraps everything, stops fighting, and I feel
my skin grow whispers of hair upwards to where
I am witnessed by the owl, in the live oak tree
not asking who, just shaking its head, just
perched in epilogue and so I turn around
go back inside, get in bed, watch the night
and the owl from my window, I forget 
the hunt, I learn what hunger really needs.

Great South Bay Big Green Boat / Kes Maro

With a butter knife I cut the good parts off rotting peaches you / pass to me. You say to add the jammy can / of blueberries collecting condensation in the sand. The day can be / so simple and free. / We add cheese and mint and / brown sugar somehow still / unmelted in the 100-degree sun. I dreamt I saw something great come / out of the water. Great like horrifying. You don’t want to go home / yet. I keep thinking I hear someone yell “shark!” but it’s / not real. It’s alright. / That great thing from the water stands over me like I’m / not going to be alright.

July 4 / Dallas Outlaw

Institute, Airmen, Syphilis
Bricklaying, aviation, agriculture
W.E.B, Carver, & BTW
the year is 1881

in exhausted Alabama soil
Booker planted possibility
because he understood
what it restored

cotton had taken from the land
the same way a country had taken
from the people working it
and called what remained 

(empty)

he studied the overlooked
the buried and the underestimated
the destitute, dismissed and undereducated before discovering what they were

capable of becoming
the lesson was already in the clay
students learned bricklaying
mixing earth, water, and purpose

into the walls of Tuskegee
where the names engraved
enshrined the builders 
as part of the blueprint

and the architecture became a record
red brick buildings standing as evidence
that the foundation of Black education
was Blacks understanding

that the foundation of America 
was blood stained red from
overworking the blue stained
hands pressing jeans

that stand in between
what seems like forever
in the gaps that are no further
distant than today and yesterday

Booker T believed
Carver cultivated
Du Bois questioned

different methods
same harvest
Tuskegee grew pilots
Airmen rose from red clay

into blue skies
forcing a nation to witness
the intelligence it tried to ignore
but the soil remembers everything

even the seeds planted in secrecy
under the name of science
where Black bodies were studied
without protecting Black lives

still what was overlooked
continued feeding generations
through the yard and the Divine Nine
letters carrying legacy

steps preserving stories
community built beyond
classrooms and in the Caf’
through fried fish Fridays

West Coast Wednesdays
where tradition spoke several
languages yet Blackness
was awe engulfing

because Tuskegee proved
what Booker always knew

growth was never about
what the world recognized first
only about what it survived 
and through Tuskegee’s eyes?

a nation that needed Black hands
to build everything then
acted surprised when they
couldn’t bury us alive,

and for that Mother Tuskegee,
A birthday well celebrated.

I Spend My Fridays Rewriting Shakespeare  / Azmia Ricchuito

It’s a Friday night
The air is heavy with trepidation and rain
The sky, trying its best
To lighten up
But it’s swallowed by pervasive darkness
A thick cloud of despair
That will last until morning

The sun will rise
But the darkness will remain.

He tells me I deserve better
And the defeat in his eyes
Steels my resolve

“Then be better,” I say

As if it were that simple
To escape the vicious cycle of escapism
When of all people, I know better
My own solaces hidden
In designer bags
In our walk-in closet
Nestled tenderly between
Lululemon leggings and
pastel pirouette skirts

The kind I used to wear to ballet class
as a kid
before life hit me like a freight train

But now I wear them,
impractical as they are,
To get a glimpse of the girl I used to be

Who twirled with reckless abandon
Admiring herself in the mirror
Spinning, spinning, spinning
Collapsing into a pile of giggles
Just to get up and do it again
And again
And again
Until I stumbled away
Dizzy and content

Now when the room spins and I collapse
It’s into a heap on the floor
On my knees, crying,
begging God to give you happiness
Or something like it
Because every day I watch you
Trying to escape
from a place you brought me

Your eyes, fun-house mirrors
reflecting the way we’re both haunted
I see myself, distorted
But you’re still so fucking beautiful

Windows to the soul
but the glass has been smashed out
Vandalized, now we’re both crashed out

If I fall from grace it’s because
I flew too close to the sun
Gravity claiming all my fears

You look so much better now
No pressure, but please don’t let me down

It’s only because of you
that I didn’t drown
Jumping off Wickery Bridge

I know it’s selfish to ask you
To stay for me

You say you’d die for me
But I’m asking for so much more

I want you to live
Long enough to believe
the sun
when it rises

To America on Her 250th Birthday / Tammy Smith

I want to celebrate
you, but it’s painful
to witness the whiplash
of political wickedness
so widespread it bleeds
into backyard barbecues,
staining the hamburger buns.

I’m torn between
watching the fireworks
on TV or driving
north to some cooler spot
up in the mountains,
where sparks flying
across rugged skies
might seem wilder.

Betsy rolls her eyes.
I’m sitting this one out,
she sighs, and my heart sinks
because she’s not the only one
I’ve heard say it—
she’s weary of all the wreckage,
worried about wild-eyed Americans
throwing tantrums while tossing Frisbees
or grilling franks,
fighting over leftovers.

Stay home and chill,
Betsy warns.
Don’t waste your money.
Everything is expensive.
Gas. Groceries.
Even baking a birthday cake
costs more than it used to.

I don’t want to seem spoiled
or ungrateful,
but two hundred and fifty
candles is a lot to blow out.

What if I can’t hold my breath
long enough to make a wish,
knowing it’s too soon
for it to come true?

No amount of chanting
why can’t we all just get along
is going to fix this.

Not yet.

My only goal
this Fourth of July
is roasting
the perfect marshmallow.

In Your Intertidal Dream  / Daphne Stanford

Undulate between high & 
low tides, places bridging 
spans of time, distances 
between Cape Tillamook & 
Arch Cape. On the Prom, in 
the distance between us and the 
impromptu parade of axolotls, Pokemon, 
and unicorns, ruddy-cheeked Abe Lincoln 
high-fives me & I grin right back. Children gawk 
at the boombox-carrying entourage: no official beachside 
party, only a merry band of post-modern-day troubadours. 
Don’t believe in Modern Love, David croons from speakers,
followed by Lady Gaga reminding us she was born this
way & weren’t we all? Infant wails jangling nursery
walls, having been delivered head or feet first,
each of us exited a womb complaining
about no longer being there.