April - Poem 1

 The Day / Maureen Alsop

the dream cut into the heart of her belonging, she entered the lagoon, welcoming a rose—blossoming at the ocean’s depth—

she entered the sea and survived the dockyard hands /the dockyard men /the hands of men

her sister survived by war paint

seen to be unseen

My Black-capped Chickadee / Bob Bradshaw

She’s more welcome  
than the Golden Oldies 
flying from a radio
into my yard.    

A little scholar
she sports 
a black cap
as if she’s 
graduating today
from kindergarten.

Put out a box 
of wood shavings
and she’s happy 
like a toddler
discovering
LEGO.

And she’s always
ready to snack,
her black bib
tucked under
her white 
cheeks.  
I leave a seed
by the bird bath.

Like my daughter
she watches,
cocks her head
 as if I’m tutoring her
in French.
Voila! 
I say to her and her heart
flutters wildly 
in a burst 
of wind 
and she’s off!
singing 
“Hey Sweetie!” “Hey Sweetie!”
—as if even
at her
young age
she knows life
is short!

Batu Khan  / Stan Galloway

ancient voice
beside the Dnipro
soughs through
silver birch
insists this dirt
this rain
each breath
is hexed
always will be
coveted by
outsiders.

*Batu Khan led the siege of Kyiv in 1240.

Revisit / Ava Hu

*

The earth shakes her memories 
into the shapes of falling flowers:

folded wing of chrysanthemum,
hooded iris unfurls.

The dark universe 
we open and close

the burn of wildflowers,
the glacier melt. 

We are the black-ribboned 
song of Orpheus descending, 

the ascent all depends 
on how you hear it.

instructions for fortification via upcycling the body / nat raum

A haibun after Sadee Bee

bloat lungs like steaming balloons which float through the late
summer skyscape. tie esophagus at the top and allow to collapse
inward. wipe crusted sleep from corners of eye sockets; cut feet at
the ankles and replace with wheels. submerge fingers in the gristle
of grey matter. begin to sculpt. cast a spell across the night, stars
shuddering in both anticipation and supernova. smolder brighter,
soar higher.

the city can only
see you before you’re about
to die, recycle into dust.

The Kidney Stone / Daniel Avery Weiss

I consulted my dog yesterday about the weather.
In his old age, his legs have shifted

purpose: no longer for walking, now only for the ache
of incoming rain, premonitions of petrichor

twitching his inky black knob of a nose. He will not go outside now
if the great oracle of his musculature simmers

clouds into raindrops. How very omnipotent, I wonder,
that perhaps his legs themselves demand rain, a gift earned with age

and so exhausting to wield that he can only spend his days
lounging, unmoving, on the couch. Gods need their rest, after all

is said and done, what remains is a drenched backyard, grass
like wilted spinach, the life cycle of dirt to mud made manifest,

and he is right. My dog is right, and I, too, feel futures
in my gut, each step closer to them less premonition

and more kidney stone assassinating its way through
me—oh, to be Merlin, missileless mut, blind, deaf, head in the sand

by virtue of age alone—is this his superpower? Flight
from it all? Stupefying glare of his mortality

holding him fast and hard to whatever home, home,
home this is? Something rotten haunts

our days, you and I, whose bones we
frantically teethe.

How our bodies hurt that we face a future
that faces us, looking back at its dismal birth and howling,

How did we ever let that happen? It was in our bones, we
poor dogs, and we could not stay inside.

My dog—he has cataracts, eyes like frosted glass—and
when our eyes meet, uncertainty flails between us

until something bites—he looks away, or huffs, or I hear the news.
To tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, glaring steadfast at the blood and iron,

Hello.
My name is Daniel, and my world is ending.

Shake my hand.
Let's talk.

a politician posted on Bluesky / MK Zariel

for Trans Day Of Visibility. i was supposed to feel seen,
i think, but i shrugged and kept scrolling.
i don’t feel visible so much as in-progress, a forgotten footnote
in the drafts folder of my brain. social media screams out
a resonance for trans survival, for the way we will likely all venmo one another
the same tired chunk of money, for the mutual aid graphics, for the
pithy quotes, for nobody, for the small talk

we’ll make with a well-meaning cis friend, asking
what they can do to support us. it’s grey and desperate
here in the midwest, the sky changing hues like the pronouns
in my bio—snow melting and reforming only to blossom
into a short-lived false spring. today i reached out to an ex
asking if she felt visible yet. she didn’t respond. today i woke up
feeling resolutely normal. today i was trans, but i wasn’t

entirely sure what that meant anymore. since when did the simple fact
of having never felt like a girl create a void to be filled
with labels, with litanies, with the question of whether i should just
be the first person alive to transition in both directions at once.
transmasculine lesbian fits like the new outfit you buy
at the peak of summer, wondering if maybe you’ll feel
like a different person. being visible makes it hard
to be anything else.