June - Poem 6

Balancing the Ledger / Kristina Byas

It wasn’t waiting,
not for all little girls,
not for us.

So we became women who
refused
demanded
imagined
endured and
claimed
what we owe
our daughters
when they come.

In All My Dreams My House is the One I Grew Up In II / Shavahn

Because I can’t forget the spiral staircase.
Because the knotty gray carpet, the clawfoot tub.
Because this is the room where we ate dinner.
Because that’s the room where I wanted to die.
Because this is the empty lot we used to play ball in.
Because my husband says I scream in my sleep.
Because the siding was yellow, the shutters brown.
Because my dentist says I need a night guard to keep from grinding my teeth.
Because I don’t remember it being so small.
Because we carved our names in the windowsill.
Because when I hit my son I cried and promised him never to hurt him again.
Because, somehow, I love my father still.

overflow  / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason

I pull the dust bunnies
from out under my bed
by hand

I tell you
I love you by hearting
your texts twenty 
first century apologies

maybe my smiles always flirt
with the pharmacist who doesn’t
confirm date of birth last name
when I need these refills
on endless pills I’m here
too much

I find eighteen socks
beneath the bathroom sink
none of them
are yours some of them
aren’t mine

out of the attic 
I toss down worn flannels
homed with moths spoon
feed on plaid and all
the softer for it

books nestle by height
in drawers as you can’t 
reach shelves like I do
right hand slack

you holler about coffee grabbing 
the scoop wrong ruins
your morning 
half-caff in the afternoon
at midnight you cry in wakefulness

I holler at you
about doing PT every
time I see you, then
every week
then only when I remember

I stop texting you
anything
your number becomes
assigned to someone else

In winter the rotary phone
in your office rings before|I can answer
you sto

I leave your webs
I’ve killed too
many brethren
when I was small now
I sloop you up in my forever
hands and wander you
out the door

SHOULDER  / Shane Moran

—for Henry Hart

Siken calmly utters he shouldn’t be alive. If I’m
Honest, does any epiphany come unlike this one, hearing
One mouth moving at a time? (Would like to take a walk with you.)
Unlike Calvoceressi      the man I miss is not dead. I’d
Like to believe that Hart is old and done listening to poets
Discussing loss in ballrooms. It has been a while. I know I should
Email, at least a small note of thanks to the first man to

Read Dickinson with me in his softest of voices.

Prisoner's Dilemma: in two parts / Jingyu Li

Prisoner's Dilemma: mother and father, idealized

Prisoner's Dilemma: patriarchy

Cosmos / Stefanie Zito

From summer into fall 
I can count on the steady 
splendor of your flames.
You bounce in the breeze.
Brightly you rise
and rest on limber stems
enticing the bees 
with your sweet nectar.
I watch the choreography of
your stalks, long and slender
You teach me to tango. 
I follow your lead, 
learning to dance where
I’m rooted for the season.
The bright glow of cosmos– 
sun’s clustered echoes
held in a single flower–
a universe unto yourself.

June - Poem 5

Jhene, About What You Said… / Kristina Byas

You mentioned being born tired,
and I felt that in my bones.

I’m still wondering when the ease will come,
when the cycle will break.

I’m sure we’re more than the weight we inherited,
but that doesn’t mean it’s not heavy,
sometimes,
often,
nearly always.

Still,
maybe it’s not destined to remain. 
I’ve known many weary hearts
still learn to dance in the rain.

All Fathers Smell a Little Bit Like My Father / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson

momento mori - MRI  / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason

PENIS (2)  / Shane Moran

To be gone down on? I’ll call an Uber!

After dinner and the rain, 
I’m delighted to wrap
my bomber jacket around 

your shoulders. It’s cold. 
I like watching you smoke 
your spliff, hot tip     smoking 

heat     peaceful oblation to feel 
time pass.  I like your gentle 
thumb holding it steady    your new 

fires stop the canoeing. 
And I like      how you protect—
the cherry.  Your mouth 

glazed in Addict 
lip glow, I cherish your
wet art opening for a high—

this is Paris, after all. 
This is our one     almost 
riskless     way to let it all go

before we lock together 
our hazy eyes and       taste 
our sooty breath, 

before my flat     and the warmth 
of your right hand around it and 
the shine off your dotted nails—before     

the Uber says to put it out.

Father Nightmare / Jingyu Li

Once I was impressionable: a man could be made 
by stacking spheres, pebbles for eyes. 

My mother said he could be unmade 
with warmth for hands, only the buttons 

would keep. Last night a snowman 
walked my dreams, I screamed 

when he melted because he was everywhere: 
my shoes, my chair, even my face 

was touched with him. I keep returning 
to how quickly it happened 

how fatherlike he was and how 
starkly different now. 

Sometimes I think it’s not even about him.

Canticle for Questions / Stefanie Zito

I’m stretching the strings of what's been unraveled 
plucking an altered processional.
gathering the echoes of inherited insistence  
drumming to the cadence of crumbled certitude. 
I’m writing a hymn for relinquished ritual
humming the elegy of an unfurled grip.
drafting a eulogy of forsaken assurance–
what once was firm has fallen.

I’m composing a canticle for questions,
a requiem for scattered sureness.

Lamentation lives inside my loss of certainty
I set up camp amidst this hazy mystery.
Questions are the quest themselves 
so I make my dwelling here
I lift my voice and my life with it–
give glory to wonderment herself.
I sing an anthem to ambiguity and
lift wavering hands of exasperated awe
at the riddle in which we all reside.

I release the interrogation of my own existence
And rejoice in having my life for the living.

June - Poem 4

Rituals / Kristina Byas

They hold me,
keep me barely alive
until survival becomes
living without asking for permission.

Things My Brothers Said / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson

One brother said if I peeled back the bark of a stick and ate it, it would taste just like chicken. Another said I can’t play because I’m a girl. One brother said lightning is more likely to strike me if I hide under the covers during a thunderstorm. One brother said cat food was tasty and pretended to eat it, tricking me into giving it try. One brother said I’m much too quiet. One brother said I’m much too loud. One brother said I was whiny, one said I was weak. Another said bossy, another a bitch. One brother said guys prefer girls with big titties. One brother said I was too fat to live. One said I was stupid, one said a nerd. Another said that he wished I would die. One brother said you’re just like our mother. Another said you’re going to wind up like Dad. One brother said one day my husband is going to love how flexible I am. One brother said he never thinks about me. One said I’m stuck up, one said I’m mean. One said he hates me, one said I’m ugly. Another said things I cannot repeat. One brother held my hand when I was crying, and if he said anything, I didn’t hear. One brother said he never did like me. One brother said we’re practically twins. One brother said he’d love me forever, but after I never saw him again.

Impact  / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason

Hydrangeas flourish on my walk to the hospital
and bloom too early in the spring, like fireworks
of copper chloride, burning in loud, hot crackles.
When the loosest petals sail in autumn’s regalia 
and spread over the potholed streets, I gasp.
What a beautiful coat cast over the city, grander than I
could feel. The blossoms are spring lights for one
soul, summer breath another, and one heart
stuck inside that hospital, respirator clicking
awake – asleep – awake –
those cascading hydrangeas peak
as the curve of a lover’s cheek
and kiss again and again
to speak, criss-crossed over their eyes, 
of a world they held, they could hold 
again, as they raise their hand 
at the glass, prescribed mercy
though it never lasts.

SHOULDER / Shane Moran

Shower-wet and laying in bed     her body in a towel, 
Her hair is wrapped, as she watches her Reels
On full blast — each claiming, loving a man is cruel and
Unusual punishment, always costing the woman.
Like a first boyfriend — I lay with my back turned away  (hard).
Don’t know how we got like this, but — as
Ever, I’m afraid     all I hold will crack.  One video jokes: if he likes to circle
Round his finger and lick     he is an above-average monster.

Woman Reading / Jingyu Li

       — after painting by Eastman Johnson

This is no time for poetry she said 
in a time of urgency, it is no time 
to sit in a room and feel. 
The woman reading is looking both
at the page and through it.
As she looks at herself, she 
steps out from her closeness. The sea 
disappears behind her, the boat floats 
on nothing. She is writing herself 
into the poem: this is no time
she reads, shadows
like sails over her eyes.
To lift herself from her landscape 
is a great work of fiction. There is no 
good time to feel, the woman is writing
or she is reading. In the distance,
the shadows do not hold.
Clothes loose as feathers
are her chosen garments. Yes, 
even dreams must bind to 
something.

Golden Hour / Stefanie Zito

After the run of the day the sun takes a dip– 
a charming show off she is with 
her slow motion plunge toward the rocky rim.
As she bows down, her beams 
scatter through the fields where 
we drench ourselves in her glow,
hosing off what the day has glomed on. 
She shapes and softens our shadows 
stretching them longer, drawing us 
deeper into her amber spell. 
Our silhouettes briefly extend 
into eons under her ambient illusion.
Her liminal luminance entertains 
our delighted deception that 
this moment will never end.
When suddenly she slips from sight. 
the afterglow of lingering light 
spans fleetingly and swiftly fades,
yielding to the mystery of night.

June - Poem 3

Growth Spurt / Kristina Byas

I grew out of the body
I never grew into,
for years, calling it home.
An unfamiliar voice answering to my name,
skin stretched thin over bones that ached and muscles close to atrophy.
Every mirror held this stranger,
someone longing to belong,
searching for proof of herself
in the absence,
wandering for as long as she could,
refusing to say she’s lost.

in all my dreams my house is the one i grew up in / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson

i’m not twelve anymore
but sometimes i’m still scared
of the dark
—the way the light
shines in through the windows
makes shadows on the ceiling
ghosts on the floor
i’ve tried not being
haunted but there’s something
about the paint color
something about the fist-
sized hole in the door
my room is still the room
with the butterfly wallpaper
my room is still the room
at the top of stairs
in some dreams
i’m the mother
in others the daughter
in some dreams i’m the monster
living under the bed

rain on hot asphalt  / Jess Tønseth LeeGleason

It’s the plight of thunder released
after the fiend of lightning slaps the sky,
after the silver bellies of the leaves flay the storm.
after the wind cools the sweet skin stuck between our bodies.
after we’ve come down with each other’s fever.
fervorous to devour each hour, wrap onto each other,
to rough across this sky of bones we’ve rooted.
We move into electric lives of atomic infinity between our skin
and that thunder clap ricochet, the hollow in our hands 
morph with the silver sides of leaves better than the storm can
rocket our bodies. These temporary bodies rock again 
with the span of short rains our frames, storm 
and roll as we pass into other countries,
bodies, leaves, and sky – all forgetting where we bared.

In Quiet Times / Jingyu Li

Then rain began like applause,
my nightmares denting the pastures
Even the sea ends somewhere—
Once a mother taught us to begin 
at the bounds of things, the puzzle’s 
edge, the waking hours. We measure 
each other by asking what if.
And what if it ends? Yes, even that, 
even fear. How it rises, mounds 
of freshly shucked oyster shells grasping 
the blue sky. If we stay here long enough 
we become the landscape, if we stay longer
the landscape changes. 

PENIS / Shane Moran

It desires power, but it rarely comes easy.
Power is the most intoxicating feeling to come to 
Understand. Power says this is your kingdom come, 
Your body, your will be done. Power’s the ideal stroke. 
It takes you, and grateful for you—it grows. 
Orderly home. Well-trained dog. Success. 
Sex. No Surprise—a door opening, a practical 
Stranger welcomes, using Mr. then your name.

Respair / Stefanie Zito

The fresh hope 
of rebounding from dark days,
The sudden return 
to a better state.
The crisp anticipation 
and spry suspense
of pristine expectancy. 
The delectable foretaste 
of a favorable forecast. 
A brisk burst of serene repose.
The pure excitement
and invigorated longing 
for what’s here and what more will be.

To breathe again.

In a word, respair. 

Hello to this little known, obsolete 16th-century word.
Why did only its counterpart, 
despair, persist in our parlance? 
Let not the limitations of our acknowledged text 
set the stage or direct the path for us.
Words hold such curious power.
So wield the tool of your tongue and 
speak it into existence with me:
RESPAIR.
I’m newly learning it
and longing to live it.
Tired of trends.
Fatigued with fads.
Let’s start a full blown craze. 
Will you join the movement?
Respair for the destitution of today!
Respair for the penury of our plight!
Seems as life-sustaining as respiration itself.
Let’s err on the side of it:
restoration, healing, restedness.
Inhalation. Exhalation. Aspiration! Exultation!
All together now!

June - Poem 2

For the Ones We Outgrew / Kristina Byas

I’m sure they’ll haunt us.

Not to be redeemed
or resurrected,

but
mourned,
honored
for having survived what shaped us.

Ode to DoorDash / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson

Making love is like making dinner. 
I can’t stand the prep— 
all the measuring and chopping,
getting my hands dirty. 

Maybe there’s kneading, maybe 
while I preheat the stove someone 
boils water for something. 
The chicken, moist and pink, 

turns brown in the pan,
and the air is perfumed 
with butter and spices. 
Yes, there’s pleasure in that, but 

there’s pleasure, too, in picking up 
the phone and scrolling through pictures 
of food already made, already plated.
Convenience, like a clean kitchen, 

is also kind of sexy. Something hot, 
delicious and dropped at the door. 

severance - a cento  /  Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason

lines from Much Ado About Nothing and Star Wars: Clone Wars

I learned from watching you
now I have a future.
There’s nothing you have that I could want.

These are strange times
that only tells a lie and swears it. I cannot be a man
I learned from watching you.

Don’t insult me.
I love you with so much of my heart that
there’s nothing you have that I could want.

But I’m not that person anymore.
I want that back.
I learned from watching you.

I love you with so much of my heart that
once I was just like you.
There’s nothing you have that I could want.

You’re wrong. I was terrified.
It seems to be what you do best.
There’s nothing you have that I could want.
I learned from watching you.

SHOULDER / Shane Moran

striking a match across my front teeth to dance with you—
how many times did i hold you in the air?
our jelly fish tongues like cleaning a seashell—are most
useful for this.  sleeping with you was   
like a half-dollar rattling the floor til’ flat.  hand-holding and
disappearing in the morning.       you, with a life so like mine,
explain what i could be for you: not hot coals, not the cold smoke
rising off dry ice.  —   serious   —  we’re mute ash.

Conversation with Metaphysical Dog / Jingyu Li

MD: Was it difficult to birth me?

I: Not rushed landscapes nor a waiting stork, you came natural as pebbles.

MD: It was a coincidence then? 

I: No I must have willed it, but then it was unexpected all the same. 

MD: Sometimes I get hungry and it is tricky since we share a mouth and a bark.

I: My mouth is your mouth but your mouth is somewhere outside my mouth.

MD: I am chewing right now.

I: —And I am not.

MD: I’ve been chewing for quite some time, you must tell me to stop.

I: There.

MD: Thank you, my mouth has stopped moving.

I: I did not do a thing.

MD: Tell me then, when do we move together?

I: When you will it or I will it.

MD: So we’ll fly then. I say we’ll fly.

I: See, this is what I mean. You can will things in me I cannot do otherwise.

MD: You are optimistic.

I: I like to believe in better things than we have.

MD: We have this world and that other. 

Load-bearing / Stefanie Zito

My bedroom chair bears witness
to the loads of life we’re living
the many layers of any given week.
Some gathered, washed, and waiting
Some tossed by the wayside of morning’s mayhem.
Find your sleeve or pantleg. Give a sturdy tug.
Be swift as a magician with his tablecloth trick
lest you risk the deluge of scads for the sorting.
A quixotic rendering of myself 
has a real knack for tidy folded stacks. 
But lately life is in a routine of hampering my capacity.
So I gather, wash, then jettison. Rinse and repeat. 
As I iron out my course, the clothing can wait.
For now, I’ll push the limits of fiber sculpture.
Cumbersome. Monotonous. Impressive in scale.
My well-intended friends offer 
instructions for care, beckoning 
I lower the heat
opt for a gentle setting
a free and clear moment to pause.
But to find my seat I first have to fold.

June - Poem 1

Matriarch / Kristina Byas

We trampled on cracks
too many times to count.
No backs broken,
they had already become contortionists,
perfected their shucks,
taught us jives
so when we were next in line
only our spirits would fracture,
but no wince to betray the smiles.

Nothing & Everything / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson

the evening sky—pink and blue like Easter
—is a frosted cake
I want to drag my finger across it
and lick


it hangs
above my head like a thought
bubble
I did not come out
here for this


I wanted to walk clear my mind
wanted breath and sweat
muscles and sinew
to make sense of everything
but nothing
makes sense: why


one cloud looks like a mushroom
another a castle one cloud a stuffed
bear another a dagger
a turtle a hook a dinosaur
without legs


one’s a weeping
ballerina another a genie
coming
out of its bottle


before I grew up
I saw clouds
and thought
cotton candy


but now that I know
their names—these are
cumulonimbus


—all I think about is the coming storm

a month after she was born, I hold my niece for the first time /  Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason

for her mother, Johannah

Her weight floats lighter than I imagined,
but oh how heavy her curve
over my chest, tiny feet ready to kick
the ribs over my heart, weak from a car crash.
Gossamer as the hollow between my arms,
I refused to move in case she slipped, unanchored
between safety and the floor, in infinity’s terror
before magic’s made unreal and the floor is realized
in rubbery bones. There should be more time for hurt
to raise out of weeds and alight her body with fireflies.
My eyes flicked from the milia bourne down her nose
to my sister, hazel-loved eyes, milk-smeered, open,
and I Cassandra’d out so many futures: broken
bodies laid out from semi-trucks, glioblastomas, AR-15s, 
and the open casket that’s my heart couldn’t close,
her chubby hand grabbed 
between the ledge and the lip, welding open whatever
steeltrap car crash once passed for my heart.
okay, that’s enough
I passed the biggest soul
back to her mother.

Untitled / Jingyu Li

SHOULDER / Shane Moran

Scotts, skirl for my grandmother!
Hydrangeas, become a sea for my grandmother!
Organs, song for my grandmother!
Uniformed men, fire for my grandmother!
Love of God, lay upon my grandmother!
Doves, flutter for my grandmother!
Engines, roar for my grandmother!
Reader, know all the love I have for my grandmother!

A Stone for Holding / Stefanie Zito

She cast pebbles of wisdom 
rippled over waters of my heart
rocking my world.
Hungry for depth, I collected them all. 
Her insight, rich in minerals 
nourished my capacity to grow
between rocks and hard places.
Her gems of discernment scattered
spontaneous as star showers.
I later shared the load of her sickness. 
Shortly before death called my grounded friend
as its own buried treasure,
she gave me a stone for holding 
fibers down in the dye pot.
Submerged in the tint of my own tears 
I’m still gripping– absorbing the reality of loss.
You would think the absence
of such a hefty spirit would grow lighter.
Grief is an onerous boulder.
I’m crushed, drenched, holding still.

May - Poem 31

parnassus and its wild dogs, a cento / Sonya Wohletz

Lines taken from Meredith Ann Avera, Desirae Chacon, Heather Frankland, John Hanright III, Jillian Humphrey, Shane Moran, Christina Vaagenius, and Sonya Wohletz.

i dreamed the dogs again—
a fever dream
as big brown eyes, marked with stars.
follow them wet, alive—

like an old friend:
the fog-licked lake,
every patch of green with wildflowers—
one peak to the next:
purple, pink, light red.

music of life
plays in their ears.
weight of an unsaid stay
heavy on my tongue.

pale light whispers
into the doorway
holding the sleeping puppies
by the nape of the neck.

years folded over years,
the scent of holiness,
the wonder of
your singing,

calling—come to me, come
borrow my ears.

what should we name
such an act of return—
of calling
beauty to the ruin?

specter of responsibility—your face
wobbling on my shoulder.
snuggle, little beast.

i fed you all you wanted
and then you were gone.

i’m trying to remember—

since birth i have been
my own witness—
the body—a costume.
now that it’s gone

wild back here
you, dear friend, soul-pet
you must survive
on the edge of the realm
of life &
the eternal.

i wanted.
i wreaked of willingness.
anything to hold you again—
the animal in my body.

why insist
on the incarnation of a dream?

loyal and intentional of
devotions—the world
become the vicious creature—
seeks out a home.

i will always be your dog.

waiting

waiting

waiting

and your eyes
were all lamb-bright.

Empowering Voices  / Heather Frankland

for Erin

How is it that the dandelion
grows in the cracks of concrete
its lion roar small, but mighty
its voice still practicing being a voice
but it grows despite concrete
and poor soil and neglect and disregard
its bright head blooms and thrives;
its voice carries on to other yards. 

May - Poem 30

Salt Lines  / M. Anne Avera

June glistened into focus
out of spring. It gave us
wet, thick air, like a blanket
over the damp earth.

I was six, stretching every
boundary over the ripe
green yard, every azalea
perfect for plucking.

I was the grade-school
dictator of the land, and
that day, my target sat 
below a green canopy.

I pulled the elephant ear
back and took it within
my palm. The shock of yellow
writhed—a slug spreading

itself out onto me. I took
it inside on a styrofoam
plate to do my work.
All fun and games.

Tiny stars of Morton’s
sea salt speckled its back.
The thing could have cried
and I still would have done it.

It fully shriveled when
I heaped more on. I poked it
until it died, then dumped
the whole project down

into the garbage disposal.
To hurt with a laugh
is mankind’s gift to the young,
the fragile, the effervescent.

I already had the vein of cruelty
(passed down from my kin)
laced into my being,
flowing down my throat.

Under this Ol’ Brim / Desirae Chacon

where every storm passes over this
brim
I have conquered
where every lie that tried to break me down 
i rode straight through it
through every tear
that fell from the heavens
and every lightening 
strike of stricken heart break
i have overcome
in every waiting season
for reunion
i saddled
for the return
through every snowfall & spring rain
i bridled 
to continue on
because in the end
of the trail
i rode
Victoriously
on

Blackberries in the Ditch  / Heather Frankland

Blackberries in the ditch
ripe, sweet blackberries
crowded in the ditch
sharing space with poison ivy
empty beer cans and yellow jackets
cigarette butts with lipstick stains.
Did the city spray already?
Can we still eat these
blackberries in the ditch?

I hold several in my hand
roll them around my destiny lines
they leave their impact—
so tender their skins,
surely, I can pop them in my mouth,
Did the city spray already?
Did I bush past poison ivy?
My ankle is starting to itch,
but it all seems worth it
for blackberries in the ditch.

We trick ourselves into believing
that the city didn’t spray
that we are no longer allergic
to poison ivy and perhaps—
it isn’t really poison ivy—
it’s Virigina Creeper, surely,
it’s some kid’s science project
these blackberries would make
a nice breakfast topping
we can bring them back for the others
if only they make it to breakfast,
instead we are eating
and pretending we aren’t eating
these delicious, plump
blackberries in the ditch.

Can I click my heels
and call home back to me,
summer days stained
with sweet nostalgia
at least for one last bite
of these dirty beauties
the earned taste
my suffering ankles
the poison ivy
for blackberries in the ditch.

Can you imagine us leaving
these blackberries
to be enjoyed
by someone else’s mouth?
Or worse yet—
to shine and tempt and die
because the city may
have sprayed this ditch?
Like ruby red slippers
they sparkle; they glow
but when I click them together
will they take me back home?

Love Song for Anon / John Hanright

I don’t even know your name;
On my breath are your lips, smoky;
Yet I want you all the same…


You grow on me, so I can’t be blamed
For what I want to do to your body;
And I don’t even know your name


Your hair I’ll grasp, and exclaim
Something stupid like “baby”
Yet I still want you all the same…

My insatiable appetite you’ll tame,
My caged heart you’ll free;
Yet I don’t even know your name…


You have me coming for more, maimed
By Eros’s arrow, yet I can see
I really do want you all the same…


But I suppose that’s the name of the game,
To experience so much so easily;
And though I don’t even know your name,
I really do want you all the same…

silence / Jillian Humphrey

A spoon set down without care.
A ball bouncing
against the side of the garage.
Every door opening and closing
and opening — someone trying
to find me with a complaint
or request. A shout that means nothing
wakes up the dog.
The TV, volume 25.
YouTube, no headphones.
Someone making popcorn.
A timer.
The blender.
A fight — who needs
the bathroom the most
and for how long.
Loud music.
Dropped keys.
Ice cubes.
The fridge left open.
A cupboard slammed.

I buy myself
a small AM/FM radio
for listening
to summer baseball
outside. I cannot bring myself
to turn it on. I look at it and think
that would be nice,
but first I’d have to move out.
Some day one of us will.
When I go to turn the dial,
will I be able to bear it?

Chest / Shane Moran

Now, we won’t count the years since we graduated
only say it has been over five, or a decade—
or, if we are lucky, more than twenty. 

Williamsburg is not the same, though it is still
my preferred diorama of that American myth 
that once tasted like caramel-covered Virginia 

peanuts in the fall. Last night, Honeycutt told me 
what he appreciates about Europeans is that they know 
how to enjoy tobacco products. He told me there were days

namely the 70s, where if you were a good-looking white guy
you could get any job—off that alone. He was a typist
for Ginsberg, ‘cause he was handsome and could type.

He said this after reading a poem criticizing
the old man who wants us to go back to that time,
where being a man meant something, meant being capable,

and earning was something that came after
taking a chance. This is also the thinking of Napoleon
Hill. Have an idea and make it happen—get off 

your lily-white ass. I never sat for too long 
on my young black ass. Never knew an opportunity,\
I wouldn’t call, exploitative. Never knew I was handsome

until I became grown, until my mother
stopped calling me sheep’s ass, once I learned to keep
my hair cut and walk straight up.

This is the thing about Williamsburg—
that I crave. Memory of how we used to be hopeful,
us men—memory of how we had something to give,

even if we hadn’t yet earned it. America is the love 
child of five dozen cute young men in small clothes—
who said they'd earn it, once they got the chance

who could make a chance out of dust,
who were not watched on hidden cameras,
whose debts did not follow them to the moon.

This morning, one of my old deans called and asked me why 
I think the men of my class are having such a hard time—
we’re still figuring out what there’s left to build, I said

—and what’s left to build it out of.

Upon Hearing The News Of The New Garden Wing For Intensive Care Patients  / Christina Vagenius

I hold your hand and whisper see —
the body knows
the difference between birdsong and beeps,
joy as it climbs the eyelid, peers over the edge.
Saddled with wind whipped hair,
says, We’re here. Hands lifted, sleds down
slip and slide cheeks —
the body knows
the difference between a chair and a bench,
planted under the bosom of a River. Feral birch skin
peeling away the apparent. Names carved lightly beneath legs.
A bouquet of hands, variety tender. Plumber, Painter, Bread Maker
Stems pulled tight, together. —
The body knows
the difference between a breath and an incubator.
The strum of a lung filled with banter and belief. Helium sighs
lifting the whole of a heart, strings untangled. Go slow. A plea,
to the sky herself Do we have to go?
Can't we stay just a little bit longer.

Kitezh #3 / Sonya Wohletz

After Anna Akhmatova and Werner Herzog

1.

When you arrive at the miraculous city of Kitezh, you can gain insight into the nature of your soul. This city once stood on the banks of Lake Svetloyar. That was centuries ago. When the envoys of the combatant appeared, the residents implored God for protection. He answered, consigning the city to the bottom of the waters where they repose in splendor. The people believe this city really existed. You may catch a glimpse of the city in winter perhaps, or it may rather be at night in late spring. It may be this very night. May twenty-ninth, year two thousand and twenty-six. It may be that it happens as you write the words of your own pilgrimage. You may hear the voices of martyred children singing within walls of ice. Its apples may split and reveal the face of a saint. And you may see angels walking; they may pause from time to time and appear to exchange between themselves prayers of the Old Believers. You must follow them until you cannot follow any further. You may collapse in ecstasy like a tattered banner. These sorts of things are expected. Your limbs will certainly transform into long, thin candles. Your mouth becomes ripe with the pitch of the endless birch forest. Mosquitos begin to speak to you in a new language. You must remember their words; these are the words of the angel Gabriel, though they may not be meant for you. You may see a tree stump, or a rock, and make your prayers as to a blessed shrine. You will return here, from time to time; I predict that one time (one time) will not be enough for you. And the mourners will follow you, and they will not take you by the hand even as you ask them for comfort, nor will they offer you clothing when they find you in your hospital gown, unwashed and shriveled with confusion. But the innocent monk—he may offer you some bread and pray for your soul. And you will eat this bread and remember again the face of your mother as a child. You see: the soul is forever striving to behold the sunken city of Kitezh.

2.

take example                                      the city of kitezh               the city                 consigned

                to the depths                     of                                            fathomless          lake

i               am seeking         a sunken vision                                  warm houses     in red clay

                the guttered orchard      trench of my dreams

                                through                                pillars of smoke                                 forever striving

to            behold                                                  sunken

city of    kitezh city            the envoi                             batu khan                            or was it you

implore                 envoi                     to the fathomless             lake svetloyar

choirs                                    chase                                                     me like insects                  

godcrawl                             the lake                 blood and ice of                                 innocent things

perhaps                                                                bowing to shrubs

                 slither                                                  across the ice

the future                                            sunken fortune                                  of faith

battered                               in pure sound                   

and catch             a glimpse             pilgrims slipped in strange            and fragrance

of pitch                 as an old woman              tattered knees                                  

a banner                              of ecstasy                                            forevermore

crawling               crawling               crawling               in blessing

May - Poem 29

Chueh-Chu 001  / M. Anne Avera

I remember your house in November rain,
how we ducked our heads through the kitchen door.
We curled on your bedspread, warmth seeking warmth,
my wool-socked feet brushing the hardwood floor.
You had spent hours sifting through your stash--
your collection of box-tops, bread ties, and trash galore--
for something exciting, something that glowed,
a gift for me, though I always wanted more.

Societal Degradation / Desirae Chacon

butterfly drifts by
sunshine bathed upon her back
wings soaked in sunlight

everything in this life
was so generously given to us so freely
until greed of society came along
all the resources supplied at no charge
beautiful fruit bearing trees, meat & wild berries
wind, air, water & gold
we could all have gold inlaid into our properties if we wanted to 
we could all wear pearls and the highest fashion
no wallet or wealth
status or networking
to utilize 
no thousands of dollars
to learn knowledge that is free all around us
to earn a document
for “better opportunities” 
in exchange for years of our lives
and the cost consuming repayment that can span decades 
raising children to begin their lives with student loans that cost as much as some homes

greed

nothing needs to cost anything

no homes in ideal locations
taking free coastlines and convenient locations 
and reserving them for the rich
the rich told not to lend out hands
when no man really needs any money
and yet the money man created
demands demands demands
working to earn
what society calls success or survival
luxury handbags, sports cars & mansions
making rent, needing food, or fuel for at least a tank of gas
looked down upon because you left the old country for a “better life”
when this life is too fast paced and the foundation is all material that wont last
yet money demanded time and hard-work to build it

To Uncle Larry Who Liked to Sing  / Heather Frankland

Don’t ever forget
Uncle Larry was a kind man
who liked to sing—jokingly serenade
his nieces and nephews, even
when off-key. Even if he
had only a few deep scratchy notes
that could masquerade as Sinatra,
he’d look at you in the eyes
and sing with humor and sincerity.

Don’t ever forget
Uncle Larry was a generous man
who cared to find out what you cared about
and then, would encourage you.
For me, it was poetry—
he and I both wrote, and it was a bridge
between us, allowing for easy conversation
at crowded family dinners.

Don’t ever forget
Uncle Larry was a matchmaker—
some of the matches, he felt proud of,
others, he regretted the match.
He is the reason my parents met—
matching his sister with his college friend.
Dad remembers Uncle Larry and Mom
singing and skipping together
around the college. I like to imagine it—
the two who could be silly with each other
and shared a love for Agatha Christie mysteries.

Don’t ever forget
the stories we learned after Uncle Larry
passed away, the ways he tried to be a peacemaker
in the family—staying in touch with everyone,
the stories about him finding ways
to give people a kind word when they needed it
or slip them a twenty when he knew times were tough.

Dad says he misses his friend.
Mom wishes she could call him.
And me, well, I am writing this poem to him,
someone I knew so long,
but still remains a mystery—
I gather the details I remember,
scraps of stories—weave them together
and hope this is a poem
that he would’ve liked. 

Waiting for a Train / John Hanright

IV.

To arrive, to reach the end
Stop – breathe –
Clammy hands, tapping foot
Screeching brakes
Clanging bells
Now’s the time to go
Forward, momentum
In the heart, muzzled mind
One foot in front
Of the other, beside me
Looking at the train –
Not paying any mind
To the man, beside them
As I step from the platform
Release overwhelms me
Renewed freedom
Fully embodied will
I stand waiting
Resolute, ready to face
My beginning and my end

Pull / Jillian Humphrey

I am drawn cockeyed
by the rotations
beneath me
which pull me to center
while spinning me round
so that as I stay a straight
course I go left 
and outside. The real force 
is only one of many
felt forces.
Bathwater circling
the drain believes
itself a record
not a waterfall yet
plummets. A mortal coil
a labyrinth a conch a hurricane a milky
way may all be traveling
due north and still
they turn. A physical force
proportionate to the size of the disco
ball compels me to boogie
then sends me back
to flower the walls.
I circle the dance floor
not knowing what comes next.

Shoulder / Shane Moran

Sex is all we got   and   the only time you
Hold nothing against me but your body.
Only you know how easily I fold
Unto you—mama or baby—I hate your tears.

Let me be enough for you  and     please
Don’t make a fool of me,
Especially not in this bar, where everyone’s got a fresh cut but me.
Right now, I’d love a touch on the cheek, a tug on my beard.

Kitchen Drawer  / Christina Vagenius

On Blanche days, I swept the porch with sunned feathers,
searched the cracked wall for pill bugs, rolled them home

with want. Envied their nose to tail secrets, bent around what
disappears. I waited on the turn of Dad’s wheels, feet alight

in gypsum and day old rain, a mold for the castle’s shadow,
allegiance to a festooned gutter leaking life over borrowed toes.

And the blistered pouch of the daylily’s mouth waiting to be popped.
Power fused between pinch, I follow. The tip-toed wet step cement

mementos, the purred leisure left to trace. My finger, an accomplice to her
treason. The red, swelled slammed door. A thrown kitchen drawer, hinged jaws

don’t talk. But our eyes, wet with the last reach of mulberry — purple pavement
thick with her blood I have grown here too. The day’s last sigh. Blanche and her

framed eyes, knees pressed into mine. A rudder waved, cheeks finding the milky
seat of her shoulder. Says Tell me, again. How we’ll never grow older.

Cantilever / Sonya Wohletz

For Maestro Frederico Vigil

at the school on canyon road ms. baca said you have talent
soon dragons skimming your fingers, crushing feathers in cochineal
and ants swarm starlight to sow the early corn fields

modotti behind her lens. trotsky—rivera—kahlo damp and sand
you said painting fresco is like a dance—the wall is your lady
at la entrega de los novios: pigments become her skin your history

si diosito quiere and ave maría
cupped in supple
wine

May - Poem 28

my preferred confession booth is the discount bread aisle at the piggly wiggly  / M. Anne Avera

got the time?

you know, all this shit used to be so much cheaper.

when i was your age, i could live off
ten dollars maybe twealve dollars a week—
not shittin’ you.

pardon my french.

course, men loved that like you wouldn’t believe. 
that was before my bypass and my heart still pumped blood good,
despite all the stuff we was putting up our noses, not knowing better.

so it was no big surprise when i’d go downtown
to pool-shark the bar guys, get me some grocery money
and ‘em got a little handy a few of the times, lingerin’
when they’re lining up my shot you know, i knew
it wasn’t a banana in their pocket there but let me just say—
i’m not afraid to get down and clown, never ever was i afraid,
spite the fact my daddy (godresthissoul) brought me up in the big C church.
oh, my other folks hated that on account of them being baptist
through and through.

be a dear and hand me that there sunbeam,
will you?
say.
anyone ever tell you you got a face like a catholic priest?
you prolly keep lotsa secrets.

Love’s Lighthouse / Desirae Chacon

Sometimes Love
is like a lighthouse
in this ever growing cold-world

an oscillating light 
shining wherever
its directed 
others run to it
the catch the showing of radiating warmth
its foundation is a stage manager
acting alone 
in an one man play
for an audience of all

Shakespearean in manner
classic, timeless 
with a reoccurring crowd 

a light we can all carry 
within
over crashing seas
dark oceans
of icy glacial waves

standing over
on inlets & coves
sweeping over life
bringing a haven of radiance
a brilliance of love

Dear Elysia—We Who Own Pets All Have Tales  / Heather Frankland

Home after breaking an ankle,
laying on the secondhand futon,
its wire frame and thin mattress,
every turn, an ache, watching DVDs
brought by friends and waiting for visits
although I didn’t have much to say,
other than, I hurt, and, This wasn’t
the way I wanted to leave Las Cruces,
trying to pack with a broken ankle
nearly impossible, and some friends disappeared
when I was no longer self-sufficient—
terrified of curbs with my crutches,
worried about slipping in the shower
unable to balance enough to wash my hair,
my two cats stopped bickering,
stayed close to me. My favorite one
followed me everywhere, cried
at the bathroom door to be let in,
slept with me or near me
every day and night for months.

This favorite cat, Max, a tiny tabby
always would hang from my doorknob,
try to open the door when I
was on the other side. He would greet
me every day that I came home
for over 12 years. Even when his tumor
grew big enough that he couldn’t run
but walked heavily with measured step,
low to the ground, his tail down,
he’d greet me—not for food, but for a pet.
He liked being held like a baby.
When bored, he would push things off edges:
figurines, photos, mugs.
I learned not to put water glasses
on my night stand—he would shove
his tiny head in them to drink
or push them off to break them.
I called him a little bastard and complained,
but I liked even his little bastard-moments.

Max has been gone for almost eight years,
almost as long as I had him;
I try to remember these little moments,
list them, tell stories, and it hurts
less than it once did. So, I understand
you, dear friend, those soul-pets
take a piece of us when they go,
a kind of knowing that they had;
we read them, and they read us.

When pets cross that rainbow bridge,
when you are told that your grief isn’t your grief
when your everyday changes, and you keep
on looking for them to come through the door,
curl on the bed, jump on your feet,
wait patiently or impatiently at the door
to take you for a walk, to take you out
of worries and clouded thoughts
and notice squirrels, rabbits, new plants
all these smells that sing in the rain,
it is an absence that can’t be expressed easily,
a loss we are told to just get over,
rather than recognize the gift we had—
these soul-pets, their life a flicker,
it may have been brief, but still was bright.

Lunar Lunes / John Hanright 

Grazing the sky
Slipping Earth’s surly bonds
To meet her


Distance of thousands
A constant companion and friend
Never alone here


Light of night
Guide us toward your vales
Familiar and trodden


Vastness of space
Not empty but completely full
Quintessence of dust


Gazing out windows
Images of your dark side
Blue marble spinning


Take our hands
Greeting humanity’s best friend again
Footprints perfectly preserved

The SAVE Act / Jillian Humphrey

We want to live in a decent country, so in order to vote you’ll need to show

1) proof that at least once in the last ten years you’ve cleaned up someone else’s vomit, preferably a small child’s at 3 am;

OR

2)  an official transcript of a conversation held within the last twelve months in which you acknowledged you were wrong and asked for forgiveness; said transcript must be signed and dated by the offended party.

Furthermore, any person who wishes to run for office must meet BOTH of the above requirements in addition to providing

3) a notarized copy of a book report you wrote about a novel you read within the last six months;

4) a certificate of completion for an improv comedy class, accompanied by the teacher’s letter of recommendation; and

5) evidence of a distaste for war.

SHOULDER (5)   / Shane Moran

—a Cento (1)

Still sleeping at our feet    Time will break what doesn’t       bend— 
How perfectly each surface was made   All so we could call ourselves safe.
Oh body of my woman,
Until the drawing is complete—
Let the record show     I want this
Descending toward       devotion,
Even down to the youthful screams of play
Round the house     I mean to make it     The lamp of your arms.

(1) line S from “Despite My Efforts Even My Prayers Have Turned into Threats” by Kaveh Akbar
line H from “The Card Tables” by Jericho Brown
line O from “White thighs, hillocks of whiteness” by Pablo Neruda
line U from “How to Draw a Perfect Circle” by Terrance Hayes
line L from “Cum Sonnet with Friendship” by Gray Davidson Carroll
Line E from “The Flash Reverses Time” by A. Van Jordan
Line R from “from Book of Hours” by Kevin Young

Waiting On Titan's Arrival  / Christina Vagenius

The flooring installers are late. Missed the street, the door. The plush weave still waiting
on something hard. Maybe maple, laminate luster. A needled blade of irritation slipped
between the ship’s sails. Shoulders widened at the gate. Who’s there? I miss smoking. The
cigarette hanging from my hand, catching trouble in shades of red, blue, gray stubble. A
collective cloud of consciousness hung between balconies, a soldered eye staring back at
me, taunting the heat. Test me, she says. And means it, always grateful for the fresh start.
The tip to tip touch of camaraderie, breath sunk in chimney’s ash. Legs tangled together,
knotted knees, I’m here for you. A beard of fog buries the frustration. Splintered gorge be-
tween buildings. Resignation stoops. A dumpster vomits gold. Shillings for the fool still
waiting on Titan’s arrival. His promise of rivers and lakes, somehow inhabitable. And us,
all together. Breathing in the same empty air. Eyes closed to where ever we are supposed
to be.

Aripiprazole 1 / Sonya Wohletz

Brain stemming along the edge of Friday night and
ability slips through the cortices. Cue the graveyard, its brackish—

cue the water from the tap that brines flesh on contact.
Purgatory on the kitchen floor while Bacchus

sublimates in Das Kapital. I have a wig. I have two smashed phones. And
I see all that is hidden in this city. I remember it well.

Jackson Ave.: footsteps in the apartment overhead
corporating a terrible future. Its come down: scent of piss and garbage.

Trick question: three people in disagreement? Not a duel.
Jazz trio—a love triangle—Fleetwood Mac c. 1977.

Music splinters in broken glass. Spores a trail to the naked door,
the bottom of the stairs—blades flickering in dumpsters.

The railroad tracks follow. Neighbor girl holding her hands out, crying.
Errant pills wander the street barefoot. You are one of them.

The police take leisure in this—they are also your neighbors in disguise.
Have no interest in domestic. Wicked like distant.

Symbols engraved on easter eggs and you laughing about it.
Carbon dioxide plummets us all towards blue

screen. You become my father. I meditate on Planet Jupiter,
hum irrational numbers to the tune of weevils. Go your own way

while the third eye twists in pain—its blown fuse.
Then morning for the tenth time today and staggering, nauseous.

Stevie Nicks ascends in the crescive view—soul-stained,
careening carousel—grasping at whatever claims to love her most.

May - Poem 27

Body Horror 6a and 6b  / M. Anne Avera

6a.

My body is symmetrical, classically proportioned, and even in its curves.
My face is of classical beauty, detailed and intricate as if carved from marble.
My stomach is the color of cream, smooth and pale beneath my healthy breasts.
My body is machine, designed to be pleasing.

6b.

My body dominates space with its bulges of fat, sloping bones, and loose skin.
My face is an angry, moist map of negative space. My teeth sit yellow inside.
My stomach protrudes underneath my ribcage, the pallid skin covering a mat of bones.
My body is animal, milk-fed and warm blooded.

Every Smile / Desirae Chacon

i wouldnt trade any smile
for the riches of the world

no pearl or precious gem
can replace
the alive electric warmth
of one another’s soul
looking back at you
in bright brilliant love

who can replace the beauty
of a human soul

the preconfigured radiance
of another living being
the treasure that is

how precious is that 
we are surrounded by
living treasures
life breathed into diamonds

just look around 
and you’ll see
in every smile
of a good hearted person
are the treasures of the world

Isaiah is Curious About Forest Animals  / Heather Frankland

It depends on which forest, doesn’t it?
In the Midwest, a squirrel is common;
I used to count them when my dad and I
went on walks or bike rides—
there were gray ones, black ones, red ones,
and in rare cases—
those white ones with the red eyes,
all were common, but those, those—
you felt lucky to see
like watching a falling star
or finding a patch of green clover
on the edge where a field
becomes a woods, a woods
that once was a forest.
It is said that when Indiana
had its big forests, trees with trunks
so big that you could break a saw,
a squirrel could climb up one tree
and you wouldn’t see it step down
until it was in Illinois or Ohio.
Imagine that—those adventurous squirrels,
common, yes, but still adventurous,
just climbing from tree to tree,
avoiding the ground as if the ground
was lava or another threat
more threatening than jumping
from branch to endless branch.

Or it would be the forest in New Mexico,
the huge forest that is allowed to still be
a huge forest—its juniper trees
invading nostrils, causing us all to sneeze.
In a forest this huge, you can see
black bears and cougars and bob cats
and mule deer and snakes and lizards.
You can watch the javalina, seemingly innocent,
just wandering around with their herd,
playing with flowers, shuffling dirt,
hanging out with the family unit,  
and in an instant, they turn wild and scary
like the boars, the ones kings once hunted in Europe.
You don’t want to be near a javalina then;
you would no longer call them ugly-cute.
You can see coyote pups playing in the forest—
just don’t get too close;
everything feels on edge in a forest
like this; it feels wild.
Still, we are saved the constant ticks
that drop from tall trees.
Maybe the animals large enough
to be seen as a threat are really safe,
and those ticks sneak on you,
crawl and bite and take—
maybe they are the dangerous ones?
Even the common squirrels can seem
dangerous if they are hungry enough
to forget their wildness. What is it
to feel wild? If we were to hang out
in forests more often, leaving our smart phones
at home, and be there with all these animals,
would we then become forest animals?
Could we be defined as such? 

On a Headstone / John Hanright

“Good way of putting it” needs to be somewhere in my epitaph.

The last little vanity, in full relief; the dead line each trodden path,

full of mourners heavy with grief; the graves are all totally devoid

of what is most important to life – what distracts the calling void,

what keeps off the chill of strife – that is to say, a name. Whose

last name is this upon the grave? Whose names do all of us lose

each fleeting moment that waves farewell to the terminal letter?

Why do we believe that etching into marble will make us better

able to cope with the prophecy scrawled for all from the beginning?

Oh: An Abecedarian Cento  / Jillian Humphrey

And I understood that if I kept it all up no one would know me,                     Marie Howe
but I knew nothing else —                           Bonnie Thurston
Carried through town the ache of not writing, not calling.                 Christa Wells
Distant traffic muted. Birds silent.                                                       Luci Shaw
Even the rain knows only one shape.                       Maggie Smith
Forgive me,                         Mary Oliver
God overhead, I conjure a stubborn faith in rotting.               Jane Hirshfield
Here, on the trail, the air barely lifts a leaf.                             Luci Shaw
It’s the ancient road the soul knows.                          Joy Harjo
Just so, she keeps the company of everything:                       Leah Naomi Green
kisses a man she does not want to kiss                               Erica Jong
like you would care for a bird or a human heart,         Jennifer Michael Hecht
makeshift shrine. Can you hear me? I want —                     Chelsea Dingman
Nobody knows the next word,                       Leah Naomi Green
only the slow children out on the lawns, marking off paths between fireflies,
making soft little sounds with their mouths, ohs.       Cecelia Woloch
Purple bells of delphinium in a window box — their stained light   Dorianne Laux
quickens inside me,                       Leah Naomi Green
rips open the water bed, eats the incense, and drinks the perfume.             Joanne Kyger
Something looks back from the trees, and knows me for who I am:         Jane Hirshfield
the tiny life of the single pine needle, which nevertheless shines             Mary Oliver
under the broad shadows of the maple trees. Now, everywhere I am talked to by silence.       Louise Glück
Voices float into our bedroom, lunar and fragmented.             Lisel Mueller
We want the spring to come and the winter to pass.                   Marie Howe
Expectant, mouth ready,                       Debra Spencer
you’ve left me with the things you couldn’t take or bear to give away.             Wendy Cope
The leaves have already fallen, and a gray sky lowers the horizon.                     Barbara Crooker

Maranatha XI  / Shane Moran

Alight! You are here.
An auspicious fortune
is attached to words:
the lions, the elephants,
the lamb, the dove,
the cow, and the peacock,
the horse and the good eagle.

Illusion disconnect you
from the touch
of God, you—
higher-self—wanderer,
we have stepped from the walk
of self-destruction to the feet
of Christ or Buddah or Vishnu 
or Lakshmi—Allah—whomever
you are naming to guide you,
and we have heard it—it is You,
but I have been asked to warn,
that it matter not how much Truth,
or how much I share of Truth, 
for no matter how much the 
Lord or the Sun or a lampost 
or the eyes of child shine to illuminate 
the world and all that is you, all that is, 
one cannot know wisdom, nor peace, 
nor love, nor freedom, nor unity, 
nor simplicity—and therefore life—
if a life is not the opening of the heart 
like a morning lotus—
granting a throne to Your Spirit.

Bad Day, Go Bag  / Christina Vagenius

A crisp line of optimistic euphemisms
pulled through an open window —
words shaken from the rain. Salt
in the wound, born off a Brittany coast, 
thigh high lavender waders for when the water 
rises. A pair of sharpened shears caught in a tailspin, 
St. Peter’s bell rung over a rocky shore, a tidepool 
of sunflower sea stars, a bouquet for closed eyes. 
Lost tooth lottery tickets, rusted penny pick-me-ups,
the Blue Jay’s last of the season shed feather. Open 
palm, oak leaf shadows, hollow bone bite marks, 
clean as a whistle. The broken bit of Nag Champa,
a silent retreat. Stopping time. 

Mend / Sonya Wohletz

The years have made a pilgrim of these hands
seeking their repose, their quiet labor.

Open them for me and observe: their foliate
fronds, their tired, patient whirring. Their soft stigma.
The fingernails grown long, an impediment
to mundane reckoning, glinting edges blazed in halogen.

Perhaps they crave a deeper abstraction;
a vocation to mend past wrongs.
Though they already bury
themselves elbow-deep in PVC piping—
pulling out clots of hair and fungus,
scrubbing sherds the length of a bad morning.
Picking away at the dermis of deception. It pools

itself a new skin, and demands more of the same—
a dispensation to rupture futile membranes.

How can I weave these hands when I am left
here holding the cloak of my own battered body—
a wound sculptured of storms?

In my dreams my mother staggers towards
me with her tortoiseshell hands as if she can
receive something solid and bring it back to life.
As if we are not both frozen in the eye
of a dying star as inert gestures—
a letting go that never happens.

These hands are for the memories
of the dead who, in their vulnerability and innocence,
demand so much care.

These hands are for the babies. For their soft, warm
skin, their fever-damp hair, the curve of their backs.
These hands are here to make a world where
they can know safety as a gift of their own hands.

May - Poem 26

Haikus for Best Friend  / M. Anne Avera

Stub tail, marbled coat.
How are you actually real?
Marvelous, your genes.

Snout pokes up, then eyes.
Nothing on countertop safe.
Sharp eyes, small bandit.

My dog's teeth snap shut,
chasing her tale late at night.
One day, she'll catch up.

She takes time to wake,
though I like to sleep in, too.
Snuggle, little beast.

A Rainbow Ahead / Desirae Chacon

beyond all the smoke
beyond all the clouds
there’s a little shine waiting 
beyond the doubt
they call it red
they call it violet
a rainbow is waiting 
beyond all the noise

where it is peaceful 
where it is quiet
where you can hear
the words we speak
& feel each other’s 
heart’s beat 

where you can feel the sunlight
for tomorrow
where all gone
is every pain
every sorrow

and thats the rainbow
waiting up upon the road
a handful of light 
of seven colours
to carry with you 
wherever you roam

A Good Monsoon    / Heather Frankland

We have had the drought so long
all of us turn poetic
at the memory of the monsoon
and the hope that each hint is its return.

Skin dryer, even our scattered thoughts
have no soil to grow
they scrape against our surface,
their roots shallow.

How we look longingly out the windows
smelling the air, measuring moisture.
Oh, to have the rain again, and stay inside
or dance outside or both; we could do both.

We want to watch the birds
call the rain closer,
the branches of our squat tree sway
as if it were a sapling bending with the wind.

Even the black bear
on its way to town
to seek out any water
a small fountain, a leaking hose, a bucket,

that black bear turns,
heads back to the Gila
has no need to grieve the loss of water
has no need to walk uncomfortable roads.

This could be the summer of a good monsoon
of fruitful gardens and few forest fires
when our poetic verses feel fulfilled
our hardened selves become our joyful selves once more. 

Deja Vu / John Hanright

Poems (really any art in the world)
Grow legs and walk into the foggy Past to understand the Present
while gazing into the mirror of the Future


Memories of life –
Slip in and out of consciousness or fly away toward the Past, which is where all
our memories go to retire (and then die)


The flowers in the gardens of our imagination
Bloom in the springtime, get summer heatstroke, and
blow through the autumn air into winter’s tantrums


Lenses – for shortsightedness, of course –
Produce in the retinas reflections of the world of the final
Present’s evening – closing lids fall into the Past’s dreary
night and the Future’s blinding dawn

untitled / Jillian Humphrey

there’s a dog in the house
and a woman who tells the dog no
though he whimpers at the door
runs in circles and destroys the furniture
she won’t let him out

there’s a tornado outside
and she’s keeping him safe
she’s afraid and she’s keeping him
safe until the tornado
gets to the house

ACE OF WANDS  / Shane Moran

Benicio casts a spell on his sister,
and she walks as if her galoshes
were dipped in molasses until his wand 
taps her shoulder and she begins 

counting. He hides behind the green,
humming box, as the sun shines
through the wet trees and passing 
storm clouds and onto his soaked head. 

Malia finds Beni and he is on the run
until she points and shouts, Expeliarmus!—
he drops his wand and begins 
counting. She hides behind a sugarberry 

tree, and Beni takes too long to find her, 
so she comes flying from the woods. He chases
her, casts spells that don’t count since 
his wand is lost in the mud.

When Choosing A Paint Color For Our New Home  / Christina Vagenius

I consider Onyx, Iron Ore, Nightfall. Think about
the day at the museum. Chagall’s stained glass windows.
It was winter. Lion’s breath bare beneath snow. We’d had
a fight, the stinger still staged beneath skin, stirring red
high-rises from the wound. An icicle hung from the bend
of my ear, steps to the final stab. The boys stood against
his colors. In flavors, small, medium, large. And I wondered
if they could hear him. Chagall and his burnished brush
whispering between the black lines, shrugging some falsetto
about cracks and color and the bend of light —and isn't all 
so beautiful
how the dark turns the stone soft, the metal muted
if you turn your head, look over shoulder, hold midnight’s
empty hand. Let the sword fall from its ladder.

Hidden Message / Sonya Wohletz

When I gazed out across the horizon,
there I saw it: the large moon,
unironic with an “M” emblazoned across its face.

I took “M” to stand for “moon”—a most obvious interpretation—
but upon reflection perhaps the message was meant more like:
“M” for “martyr for midnight” or “M” for “mourning,”
or better yet: “M” for “mourning still with good mascara on.”

Everyone here presses me for a password. I can’t
give them what they want, so I deliver the article instead:
an a for an, etc. and am consequently
rebuked by the experts.

I need a break. Day or night.
I need to brush my teeth
and move the fuck out of this place.
No one will miss me.
but I need snow, mountains, some place
to lose myself in mystic wandering. I need
that moonlight to drip down
my forehead like clumps of pink fruit.

Oh, now I see it. Maybe “M” stands for
“Make Me”, or a “W” inverted, as in “Whatever, Mom,”
or better yet—
“Mora, New Mexico” or “Montana.”
Just like the song—

Goin to Montana soon,
Gonna be a dental floss tycoon.

May - Poem 25

Body Horror 5  / M. Anne Avera

My eyes perceive more than their size
can contain. They are remnants of single 
cells, their animal glow in the camera flash.

My mouth is a cave of form. I force
the human syllables out and suck tastes,
textures in. Bestial, my saliva’s drip.

Over Again / Desirae Chacon

Red roses turned black
on the window
became a template for my
life
of the sort
a fresh hopeful perspective of love
twisted by pain & thorns
of loss, torment and apathy
blackened by withering 
days
of falling throughs, if only & almost ifs
whatever
i say know
feeling the deep pain inside
saying this is not you
so i try to keep head 
above
waves of despair & hurt
try to keep my eyes upon beautiful skies
because destiny says that 
someday you’ll be waiting
upon the sands 
standing on the golden shore

I Talk to Jeanine About Indiana   / Heather Frankland

If one poem were to contain Indiana,
it would have to have sweet corn in it,
the corn purchased on the roadside
later boiled and eaten with melted butter and salt
meanwhile a crow, in the background, says
there is more than corn in Indiana.
It would have fireflies
in the evening—sprinkled inside,
the humidity that felt like a wall,
and cicadas singing in the distance.
It would have the bright red cardinal
looking unusually bright on gray mornings
and clover necklaces and trees you planted
when you were young.
It would have the sound of trains
always going elsewhere,
and the breeze through the window,
and the pet cemetery in the backyard.
It’d have the screech owls
by the green clothesline—
and the one milkweed growing
big enough to attract the butterflies,
those beautiful butterflies
who wear their big hearts 
on their colorful wings.

What is “Political Violence”? / John Hanright

CW: references to policing, racism, supremacy, and other types of violence/oppression

Othering results in
Punishment, that originates with
Policing and law enforcement – such as
Racism in rent and
Exclusion (from shared spaces, the workforce, etc.) – which itself comes from
Supremacist thinking, producing the delusional idea that
States have a monopoly on force – historically used against
Indigenous, Black, and non-white people, often manifested through
Ostracism and
Nationalism (specifically the white variety)...


Institutions like bail, for-profit prisons, and the military-industrial complex are examples of
Systemic injustice – and that can often look like…


Payday loan sharks,
Outsourcing jobs to totalitarian or colonized states,
Late fees and credit card fines,
Infractions (ex: speeding tickets, loitering, jaywalking, etc.),
Torture (ex: at the military prison in Guantanamo Bay),
Intelligence agency operations,
Colonial caste systems,
Apartheid laws (ex: in South Africa and Gaza/Occupied Territories),
Legal codification of racism, sexism, ableism, transphobia, etc. – all of which

Validates itself in the media and culture,
Insulates itself from responsibility,
Officializes oppression and gives it faces,
Lends to itself justification in place of justice,
Exculpates persecutors and gangs of all varieties,
Nationalizes enforcement and punishment
Capitalizes on climate destruction, which left unchecked has the power to
End all life on Earth – this is why oppression is political violence.

 I don’t leave what’s left me / Jillian Humphrey

I drag my dead sister to the park
because I want to swing. I hold her
heavy in my lap
and turn my face.
It’s hard to go
down the slide —
first the ladder;
then her body yanking me
toward a long drop
over the metal edge.
And on the merry-go-round
she’s pulled, purple, through the gravel
while I spin and spin,
but she can’t feel anything. I can
and I want to keep moving. If I stop
to snip the bit of skin
that conjoins us and so free
myself, what remains –
not anything
worth saving,
just a bloody mess
for me to clean up alone,
sisterless.

SANTA CLÓ EN PLAYA PEÑA  / Shane Moran

Santa is in sunglasses sitting on a beach chair, drinking
a Long Island Iced Tea made with cherry coke,

out at the very top of high tide with his grandsons. I like 
to imagine these boys love life in San Juan, bringing 

their grandfather gifts they found in the ocean or in the sand. 
A seashell. Seaglass. A lost plastic shovel. He ho-ho’s and smiles

at the sandy one-man’s treasure, asks they clean each object
then return it to him—shiny. They do. Then he instructs 

them to find a better way to present their gifts,
so that he may be surprised. And the boys go out 

and find big leaves and forgotten bikini tops, 
cans and flown-away paper food boats. They place 

their beachcombed bounty at Santa’s feet, and he opens
the gifts—delighted one after another, then the last one—he pops

open a shining tin can to find a singing Coquí. Ho-ho-ho!
Santa tells each of them one at a time, eye-to-eye:  you will

make a good Santa one day for your families—and the boys nod
and run suntired and tan back toward the waves.

Santa lights a cigar, ignoring a Facetime from his Head Elf,
and watches the boys in sepia tint run from a greedy flock of seagulls.

Mouth Wash  / Christina Vagenius

For The Spider In The Bathroom Sink

I’m not scared of you anymore.
And all the eyes that damned you,
a splurge of open tissue on the counter.
Wait, let me walk you back to the tiled floor
days, subterranean cracks breed creature comforts.
The porcelain rope tug of stop. Hold on, I whisper too soft
to be heard, slow drip encouragement. And how the two of us
lived side by side, you in the dark. Me, opening a new page,
checking the weather, dark for days. A web wound around
bristles, mouth washed clean, poured down the throat, never
to be seen — again. Minty fresh. Early morning rising, the rinse
of bleach and black magic from the rag. Were you lonely
when the web didn't reach? It’s raining. I’m sorry
another drain on your eight-limbed path.
Patanjali’s cursed meditation, repose. I’m
sorry. It’s raining. I used to feel shame.
But I washed my hands of it.

Geology Lesson / Sonya Wohletz

Flakes of calcium carbonate shake through the sea like falling snow.
What we call it now is not what we will call it later.
On a further shore, a cephalopod catches the earthquake
in its tender curve and cradles itself back into fissile solidity.
Quartz and calcite fuse grief slowly to the seabed, though they have no
perspective, no hands to mend the wounds. These sediments cupboard
strange bloods. New volcanoes crackle in their mothers’ arms—dreams
of ice swarming at the intersection of unspeakable aeons,
the lower spectrum of indigo, flushing out the strata,
slipping its spine into the clay of a dead man’s heart.

May - Poem 24

Rain of your window / Desirae Chacon

Pain is like rain
on the glass of your window
it obstructs the view
maybe clouding
feelings more pleasant

sometime we want to hurry
out of these moments
away from what hurts
its frustrating trying to see
out of something that was made
for looking out

but lets wait
be still in this moment
rather than gravitating away 
lets start finding solace
in the middle of the disarray
lets start finding peace
in the perplexity
tranquility in the treacherous
turmoil of time’s terra 

see how you could be at peace
see how you could be at ease
in the middle of the sunsets
in the middle of the sea

Kat Asks Me to Write About Curiosity, a Hidden Agenda?   / Heather Frankland

Through the car window--highways and tall grasses
and mountains I am not used to;
every tree deserves a photo memory
every patch of green with wildflowers--a mystical poem
or an aspiration: You survived, delicate
flowers; you survived the hungry deer,
the careless tires, the hot asphalt. 


I want to absorb everything, learn
everything, research everything. 
At the small town where Kat and I
stop for shops and cold beers 
where buildings are painted postcard-bright, 
I ask to go to the museum; she waits outside. 
I see old glass, tales of railroads, rooms to peer into,
and the museum worker tells Kat,
Your friend is curious. 
Later, we laugh about it, 
but his words hold a ring of truth. 


At my best, I am curious
about the world, people, a good story. 
I will sit calmly on a wooden stair
with splinters for a good story
or listen in a long line 
at a convenience store. 
This is the best of me--
travelling me. 


When I forget that side,
I have friends that remind me;
when my stomach sours with fermented
fear and resentment and insecurity, they remind me--
the stories of past adventures
and curiosity--you once had that, you still have that
you will always have that, don't worry, 
follow that curiosity; it may not be a clear path, 
but it is a path that is clearly yours. 

Waiting for a Train / John Hanright

III.

Sweat collects
Around the handle of my suitcase
I swallow – sandpaper tongue


Glancing at my watch –
Stainless steel, my name
Engraved on the reverse, a message
“A timely recognition of your committed service and implacable loyalty” –

8:10

Each perpetual tick
A moment closer to an internal revolution


Eyes beside me
At the terminus, expectant looks


Gazes steely and distant
Like the soon arriving train
Music of life plays in their ears

Waiting

Waiting

Waiting

For a train

The Song / Jillian Humphrey

I learned the song when I was little,
but it doesn’t go this way.
My hands are stiff.
The keys are sticking.
Let’s go back to the top
of the city where the wind
is sailing and you can sing to me
like a siren. Offer me
my life again.

Tempt me.
Tell me you’ll let me stand outside
the door of the nursery
and when the baby cries
I’ll go in. I’ll say yes
to the kind of proposal
I dreamt up when I was 14
— the one with roller coasters and dolphins
and donuts. I’ll accept pleasure.
I’ll turn away anyone
who pitches me world saving
or love I shouldn’t have or
shiny religion. I’ll be happy
while I’m still young.

Tell me someone will touch my body
only when I want it. Tell me I’ll know how to want
something besides permission.
Tell me I’ll have permission and a house with a porch,
some place to lie down,
and a Polaroid of me baking a cake
with my small children in our kitchen.
Ask if I want to trade my desperation
for power and I’ll say, Yes,
what will it cost?
Do I have enough, and if not
where can I get it?

Open your coat
and show me your wares.
Will I get to be honest?
Will I get to be brave?
Will I get to know who to like and trust
and will it get to be me?
I want to do this all again.
Nothing has moved on or been outgrown.
The baby clothes come flying out of their bins and gravity is sucked back out of the ozone. Even the light goes back.

Back to where?
Maybe further.
I am six, holding a kitten,
memorizing the song.
I play it over and over
in my summer yard.

This is every bead on my rosary:
a different past 
inside this past
and myself.

Meanwhile, in another city,
Jesus is listening to the radio.
He’s in the garden
watering the same roses
he’s been watering
for a trillion years.

Winsome  / Christina Vagenius

The tree had a name for my sorrow.
She called it winsome when the house
shuttered, when the swing set tipped over

the bright burial of worms, holes
dug from the tip of the toe
she had eyes, little knots without knowing

I called her Claire for the girl at camp
who held my hand when the skin
broke its silence, and the bird

below the window I buried at her hollow
roots wrapped around the meaty path of my palm
when I told her I’d see her again,      tomorrow. 

For My Friend on His Birthday / Sonya Wohletz

Tacoma, WA 5.23.2026

The horizon fills itself with plenty of things to name
but provides few clues. Railroads are designed of a higher faith.

Is there a word for the soft mystery aching at the center of friendship?
Don’t tell me about souls—it’s not Pentecost Sunday yet.

You gesture toward the way the currents sway their limbs
through the inland sea; how serene they appear at this hour.

Something must hold the far edge of balance. The resident orcas,
kicking up during a kill—mists backlit like lace on raw linen.

We press the falling light to our tongues. We ask for desserts
because it is in our nature to devour our most cherished symbols.

Whereas the islands beyond open like a gate—
darkness rushes in from behind, waving its tired arms again.

The drive home: your good hat forgotten in the back seat.
The old mill hoofing through what’s left of this evening on earth.

It borrows a rib from your father’s memory and sprouts
parables that will swell and sweeten in young grasses.

May - Poem 23

lovesong  / M. Anne Avera

so it was raining all over like actual armageddon
like the biblical flood come down from god
to alabama in the winter.

it was the kind of weather we got
when two fronts rubbed their bodies against each other
fat raindrops blotted out the sky and
the water was about knee-deep most places
crushing campus up
smelling all sulfur wet damp.

but
you can’t have your coffee
without cream.

the carton in the dorm fridge was spoiled up
real old and clotted to a cottony slop.
and your eyes were all lamb-bright
next to the thunderheads we could see
through the window.

so how could i not
wade my way out down the road
wearing a raincoat older than me sloshing
all the way to the shop n’ save?
(the coat did nothing ‘cause i was still
soaked when i got back
my breath hot and face glowing
in the lamp light.)

how could i not?
you and i both knew 
how i felt about you.

Dead Flowers / Desirae Chacon

Gold in youth
was love’s coloring
hopeful adolescent 
hopelessly a lover

Red was love 
as an adult

time trashed
flowers in the basket of rubbish
thrown into an abyss

Flowers Grey
is the color of late
bloomed just to fade
grew to dissipate
love turned to hate
and just like that
it was the end of a morning
the end of a song
all along it was approaching
a life cut way to short 
of where it belonged
burning tears
streaming 
falling 
without catching
falling in love
for it to be pulled out from under
a longing turned into spitefulness
a love diluted with pain’s searing touch

Dreaded Dreams  / Heather Frankland

Dad always says
when in doubt, take a nap,
thinking that a little sleep
would be all you need
for clarity—
maybe your brain-drain
just needed a charge,
but it doesn’t seem to be working.

Instead, my dreams follow
me into the day,
half-shadowed, half-lit—
they have wide grins
and crooked teeth—
their eyes follow me
tell me to sleep—
let them live more than half-lives.

In the corners, I see them—
in the smears of sunlight,
these dreams—mute—
stare at me. Dare me to remember.
Their words bubble in their mouths.
They mumble; they gurgle—
they whisper-shout.

Weren’t they the ones with the wisdom?
Weren’t they the break I needed?
Instead, I’m trying to pretend
they aren’t here, that I can’t distinguish
their words and pauses,
but I’m so tired;
my heavy eyelids become heavier.
The curtain drawn—
the dreams come out to play
they laugh loudly,
their mouths too wide 
for their faces--they try to tell 
me something again. 
Sell me on some hidden truth, 
something that I will
forget to remember.  

You Wouldn’t Believe What Some of These Men Will Put in Their Grindr Profiles / John Hanright

1.

There’s this guy – let’s call him Ray –
Who deletes and reinstalls Grindr each day
Because he doesn’t want to tell
His girlfriend that he’s, well…

2.

Dominic – Dom, to be brief –
Is so perplexed without relief
He can’t decide whether the weather
Is too hot for him to wear leather

3.

Christian goes by “TSWanted” –
His blank profile is haunted
By the echoes coming from his chat
Did I mention he looks like a rat?

4.

I’m sorry, Brandon, your profile is a little unclear –
See, let’s start with your name here
“Looking hung” – is this a question or a compliment?
It all depends on your intent

5.

Dear “NewVirgin!!” –
As I break into a new bottle of gin
I don’t mean to sound like a dick
But it’s just that, Sammy, this is New Brunswick

6.

“Total Top” Luca has big dreams –
To dominate a twink, he’s bursting at the seams
Except there is just one small hitch
Everyone near him is a switch

The Eye / Jillian Humphrey

The eye that sees you is you.
It becomes you, anyhow. Over and over
it looks, and you see its seeing.
And what it sees, you know you are.
What you know you are, you do.
The eye decides and you say yes.
You can’t say no
until you get in someone else’s gaze.

If there is an eye that never notices
the moon, run and hide.
And if an eye is a net or a hook, run and hide.
If an eye sees you as a child, you can stay
if you’d like. But if there is an eye
that makes things small, run.

When you are ten,
an Indian boy will stare at you
across the lunch table in the school cafeteria.
Take the apple he gives you.
With his fork he’s pierced
the freckled red skin:
I heart U
At recess the other boys will pin you to the ground
so he can kiss you.
He won’t do it.
He’ll step back.
The blue sky will open to you.
Stay in that gaze.

SHOULDER  / Shane Moran

Surly happy orphans understand, love (doubt) eventually reorganizes
How we see ourselves. It surely did me, after she cheated at the beach.
Oceans have a way of reminding women how much they undergo.
Unusual, how crashing made my girl think of her moist gâteau,
Lying on a cake pan, waiting to be eaten as I shook my left sandal.
Don’t think that I no longer believe in love—I’m mainly jaded.
Empathize with me, ladies, perhaps take me home, feel bad for me.
Really, I’m a good nightcap, and I’m even better the morning after.

Afterbirth  / Christina Vagenius

A mother carries pieces of her children
inside her cells, they say. Like lost grocery
carts, bent wheels wobbling beside the
curb. No name boxes, labeled grief taste
like fork tongued fury release. A fire
between thighs, hatched inside a swell
of water breaking the eyes. I can’t find
the right turn of the tap to turn it off. Skin
stretched leftovers I’d give anything to eat
again. I’ll breathe for you. Even when I know
better. The rummage sale tagged yours, what’s
mine takes time to know. Take my ears, for now.
I can hear the hurt in you. The reverb under
ribs, shakes the heart. It’s true. Did you know
how much a cart could hold? Rolling sideways,
I see you smiling. Something growing, beneath
what has expired. Didn't you say you could make
it yourself? Two parts ear lobe, one part thumb.
The smell of neck and toes and the wheel has lost
its tiny screw. The curb, a canyon we’ll descend
together. An echo calling back to one another,
as the healing stews. I’m getting better. Getting better. Getting better.

Quetiapine 2 / Sonya Wohletz

By nightfall she is lacing
her hair into the skirt of the moon.
With her eyelashes she paints
the manuscript of her life across its private skin.

But without violence the moon
insists on feeling nothing. The moon
involutes behind the other cousins of oxygen
that are marked holy by machines.

She, who by day, flooded
the ocean with cupfulls of milk,
caught belief in her throat like a cherry pit—thin faith
juicing down her chin, her bodice. Her bare feet
falling to the ground like rose petals at the cemetery.
Inconspicuous in a car that no one recognizes as hers.
Flinging the crumbs of her life out the window.

And the fat crow would have watched. The whole
galaxy would have crushed
under the thin blade of his glance.

She still thinks she is waiting for him;
she still thinks the moon wants her testimony.
If not the moon, then surely the flies.

Yet for now, the house fills with sleep, its musk
of accidents. Ants die in the words
she stamps to the ceiling with her acid tongue.
She turns the night like a pebble in her palms—
waxes another crater in a four-cornered fable

with exhausted grace.

She could decide, for instance, that desire was never lacking.
She could osmose through the palest wall.

Afterwards,
the neighbors could lay purchase to her dreams
and argue against the angle and direction of the talus.
She could pink beneath the dry
starlight of autumn and fruit monsters that even
the faintest fathers would have recognized.

May - Poem 22

Instructions for Breakup  / M. Anne Avera

Letters come in every day from you or from
your family and I can’t
bring myself to read them.
I hate you now
or maybe I just hate
the thought that I’m a sucker.

Like on my smartphone.
I fall for every ad I see and
breathe each one in and
let them change my thoughts.
and now I can say to you:
That is an advertisement.
You are advertising to me.
You are showing me something different
that I am supposed to want.

I almost expect to see you
at my house, in my shower,
underneath my bed covers,
but all that is left of you
is a sales flier and
a half-bottle of Jameson.

The Organ Mountains  / Heather Frankland

Look at how The Organ Mountains
capture the colors of the sunset
from one peak to the next
purple, pink, faint red—
a firework display
makes me believe in abundance
even in this desert climate
where my eyes long for green. 

Pax Romana / John Hanright

After “The Pines of Rome” by Ottorino Respighi

pax semel, pax aeterna

Vainglorious peace
Built on conquest and slavery
You cannot escape Time’s lease
Time is a force you cannot pacify

pax nuntiata, pax floret

Propaganda – in currency, custom, and code –
Become hegemonic power
Peace by force – whatever the mode –
Is no peace but terror

pax dubia, pax provocata

Is the Emperor clothed?
Are these chains on our legs and wrists?
Are the Gates of Janes open or closed?
Can our freedom be risked?

pax corrupta, pax finita

Victory – not in legions and fleets
But dressed in plainclothes – sees
Fields of roses flung at their feet
On the march toward liberty

Chekhov / Jillian Humphrey

God is the deer,
not the gun.
Sometimes during a bad sermon
you’ll start to believe
otherwise.
You’ll start to believe
God is taking aim,
but God sees with doe eyes.
God is soft and wild,
quiet, panting,
stepping through the forest
in the cool of the day,
listening for you,
chewing leaves.

SHOULDER (3)  / Shane Moran

Somehow I don't see or
Hate you even if we’re in the same
Old War that I lied you into
Unusual, we cross  -   faced dolls in our own
Loud capturing of each other’s LONELY soul.
Don’t tell me you miss
Eating the worms out the red
Rock mud.    Read my lips and don’t understand.

Atlas  / Christina Vagenius

There’s an atlas of memories —
signed away days, dog-eared promises
to return, the white lie waves.
Islands off the coast of neglect
beaches sunk in sentimentality
stir hope inside motes –
dangle the last knot. A handcuffed
heart builds castles for currency, drowned 
by 
an inch
of approval.

There’s an atlas somewhere —
the key inviting courage, each
dotted line creek to descend.
A train’s wheel rescues the maiden
on the tracks, screams for her escape
from a rope already     u          n          t           i           e          d.

And a lake at the edge of the page
where the road turns to path —
Where footprints from our past
lay the map at your feet, quietly invite
the sun to your cheeks

I’ll take you there.

Diaper Bag / Sonya Wohletz

After Maura Dooley

Come rummage with me                               through my bag of tricks!                             
                                                                                Start with the obvious:
Diapers (of course)                                          not enough wet wipes                    a few band-aids
My wallet                            (thank god)                         wait….
My wallet is here, right?                                (sigh of relief)
                No more than $1                              OK maybe            also 7 cents                         & 5 TK lira
Charge chord                     lip gloss (watermelon)                   several pens with the lids missing
                                A post card I’ve been meaning to send to Jessie                  
                                Questionable pieces of chocolate                              rainbow stickers
A few loose Legos                                             marbles                rubber bands                     sunscreen
                Matchbox cars                                                   clean underwear (for me, in case you are curious)
B             r              o             k              e              n             c              r              a              y              o             n             s
                                                                Holograph image of Our Lady Sasquatch
<She hides behind the playground equipment                     stalks around the grocery aisles with me                
collecting receipts and                   crumpling
Them into my bag                            when I                  am not                  looking
                We both need deodorant
                And hand sanitizer                           that, too, has leaked out all over>
                Here it is:                                             the needed water bottle
…also with the lid missing
                Rosewater in a spray bottle (fancy!)                                          tampons              hair ties
                                                Folded pamphlet to help prepare for confession
10 commandments                                                                                                                         to match 10 beatitudes
                                                                To match 10 years of silence
                Contrition aspirations                                     novena to la virgen                                          Ayat al-Kursi
Prayer for the girl                              who made this                   Amin                                     and                        Amen
Nazar                                                                    nazar                                                                                                     nazar    
                                School photos                                   a drawing            of a maze or a cat
Two notebooks                 one, which I keep promising to use for budgeting               (and keep failing)
                                The other to write down phrases before I forget them
                                Miss Cleo Tarot Deck                                       Q-tips                    protein bar
                                                                Children’s Museum flyers              cat mask (?)
Loose gum                                                          trampoline socks!                             Squishy slimy thing not gonna think about
Breast pads                                         to sop the milk                  lanolin to smooth                             my folding          
body
Folding into the                                                 soft floral pattern of the bag                        this bag
That gets more                                                  oohs and ahhs                   than any accessory I’ve ever owned        
                Oh, I collect                       the compliments                              too         they swim                           in
The shallows                                      before the bag fractals                                   into a fumarole
                At the bottom of a protean sea                   where I am needing for
                                                One last thing:
A lighter
No cigarettes 
But I’m still rummaging

May - Poem 21

Body Horror: 4 and 5  / M. Anne Avera

4.

Can you hold yourself in
loving embrace?

Can you reach beyond words
to find what is true?

Can description ever match
the meaning?

5.

The animal in my body seeks out a home.
I do not like these limiting factors:
my need for category, for boxes,
for black and white thinking. Clinical,
this descriptor. Part of a problem and half
a solution.

All the Things We Hold in Our Hands / Desirae Chacon

Of all the things we hold in our hands
what draws you the most

out of all the facets
of this old world
which one do you deem most important

Of all the things you hold in your hands
which is valued at the highest price
& this is not a mere monetary weighing
this is something of a much higher appraisal
something that can never be compared
sold
bought
lost 
or stolen

out of every single precious stone
in this 
dynamic life
of all gold, treasures & esteemed paper
what is all this without
a warm smile
the bright company of another
a hand that gives back
what was generously given
arms that embrace
eyes that light up
because of enlightenment 
upon greetings
a heart that holds you
& a love to color every moment of life

A Key Change  / Heather Frankland

I love the in-betweens—
when day becomes night
when night becomes day
the cicada shells marking change
the dandelion seeds
before they blow away,
the heavy clouds
before a thunderstorm
the cold crackling air
before the snow sets in
the moment when—
life feels a transition
an epiphany of old-you
to new-you—but
old-you had the words
and new-you is just
learning to talk,
so, it’s silence—
the pause before the music
that breath before the singer starts,
that gathering, gathering
before the muscles
remember their agency,
then you start to lean
into a new note
a key change—
it sounds so good, that shift,
even your bones are vibrating
even your mind can sense it—
something is changing;
something is different. 

Waiting for a Train / John Hanright

II.

In the mirror
Specter of responsibility
Points to me
Encumbered will
Creative impulse, stifled
Sterilized society –
Amalgamations of antecedents:
Families, indoctrination, professions and occupations, money, thrift, poverty –
Repressed being
Destroys rather than builds
Complies instead of defying
Drive of the will
Battered and bruised by conditions
Beyond repair or reproof
Drive to create
Inverted and corrupted
Drive to cease
To be…
Continued

Firstborn Jesus / Jillian Humphrey

One time your dad said he was happy with you and you lived off that approval for forty days. Another time he said he was pleased, your face turned into the sun. You know what it’s like, don’t you? The easy grace that alights the shoulders of your younger brothers will never fall upon you.

To You, from Your Secret Admirer  / Shane Moran

I love the conversations we have, before making love—
of course that is just me, making up love to my father 
on the phone, revealing what it is to talk to you, 
to love you—though I don’t really know 
you and must correct myself each time 
I say I do. It is my way of telling 
him—I crave the dream 
of knowing you, M. At home, 
I pull on my banker’s lamp and write, calling you 
an angel in green light. You carry peace 
on you—like a brilliant studded dome ring.
An heirloom. When will you inherit me? I ask 
the page, writing each word like I were signing 
a contract. In bed, I wish 
you goodnight, blowing out 
St. Michael’s dancing flame 
on the nightstand. I smell your perfume,
sense your wild curls itching my back.
I’m so tired of waking up alone,
I want to cup your breast, pull you close,
kiss your cheek in the morning—
I want to feel what he must feel,
grasping peace still asleep, exactly 
where he left you. I want to go 
back to Paris, since you have not
gone—and I want to, together,
do all the sightseeing I’ve saved 
for you, the five times I’ve gone, 
I want to wear barely any clothes
and first kiss you dans le Champ de Mars—
no broken commandments—no war! 
Open borders! Liberté! After crossing 
an ocean and crossing our hearts—I will want 
only you in the City of Light, I will want 
to watch only you as you admire iron and gold—
I will want to dance with you—drunk on you 
and cheap wine. I will want to stay 
out until the metro reopens. I want 
your tired face wobbling on my shoulder.

Confession  / Christina Vagenius

The Nova sat silent. Mom’s Doral, a rattle
in the cage, white dwarf warning be back in ten.

But I already know how much time it takes to walk
the rows — sit unshifted by God’s will. The wrecked

palm rising to the wound. I wanted. I wreaked
of willingness. The scent of holiness. Stitched banner

bravado. My broken needles, let me please her.
A two fisted sponge for my dirty tongue. Take me

too, for I have sinned. A miracle laced between
the nuclear — steel holes, skin swelled perpendicular.

How long have you been here? Counting lies, stories
wired together. Look a little longer, stand taller when

I ask her to kiss the bruised moon. Assign starlit slips,
permission to gaze. Your fingers, the whistle through my hair,

again. My arms, a pledge of pressed petals — Mary’s womb
a room. Rosary crowned confidence, penance paid for slow hands,

words pressed too hard on the table. When you want the warmth
of a mother, you’ll settle for stone. Sit silent beside the son of God.

Call her home.

Late Spring in Olympia / Sonya Wohletz

This is the analgesic angle of the earth—
for a moment, there appears to be no struggle.

For now, the Ginko lays claim to the balance, opening
its vulgar fan in our faces. Doping the air with feral odor.

Every season has need of its own medicine.

Perverse geometry arrives to stun the senses.

Dogwoods stack their flowers. Their cream petals
slide towards streams. Fish stencil
the surface of the stormwater pond.
A jewel moon opens,
if just slightly.

The evenings sway together like paper
lanterns in procession, and red cedar call out to each other
in a language legible to the insects.

They grow legs from our scars.

To the warm earth,
sky flattens her palm like a mother calming
the fevered infant. But there is no fever.

There is nothing left to break. 

May - Poem 20

Garden  / M. Anne Avera

I caught you peering through the overgrown backyard,
where you remember people living once, though

it’s been a long time. Glass shards in the wet grass
throw up strands of light like Jesus’ own hair.

It’s funny how places like this turn out when
there is no one who’ll bother to see to them.

We got lost in the black weedy brush by the fence,
one day. You wouldn’t stop crying, all turned around

in the shadow. I pretended the squirrels could tell us
which way was out, so you followed me following them

back to the sunshine. I could imagine you losing
your way again, now that it’s gone wild back here.

Freedom / Desirae Chacon

you give me these ropes in my hands
entrusting me to harness
the untamed
the wild horses
the uncoralled spirits
of the souls of our fathers
yesteryears

Their fortnights
the work of their hands
sweat of their brow
strength of their backs

you gift me this
this saddle 
to lead the wild
to lead those free roaming kings
queens of the meadow
heirs of the land

Transition  / Heather Frankland

Before you understand the joy of the monsoon,
you must experience seasons of drought—
a swarm of grasshoppers covering buildings
a tomato plant bowing out after producing one tomato
your garden—multiple deaths, multiple years,
and the fear that this will be your forever.

Before you understand joy,
you must experience the pain
that seems abstract—like you have
no reason to have it—the shame
that you can’t shake it,
and the fear that this will be your forever.

Before you understand yourself,
you must experience confusion,
being lost in another’s shoes,
not seeing your reflection for days
hearing your voice like it’s far away,
and the fear that this will be your forever.

Before you understand. . .
you must experience the fear
that this will be your forever
whispered in your ear, seeping into your dreams
making the future seem present-tense,
worst-case always.

Only then do you realize that this guest
will eventually leave,
this shade of forever
will fade away.
It was always fake—that forever
even when it seemed a giant—
it was a pin the seamstress
left in your clothes—and that pin
has no use anymore.
Take it out. Let it go.

Dream-Visitor / John Hanright

Dream-visitor
you gave me
a book
full of birds, who flew
out of the pages –
I couldn’t help but laugh
until I cried a little
in my sleep

If
the dead are alive in your dreams
Death’s icy breath is in your nostrils –
or so they say

A blizzard birthday –
no siblings to snuff out
your candles – prematurely

Dwight Eisenhower is the president
from a hospital bed –
memory is cruel and funny

Charon, did you already –
his spirit is gone to Styx?
apparated into the aether?
to visit only my dreams?

Send me word
over the dark chasm –
sneak past
Atropos’s scissors –
and give me
another book

To Give This Meaning / Jillian Humphrey

I pretend you’re orphans.
Your mother died
so I have come
to comb your hair.
I brush your teeth.
I tie your shoes.
I hold your hands.

‘What did you do today?’
my neighbors ask.
‘I took three orphans
to the park,’
I tell them.
‘I fed them dinner
and cake.
I read them books.
I gave them baths
and three soft beds
and a mother.’

‘Wow,’ they say.
‘Aren’t you a saint.’

I See a Pregnant Woman in the Aisle  / Shane Moran

Doing Yoga, she leans over 
the middle row to explain to her little

one…oh no, two…oh dear lord, three, 
how to use the reading lights 

because nothing can be as simple 
as a dial or a button anymore.

They insist they’ll really read something, 
and we all have to hear this and pretend 

they won’t spend the flight watching
a movie  from the exhaustive catalog 

that they read out loud
in a sorta competition:

“They have Lego Batman! They have Barbie! 
Oh! They have The Never Ending Story.” Hm. 
I’ll give them that one.

I don’t mean to sound like an old man,
but I can’t help but wonder where her partner is…

and I do this for both patriarchal and feminist reasons:
I know I would never travel alone with 3 fucking kids.

A Drowning  / Christina Vagenius

I can still taste the Kool-Aid kiss.
The damp, hugged wall of the art room.
Concrete seamed, flannel snagged
when his tongue slipped the pressed crack
orbit of my lips. Flailing onion and Dorito
chip, eyes brimming with the last rise of
creek water and late night porch swings —
a hand on my breast, here we go pushed back
too fast. 
And the sky of red eyelids, pinched quiet.
When a hand becomes a hook, the soft riot
of where and when and how the breath
can become the last waved goodbye beyond
the buoy. A horizon of tangled reeds and lost
sandals. The last strung bobber, waiting
on the deceived pull of hunger.
It was nice while it lasted.

Acanthus / Sonya Wohletz

Acanthus leaves—unfurl again over my arms, my legs.
I miss you. I don’t know you.

I am startled by this sudden insight—
how the LED lamp on my desk longs
to become an image of the sun.

Lately, it strikes me how cramped
we’ve let our lives become. It’s all the bureaucrats’
fault—their mad faith placed on progress. But
progress is like the body—it is easily made prey to infection.

Still: god turns a stone in one corner, tells no one.

In another corner: creatures take up shelter, tell each other.

Furthermore—about corners:
am reminded how neatly my own words fold
inward upon themselves.
But that is not really a characteristic of corners per se—
that, one might call—collapse or self-sabotage.

This is why I’m laying it all out now. Smearing
the lip gloss across the page. Leaving the spine splayed wrong.
Letting the squirrels live in my walls, feeding them peanuts.
Miming the stains of everything I’m told to make disappear.

This is why the word acanthus has rooted itself into these words,
has laid claim to the column of my human imagination.
It is the brain of her form, it’s her wild hair.

It is a sign or a warning to all who cross the threshold—
not to be held captive by an architecture meant for worship, not shelter.

May - Poem 19

Vague  / M. Anne Avera

When you come, I stare at you as if I could see through
an exit wound, a black hole with flesh bound
by bandage. Cold outside, like the night I showed
you how my body spoke, like the glass bowl
we smoked pot out of that time you saw my blood
drip against the inlet wall. Still, again, how I’d fall
if you crossed the space, half-drunk and afraid,
and I’d be back to where I started. Do you care

that I will always be your dog? We could unlock
and relive that moment when I first told you no.
I know you still think of it. Now, your eyes sting
just like they did back then, just like the the end
when we had nothing to hold. I’m a deer on the road
and here come the headlights.

The Skies that Move over us / Desirae Chacon

Shifting Skies 
Unfurl above

why do we dream
maybe for some reflection
of perception of the fabrics of life itself

why do we breathe
maybe for present feeling
of being alive

why do we see
maybe to be receptive
the beauty that was gifted 
around us

why do we feel
to feel more alive 
than stagnation
of momentum

why do we believe 
maybe for some hope
of our presence
currently here

on this Earth 
as we walk
treading along the hyper-vigilant pathways
of this extraordinary life

Driving at Night  / Heather Frankland

Traveling at night
how my aging eyes struggle
clinging to headlights

Our House is not Food / John Hanright

exquisite hexagonal architecture

food for Lloyd Wright Man mimics Nature

our house is not meant to be crushed between incisors

our house is a city unto itself hive mind?

no: a finely-tuned instrument humming, reverberating with

musicality symmetry reactivity

oozing saccharine fractals, each space is its own fiefdom

our house is not food, another natural marvel to privatize

our house is an ancient colossus far outdating the Great Pyramids

by millions of years and yet you use it as an ingredient

in ASMR videos

My Turn / Jillian Humphrey

At forty I become
a whirling dervish
though I still believe
       in a great cloud
I want to be alone
       in the wild
eating honey and focused
I want beatific vision
I want silence
amma, a desert mother
preparing all
            the treasures of solitude
       including enjoying oneself
       including including oneself
never explaining
the way the river
never explains — it rivers
down both arms
       in dancing
a dizziness and then
        an unbearable
premeditated kindness
so absolute as to wash away
          the choir
          and whatever mean little deity
          might shout over
this music

VICTOR  / Shane Moran

Friday morning, while we ate 
cereal, and I rolled my eyes 

at Stephen A, my niece asked me 
how much taller Wemby is than me. 

She asked me whether what’s 
on her tablet is AI or a real 

child, dusty—speaking Arabic, 
saying he can’t find his mother.

Last night, we stayed up
late to watch the Spurs.

We have found another young 
giant to inspire our children.

We watched him chase out a 
storm in the eye of it, then she hit 

my arm for my attention, asking
if maybe Wemby could save 

the boy from TikTok, 
from the other day. 

Like a superhero, bring him
to Texas until his mom got back.

The Cousins  / Christina Vagenius

Sometimes I’d watch them. The cousins
on carousels, spinning. Their bodies,
a rubber band pull away from the man
pressing numbers, heaving the rise and fall.
The stallion’s escape. Feet locked in stirrups.
Their legs, a cheap thrill. Hey, Little Mama.
Hey Mama, nothing. The line outside
the drive-thru, some sunken head stray
begging for the last of her fries. The hole
she dug to hide — when the man
with the Riesling smile found his tongue,
made it wide, between two fingers. Her fever,
swallowed. Where the fang found her, the farm
framed by what no one allowed her. To be
best at digging, her porcelain fingers cracked.
And the glazed memory, a shadow-lined
cape couldn't save, her shoulders pulled back,
maneuvering the wants of what men? Heels
waiting on the pull of anger to plow the path
beneath her. The odious turn of heads, to seize her.
Hair braiding the web of a spider’s slow climb.
Bruised bracelet faded. I —
I didn't know. What was happening
beneath the door’s glow. In her room.
The walls, birthing thunder. Fields, bright
turning soil white, as remember. Pinched eyes.
Hours falling from the wall. A cigarette tip,\
halo spinning, pulled the bridle back. A growl
pushed inside a pocket. Until, the door
opened again. Hey, little mama.

Symposium with Flies / Sonya Wohletz

*

My coworker is talking me in circles again, hell-bent on destruction.
A pause here, a re-direct. Very difficult. Isn’t this why
Socrates only asked questions?

*

The phone battery died. No, I didn’t finish my workout.

*

I am most saddened of all to report:
The squirrel family has lost one of the babies. I had to extract her
from the wall with rusty pliers.

*

I left an offering of condolence fruits for the bereaved.

*

Later, my son asks me to teach him about these four categories:
“civilization” “city-state” “monarchy” “nation”—
I will have to come up with the study guide separately.

*

At least I now know that olives should be served at symposia.

*

As another aside—the poet alone is qualified to show that unicorns deserve their beastly dignity.

*

The quince tree has lost its last flowers. I have ideas, but no words.

*

Or is it the other way around?

*

I digress. I want to finish the story about my coworker but am afraid of the outcome.

*

You know the dialectic is good if it is a) unstable and b) drives to absolutes.

*

With clarity the flies abound; they instruct on mourning.

*

Why don’t I write more about flowers?
But I know nothing of flowers; they have done enough already.

*

When I write, I want to know what the beast makes of its own sounds.
I want to feel the splitting of the ovum—the nectar
raptured from my naked membranes.
Oil leaking from the pressing stones. No petals to shade.

*

I guess

*

I want flies?

May - Poem 18

Waiting / Desirae Chacon

waiting to wake up
waiting to sleep

waiting to live
waiting for eternity

waiting to walk
waiting to run

waiting for solitude
waiting to be in love

waiting for money
waiting to spend

waiting for arrivals
waiting for departures

what do we do when we wait?
what do we do in the in between?
what do we do in the pauses of life?
though may not seem like productivity 
is at stir
yet these moments are never wasteful
rest waits to arrive
joy walks to run
solitude awakes to great company
Life waits to live
And Love finds a way. 

The Unicorn Longs   / Heather Frankland

The unicorn longs
for its brutal origins
no maiden lap for it
no Rainbow Bright
no cotton candy horn
no Lisa Frank image
no glitter
no protecting the forest
no cleaning pools of water
no giving eternal life.
It wants rage.
It wants a horn
that punctures like
the tip of the sharpest knife.
It wants the mud.
It wants the cave.
It wants to kill
any idea that
it is this lazy unicorn
daydreaming on maidens’ laps
letting its mane
be braided with garlands
of bright flowers.
It wants to escape
to join the shadows
to control them,
bend them to its will—
erase its beautiful features
become the vicious creature.
What pleasure to be free
to become the monster
to embrace the beast
to strike fear, not sweet relief. 

Waiting for a Train (Part 1) / John Hanright

I.

Here I stand waiting
My suitcase in one hand
In the other my pride –
It is just as well


Beside me on the platform
People also stand waiting
For a train…


Some of them will go
For the 8:30 into the city
Others will wait
For the 9:30 – impatiently
Tapping their feet
Yet riveted to the spot


Only the spiritually destitute
Regard as necessary
Such an (in)human invention
“The Schedule”

Yet here we stand waiting
For a train…


I loved
My job
The sum of over thirty years now
Years folded over years
Like the stiff shirts in my suitcase
Clutched in a fist
My pride dangles limply


Hopeless to try a new game
Now, routine is better than uncertainty

Casual / Jillian Humphrey

I began in earnest
and I continued
into vigilance
and all self-
consciousness. As the times required
I learned to be self-aware
which was terminal
if necessary for understanding
that no one wanted
such an eagerness
nor sincerity nor trying.
I was trying
but needed to demonstrate
that I wasn’t even
thinking too much.
Nothing was hard,
and everything a big laugh
after all. I didn’t want anything
from you nor did I have need
of anything. I didn’t take anything
too seriously because I was
not supposed to, and I was
not obedient, only naturally
likeable. Could anyone believe
this? Me —
only a little wafer,
thin and pale and flavorless,
meant to dissolve on your tongue.

KOOS  / Shane Moran

for Lee

Shaded
fernery
chest

fever     hunts for the flowerless
I tell her      she has not grown old
and the sun’s still friendly

Another mourning body fleshed still      boned
Adoring deadselves? Good for nobody       Remember       skin
like ferns      still in their garden       (grown)       need sunlight

Come      wear your floppy 
hat      I’ll bring cherry sherbert
      tell me which bird sings

B. Jay
P. Finch

Crow.

To The Sun And All Her Friends  / Christina Vagenius

It’s ok if you don't want to stay a little longer.
I understand your conundrum; the praise

of Easter morning. The blanket white toast
of the cathedral wall. The lopsided shadow

edging you out. Isn't it funny how we thought
we could go for days and never lose you —

to the wind, to the geese and their push-pinned bodies
spun like a donkey’s tail against the concrete sky

blindfolded to what doesn’t hold. But here we are, again.
Dumbstruck by the loss. Winter’s broom pushing us

back to the bell’s center. Asking us to listen, to tap the walls.
See if there’s some dark part of us that still hums.

Squirrely Girlie Dream Diary / Sonya Wohletz

(1)

Squirrely girlie caught in the manufactured siding—mama is here, but she can’t save you. Chew your way out. Use your teeth.

(2)

Of course it started the way these things generally do:
you asked me to dance.

We waltzed for an empty orchestra. In case you couldn’t tell, I have reverence
for formalities.

What you took to mean a certain indifference—my reserved bearing—
I must confess, was my way of containing my unlearned nerves.

Then, you suggested we trade partners.

I find Finn. Finn knows how to have fun. Finn
as it turns out, will find a rich bride.
That is why we have rhythm—we both know it is not meant to last.
We cut up the floor without even touching once.
My shoes go all silky; he marvels at my footwork.

Later I comb my hair, prepare myself for you—
but you’ve already made your decision.

Had I been instructed to inhabit
my senses, surely
you would have offered something to my father
in exchange for my affections?

(3)

Spring Sunday at Church, hoping to find you there.
The mass presided by the very lovely Ms. B—the first female priestess of the parish.
She was consecrated, I am told, by a French bishop.

The liturgy is energetic and full of light. Let me point out—
this is only because the roof has flown.

Children are invited to dance near the altar.
The dream dictates that the altar must be a sunken area in the center
where the rainwater collects. It is not holy or symbolic—
it is just rainwater. Another diversion for the children, since no one
can account for their mothers.

The children become, in a sense, a prop of the mystery.

Blood is blooming richly
through my pants again, though no one seems to notice.

If you pray correctly, your legs will grow precisely one inch, nothing dramatic.

Funds are requested at each hesitation, each suspended belief.

(4)

The new prayers include three (III) actions: I) Speak out loud the words you remember. Do not muffle the consonants. When a woman is priest, she will make sure everyone says the whole thing properly. II) Rather than bring your palms together for prayer, hold your left hand up and curve it like a “C”—move it towards the person on your right. They will form the other half of your heart. III) Prayer provides a natural transition to the unfinished business at hand.

(5)

Unfinished business:
why do you insist?

Maybe I hallucinated that phone call from Texas: “I love you, come visit”—

Why, always, the false promises?

What my heart witnessed was what my heart
wanted me to learn, though I
have learned nothing.

What then, did the heart witness?

(6)

Squirrely girlie appears to have retreated further into her hiding place. Flies pour in through the open hours, through the trap doors she has cut open with her own mouth.