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.

May - Poem 17

At the Setting of the Sun  / Desirae Chacon

At the Setting of the Sun
we meet at the Grand Road
Bring (Divinity) الألوهية
your beloved
Akhal-Teke

And we’ll go to where you were wanting
all along 
i knew
you weren’t waiting in vain

In all the waiting 
were fabrications 
of your wishes
your dreams
your desires

Your humble heart
was remembered 
in your forlorn
purposed in your expectancy

Starry Starry Night   / Heather Frankland

I feel I should write
about the stars again—
they are beautiful—
I must remind myself.
I’d miss them
if I were no longer
in a place where I could
see them so clearly.
I’d lament not noticing,
call myself a bad poet—
someone who didn’t
take advantage of what
she had when she had it—
give myself some
mental punishment.
And now the stars
are no longer the stars
but mental failings,
flaws—they seem
heavy in that night sky,
no wonder I avoid them
when I walk outside. 

The Middle Man / John Hanright

This fencepost is very comfortable
Placed squarely and firmly against my rear
I’ll get to politics when I’m able

You ask me: “Am I mentally stable?”
Yes, of course! I am a centrist, my dear
The world is complex; I’m comfortable

“When will I put my cards on the table?”
You ask me frankly. Have no doubts or fear
I’ll take a stand someday, when I’m able

My views? Oh, well I don’t like to label
I tend to lean wherever the wind steers
And I like to leave folks comfortable

Why do you allege that I enable
Reactionaries to take over here?
I’ll quit this fence and fight when I’m able

Help! Help! I’m stuck in terrible trouble!
The government’s got me; that much is clear
Truly, this isn’t comfortable
Won’t someone help me, when they are able?

Surprise / Jillian Humphrey

You ask for a snake.
I give you a fish.

Suffer a demon — 
I send you some pigs.

Get sick and I wait.
Surprise, you die twice.

If you want to be
friends, this is the price.

Wrkaholic  / Shane Moran

> when i found u
4 all that you were
u’d already bn here 4 so long
in my <3. i knew that if i cld j show u pretty music
gemstones
an island
nd thoughtfulness
you’d luv me forever.

>> how thoughtless i’d bn
that i cld think my way into ur <3
that’d bn pumping like gd life-support 4 a grasping narcissistic flea
since i kicked u out of my sour </3 the first time. 

>>> it has been nice to c you again
yk
i used to wander in my own mind nd find those memories of u behind the due essays nd wonder if i may ever gt another one to distract me.

>>>> i’ve plenty reasons y i’m still here
nd so many reasons y i’m thanking u
so many that i’ve found myself willing to pretend i was ok with it— that somehow
i allowed it
welcomed it even 
that prolly i facilitated the whole thing
nd that i am responsible
but then i remember it was ur mouth on his mouth nd his neck nd his body. 

>>>>> nd it was my mfing eyes cryin to Hazza singin truth to me thru my own gd intuition that u were lying nd laying w/ your bloodsucker. 

>>>>>> nd yt i wait up all nite 4 u
j to hug u hello– c! 
i am responsible
look at the dirt left behind on my shoes nd the pain in my back
i’ve bn @ wrk making sure u always feel my Love. 

The Painting Of The Flower With No Name  / Christina Vagenius

I knew you would find me,
eventually — between the mess
of the pages, the unfinished
stacks stuck together. Your fingers,
foraging the bread crumb tracks
between brushstrokes, my silver
and gold, never could tell
the difference — between
what shined, what surveilled,
the pause and the fealty
she loved the most
when she looked at you.
See where her shore went soft,
dissolved before letting go.
The weight of her hand
subsumed by the chariot
of motherhood, the dried,
torn corners of gouache
I’d do anything to hold you again 
just add water.

Siren / Sonya Wohletz

My beach. The riptides recognize each other.
They swallow the sky. They swallow all that lives on the sky.
My beach. Algae pulsates like a sick harp.
It opens the shell of the song. It opens the shell of what eats the song.
My beach. Dark rocks erupt through the swollen sand.
They alone are language. They alone have promised the birds.
My beach. The seas have returned to me as driftwood.
They are the bones of sailors. They are the bones of all whom the sailors loved.

May - Poem 16

Body Horror: 3 and 4  / M. Anne Avera

2.

From the first time we are examined
under ultrasound glow
we are described, placed into categories,.
This is what allows us to be
turned from animal to person.

3.

I am not neutral to myself. I become
arbiter of each independent part of my functioning
whole. I am less of me and
more of the world when I permit myself to
look down, look across, look around,
at my body.

Past the Prime   / Heather Frankland

The murky water
of old flowers,
dried white buds,
still, a faint perfume—
Must I throw them out?

Chickadee / John Hanright

I land on the perch
– Exhausted –
Curl up in the box and sleep
With one eye open


Is a house a home –
If there is no one to share it with?


Home
A haven from the storm
A depository for dreamers


I settle down in my downy bed
Moss and feathers and empty eggs
Dreaming – in darkness – of slow time


Singing this song
Into an unhearing, deafening sky
Full of discordant chatter
And mating calls


My verses fling out
From my breast
With the ardor of a flower
– Unpollinated –
Must I live in darkness –
Forever?

Slow Drip / Jillian Humphrey

Eden is leaking
horses.
Leaking oceans
tall grass
honeysuckle
tendrils
baseball
back porch radio
naptime
blanket cocoon 
hammock in May
little buttercream writing desk
ice cream cone on the way to the park
new friend
old love
blue whale
mourning dove
singing
sun
brave brave hearts
sky and sky and sky
I am holding my sleepy puppy. The world is
filling up with soft things.

Haiku  / Shane Moran

Everyone thinks
they live in Los Angeles—
no one is looking.

Al-Anon In Room 217  / Christina Vagenius

the room full of women
time tucked into pockets
receipts with no returns,
inventory, laced-lined,
heels but no skirts.
Said there’s no one
to blame — but if it’s all
the same to you,
I’ll take the pamphlet
with the coffee ring
stained pain and plenty
our Father, I’m sorry -
too many days have
followed me here,
laid tracks to listen
for the rumble before
finding legs to stand
your addiction to resist-
and           to restraint
to solving the mirror
by opening the gate.

Keep coming back,
it works if you work it
your hands in a circle
right, left, middle
a single, a double
a smile,
if you’re able.

On the Banks of the Bíobío / Sonya Wohletz

On the banks of the Bíobío—moon feathering herself in fog, in smoke
Whispers radiate like dancers into the night,
Twisting near the edge of the flame, where memory first spoke. 


Her simple reflection upon those wide waters evokesS
ilver rains, odors of canelo—stringent and bright,
On the banks of the Bíobío—moon feathering herself in fog, in smoke. 


She gathers clean plants, menstrual bloods, and adorns her blue cloak
With petals, seeds, and feathers for flight,
Twisting at the edge of the flame, where memory first spoke. 


She summons secrets of her women, and with embers she stokes
A vision that mounts its symmetry to surreal heights,
Along the banks of the Bíobío—moon feathering herself in fog, in smoke. 


There is now clarity where once she illuminated broken
Forms, half-shadows—now brought fully into her pure light,
Twisting at the edge of the flame, where memory first spoke. 


Black-necked swans disperse her image with a single wing-stroke,
And with their fluid motions articulate an ancient delight,
On the banks of the Bíobío—moon feathering herself in fog, in smoke,
Twisting near the edge of the flame, where memory first spoke.

May - Poem 15

My Life Becomes...  / M. Anne Avera

Slow as syrup-drip and then landsliding together,
overflowing, my life becomes these things:

Letting our dogs in and out of doors,
and watching them patrol the backyard,
tiny, noisy dictators in the violent green.
Each of them are weary to cross the threshold
into the empty brown territory between
the neighbors and us—
I like to call it
no-man’s-land.

Watching your face glow, crest, fade
when you listen to your music so loud
I can hear it even though you’ve headphones.
Your face!
Like an open window, casting our scent
into the nighttime.
(The windows, which you keep open
for the cat, stay unraveled. I can’t bring
myself
to complain.)

Polyrhythmic circadian, the way I never
can make myself fall asleep at a normal hour,
or when you do.
So I make it my mission to count your breaths
and feel them
on my neck.
As if I could remind myself you’re here and
I’m here and this is all and this is everything.

Aching for a place next to you all the time.
If I could knit myself into your skin
it would never be
close enough.

Arrows above us  / Desirae Chacon

as flaming arrows soar overhead
we brace with vitality
never feeling more alive than in this moment
on the edge of the sword
on the edge of the realm of life & the eternal
River Styx is just an arm length away
breezes brush through the fields of Elysium

waiting for us

but not yet
theres still work to be done

theres still fights to be had

there is still 
this battle

Back Home When It Was Summer   / Heather Frankland

Normally, box fans everywhere
cracked windows that let in air
the sound of the cicadas and trains
lightning bugs—little lanterns
that made it never too dark,
like they were on their own
little-Red-Riding-Hood path
the dark forest, the wolf with the hot breath,
the promise to protect, the impossible escape.
Still too much city-like haze
to see the stars. I would count them
I counted five or seven, and often one
would be a planet or a plane—something
that’d struggle to carry a wish.

When it reached 100 degrees, only then
would Dad allow us to turn on
the window air conditioner,
the only one we had;
it was in the living room.
An old unit, we worried
that it wouldn’t work one day,
that this would be the summer
it decided to quit
we measured out its servings,
in teaspoons for 100-degree weather.

All the doors would be shut, windows, too,
we would cluster around that unit,
me, sitting on the floor, on the shag carpet,
sitting almost eye-level to its vent.
The sound, a lullaby—we should have told stories
all of us in one room, but the heat too much
to concentrate on anything other
than the feel of the cool air
or to remember how the weather lady
cracked an egg on the sidewalk
it sizzled on camera—seemed
a potential way to make breakfast.
Who wanted to use the stove
and the oven would be worse.

The only other thought in my young brain—
it’s hot, can I sleep here tonight?
Please let me sleep here tonight;
our room might
as well be on the moon
its stuffy self, a block of heat,
ghosts must be in Victorian high-neck shirts
the bunk bed could be a closet of tired dreams
my familiar nightmares, not their familiar selves,
even they would rather feel the cool air.
Too tired and too hot to really dream,
my thoughts circle on wanting Kool-Aid—
my brother made it— I saw it being made
he stirred it with Mom’s favorite wooden spoon,
the red color staining the wood.
It should be cold by now, in the fridge,
it would taste so good,
if only the fridge weren’t so far away,
little can make me move,
I need to stay by this
window air conditioner.
Here, for now, I plant my roots.

Star Sand / John Hanright

Okinawa holds
Billions of skeletons
The dregs of dead stars


Dead stars on the Earth
Submarine supernova
The reefs are dying


Dying from the heat
Are there no more witnesses?
Living sand answers


Answers to our prayers
Ecosystems stabilized
By calcified stars

Inside of Me / Jillian Humphrey

there’s a german and a party
inside me a butcher and a hog
that keeps slipping
his hands

half basket case half drunk
I’m the child of a minister
and a playboy
magazine under his mattress

every time I pop a wheelie
the chain skips
every time I’m born
they send the sirens
I can’t outrun
the feeling I’m always
one mistake away
from having a good time

here I come
from a long
dark alley
of embezzlers
and executioners

instead of working it out
between themselves
they’re working it out
inside of me

A Proposal  / Shane Moran

He just needed to be a little better
of a guy and he could have had me,
Daphne tells me on the patio—

And this is why the house no longer
has a hot tub, and this is why she wanted
a career. I can’t say I want won’t take 

my hot tub with me, but won’t you listen:
I will forsake all expectations for you,
and prune the hydrangeas once a year.

A Need In The Age Of Surrender.  / Christina Vagenius

It was a needless want, to be sure | silence finds the car door | I could beat necessity senseless | cut every last cord | but I bend for it | bandage the wound and ascend to it | are we there yet? | I have hummed the same song for a week | made a bed for all the lost notes | promised to sweep them into tidy jingles someday | what’s the word for a dance down the middle? | the serpentine crown with gold scratched just a little | there’s a chipped tooth shark beneath my ring finger | fist rising fast | kick start the old generator | to the last sunken moon | plan your night out better | no one wants to see | your light leave a mess for later | find the bed | close your eyes | disagree with the meter | the hole in your heart filling last | believe her | it was a needless want, to be sure | I’m going nowhere, fast | Hold on.

Thursday Observations / Sonya Wohletz

1. The zoom calls must always begin with a greeting—baring of teeth
a. (I think it is laughter? That can’t be accurate)
b. Followed by a demand. Who cares what kind
i. There is no room for bargaining
1. Let alone compromise
2. We go in circles
3. Someone make another spreadsheet, for god’s sake!
2. Lately my thinking is slipping backwards
a. Images on loop, technicolor halo
i. Robotic specters, LLMs
1. Wide eyes and improbable proportions
2. Unreality soaking in through the membranes
a. The generators grinding grinding
b. Dust muscling the turbines, the power grid
3. Today, a conversation with a friend:
a. Do we need a ritual to banish worry?
b. Don’t answer that email, don’t apologize
i. You did nothing wrong, honey
1. That gas won’t pay for itself
2. Do I need to write your boss’s name on papel cartucho and put it in my
freezer?
4. I sense it in the rain, the incongruencies:
a. The spirits are catching up to us
b. Planting seeds at the crossroads
i. Forks sprout like seedlings in all directions
1. But these badlands are so empty
2. There are no banquets, no guests
a. And the crops brewing in your eye, mutilated twigs—
i. Wink back—knowingly, uselessly

May - Poem 14

Body Horror: 1  / M. Anne Avera

There exists no neutral way to describe
the body. No thinking or speaking or writing.
There is no manner in which one can talk about the body
without connotation, glimpses of opinion, judgement call.
With every word comes a sentence—a cell block or
gallows’ knot.

Healing  / Desirae Chacon

Sometimes Healing is a long cold dark process
dark not in opposite of goodness
but dark as in frigid, isolate, lonely
awaiting sunrise after sunrise
feeling a little bit healed day 
after..

day

long as in pacing
checking the spiritual wristwatch 
on your arm
seeing if anything’s changed

mind buzzing with the cares of the world
but wait for a second

and just breath…

look again..
the second hand moved
and you feel lighter

joy, peace, happiness
are not a destination
but an already all enveloping location surrounding you
like the Sun behind stormy skies

light and easy
like birds 
behind shady clouds

healing is a journey
step by step
in gratitude
youll see change
youll see strength

I Tell Amy What the Mornings Were Like in Lima, Peru  / Heather Frankland

The first time I lived in Peru, I lived in a village
where the morning came slowly, steadily
the sounds of the roosters and donkeys,
of people waking up,
of women stirring fires to make breakfast,
of families mumbling their hellos
of men getting ready to go to the campo
to herd sheep or look for yierba—
the slow murmur of the day beginning,
and then—as always—so much to do.

Lima wasn’t like that.
The morning, a race, and me, a lap away,
I leap out of bed,
rush to the heated electric shower
chance the shock that happens
if I put my head or hands too close
to the shower head.
Dress quickly, take the purse that zips,
the one I wear crossed over my shoulder,
something ugly that no one
really wants to steal.
Grab the lunch made for me
by my host mom; I hope it’s her
quinoa soup or the garbanzos with spinach.

Run down the stairs. Run down the stairs.
Pass the floors with the primos, tias, y tios.
Say a quick, Buenos. Pass the beautiful
papelitos, their fuchsia flowers blooming.
On the street, see the friendly cat no one claims
and chance a pat on his dirty orange head.
Then rush, rush, but stop for the booth
with emoliente in a plastic bag and straw.
Worth the pause—the warm tea
gives more energy than coffee.
Drink it and cross the street to wait
for the bus; it’s almost there!

The bus, not full yet, I grab a seat,
the traffic on this road—intense
how close the bus gets to other buses
but never does more than a casual tap.
Pressed tight to other passengers,
I breathe, look out the window—
I made it. I won’t be late.
Then traffic jam, traffic jam—how many today?
Lima’s streets clog with morning traffic.

When I get close to the office,
I leave the bus early to walk many blocks,
the street parallel to the busy street,
the sound of traffic somehow muffled.
I find the panaderia that I like—
have a treat, and then write.
Only then do my shoulders relax
pleasure in this hidden treat,
before I have to turn back on.
With this sweet-treat breath, I walk
by Parque Ramon Castilla—
this park that still lives on aqueducts
made by the Incans. Fue peligroso
a friend told me, but it’s hard to imagine
this beautiful park where I sometimes work
as anything other than beautiful.
It’s hard to imagine that this Lima rhythm
can start to feel as natural
as the first time I lived in Peru
in a village that bloomed slowly, 
then all at once. The place where I could
see the stars dim into day. 

Giving Up the (Holy) Ghost / John Hanright

If the road to Hell is paved with good intentions,
does that mean that the road to Heaven is full of potholes,
with signs reading “Good Work Ahead” every five miles?
If so, would you drop me off at the next rest stop, please?

If the best trick Lucifer pulled was convincing everyone he doesn’t exist,
and if God created Lucifer to test humanity,
does that make God an illusionist?
If so, when will He make evil disappear?

If I am my brother’s keeper,
and if my sister was “born for a time of adversity,”
what does that make my nonbinary cousin?

If Saint Peter is holding the Key of Heaven,
and if Jesus is holding the Key of David,
who is holding the key to the Porsche?

If the Lord is my shepherd,
and if I am supposed to sow seeds of righteousness,
what does that make me, a farming sheep?

If humans are made in God’s image,
and if gender is not binary,
why is the state killing God’s children?

Ode to Shea (1992-2011) / Jillian Humphrey

  “I would prefer [poet] to be a word that was used on a 
  person’s death, that was sort of conferred like a title, 
      because the fact of making poetry doesn’t make one a
      poet, and a poet is a rare thing.” — Louise Glück

Shea, you are a poet.

A forty-year-old woman walking the edge of the sea, alone, reading memorial benches instead of looking at the waves,

I could not feel things in the way I was supposed to feel them for many months. I wrote, ‘Will I ever feel transcendent joy again?’ So when I felt your poem, I sobbed.

I cried because of a Mercy that filled me, and I cried because I could tell you knew what Mary meant when she said the world calls out to us. You knew an exuberant belonging, which I desperately wanted. Somehow, across time and space, you shared it with me.

You were a poet at eight. Louise is stingy on this, and though she is brilliant, we — The Poets — don’t allow her charge of the invitations. But about you, maybe she and I could agree: You are one of us.

When I read your poem, I remembered that I am one of us too. I read it over and over. I sat on your bench and looked at the sea. Then I went for a walk on the beach, where I recited the lines of your poem as I went, and at dinner I copied each line in my notebook until I learned your poem by heart, because I want to keep on remembering.

You are my pen pal, Shea. I will write back.

FALSE AUBADE  / Shane Moran

—for M

She has more in common with the moon
than I’d first thought—this flirty monk-
woman, turning discs for a listening room.

She knows what they want to hear: 
the songs she listened to alone on her bed, 
adolescent and kicking, thinking of the one 

from English 11, who she’s now fallen 
loyal to. Her fellow’s body, her only
fellow body. The one

she says, she’d turn away from for one night,
if he’d let her—like a werewolf, she said.
She would smell the outlawed sweat

on my wide back, and return before sunrise.
At the set’s end, she ran away, fell back 
to sleep with him or something like with

him—their faces tired under shrinking moonlight,
her body, cold against the wall. I held the same 
weight of an unsaid stay—heavy on my tongue.

I See Nothing But Lost Days  / Christina Vagenius

When I prune the hydrangeas, I whisper
I’m sorry for waiting too long, for not knowing
where to cut, for letting the blade get dull.
Maybe this will be the year I finally kill you, then
the sweet liquor spill of wild geranium
between the Beech, the heavy lid wake
of morning. A gulp of transom light
adorning the yellow belly throat,
the ramp’s green thumb hitching a ride,
screeches Not so fast.

Kurban / Sonya Wohletz

I dreamed the dogs again—dusty road, dissolving
under my tongue, pale wafer.
Sweet waters, salt skies. The roll-out bed.
Hospital. Too many mosquitoes. Exquisite things.
Flashback to a former deadline: the tumor board.
Nothing was saved. Seduction failed thrice.
A Zofran means we sue for peace. Night alarm.
How many wavelengths. Flour sacks loaded
like weapons: true
belief means dying or hunger.
The rams, could I but afford rams.
To distribute their meat among the least
fortunate. To save for my children—
the heart, the liver, the spleen.

May - Poem 13

Common Responses to Common Advice  / M. Anne Avera

“Yeah, I guess exercise helps.”

I punish my body, punitive in routine and
break myself down to the core. I stress myself
to the maxim, to find some other pain to feel,
to find some way to get out of this endless hole,

because if I can’t do twenty-five squats,
then I guess I don’t deserve to do anything
at all.

“The medicine has some side effects.”
I don’t recognize the mind these thoughts
come from, but I’ve gone so far beyond
what I used to be that I don’t see the point
in trying to remember her anymore.

Maybe there’s some personality left under
the sweat-damp, ugly mask covering my face,
leaving it unrecognizable, but I won’t take it off,
won’t take the chance of there being nothing there,
not a single thing left.

“Time feels more fluid these days.”
Time is liquid. Time is filling my throat.
Time is all over my hands and dripping
down my elbows and covering me in its
cold, cold current.

I have trench foot from time.
I will soon drown as time’s stream
and flow becomes a river mouth, becomes
an outlet to the ocean.

“I don’t think about it.”
It comes back to me in light-bursts, in star-
fragments, in moon-slivers so thin they look
like the fingernails I bite off. I will never
forget it because it is a part of my whole being.

The Way the Light Falls / Desirae Chacon

The way the light falls softly in your shoulders
cloaking you in golden satins
The Way the clouds soar over head
The way this ground feels so pristine 
yet held the footsteps of so many others
who trodden cross your forestscapes
who wondered at your beauty
who love what you put forth
in your effortless generosity
The way that everywhere I look
makes my eyes feel new
drenched in amazement
and saturated in a new hope
that roads await that have not yet been taken

for me

so 

As the light falls
i venture into the unknown
yet to be

A Long Semester  / Heather Frankland

I’d never understood
running on empty
until now—the analogy
of a car, that E
in red lights,
a slight smell of fumes,
turning the air conditioner off—
anything that seems
to make the car lag.
Go back to the basics
coasting, hoping
that you have enough
to get to the next gas station,
nervous how you go
up the hills—
will you make it?
Wishing for more
down hill drives
and worrying about full-stop
stopping at stop signs—
what if you can’t start up again?
You think to yourself—
how did it get so low?
Once, you always,
at least kept 
your tank at half.
Remember when you could
breathe more easily?
When you didn’t feel fumes
escaping from your
tired brain
when you didn’t
feel the flutter
of your anxious heart? 

Indefensive Mirrors / John Hanright

CW: body dysmorphia, fat shaming, sizeism

child in swim shirt
reflection in pool
fingers pointing
ugly

“you’re too thin”
“you’re so fat”
“put a little meat on your bones”
“getting big, aren’t you?”
fun house.
mirror – shifted shape
not mine

mirror –
a reflection, not a verdict
when will fat not warrant an apology?
stomachs should be fed

Sleeper / Jillian Humphrey

She’s such a good eater,
she’s such a good sleeper,
they’d say
if I were still a baby.

Shoulder (2)  / Shane Moran

Some nights, I found you again on the couch.
How am I supposed to let that not affect me?
Of all the things I asked you keep
Under control—it was your
Love for me.          Easy        to leave me—
Dream (alone)      the darkness      your friend,
Ever understanding and drank-in—a hug
Round the neck.     I didn’t want another body.

Inside This Flower  / Christina Vagenius

Maybe I could be one of Emily Dickinson’s flowers
pressed on a page, given a name like Trailing Arbutus

or Ox-eye Daisy, enduring the heat of the greenhouse.
The torrential tears of mispronunciation. Cold rain,

dried flat from the exhale. Color worn with how did I get here?
Shuttered petals giving way to the spiral vein, born

from the broken stem. Put me under glass, instead.
Let the sun bloom new life in me, lines submerged  

beneath a poet’s fingers. Turn me blue. Waxed,
remembered. A token treasure, opened up. Over

and over,  again — until one last breath, bookmarked
nourished, forever. 

Quetiapine 1 / Sonya Wohletz

Professor L orates the mercury mines at Huancavelica—
the political aims of Viceroy Toledo, administrative proceedings, census tracts.

A classmate offers a précis. It is full of commands.

At office hours again with a bruised neck.
Where others dispute subaltern identities,
hungry spirits follow in swift pursuit.

Clumps of hair clog the drain. Gas lantern above entryway—entrancing
as in an endless carnival. Slip of paper—
issuing warrant for a summary execution.

Another trip to the Emergency—

kindly observes the worms pullulating those mulberry brains.
Sinus infection perhaps.

One hemisphere short of complete defection, and still.
Souls drip like Spanish moss from live oak.

Now, soft—the sleep of silver.

The phone—ringing, ringing—
Hölderlin again. Of course you are melancholic. Of course you are beautiful.

Meanwhile the ores
are smelting—perfume the high village.

And within the richest hill, furtive figures
await a bride price they know will never be paid.

I, too, have loved her orphans.

May - Poem 12

Ghazal 003  / M. Anne Avera

I gave you my heart but you wanted my soul.
Though I tried to evade you, you hunted my soul.

In the garden, stark night, I crossed gazes with you.
Like a jay-bird I preened and I flaunted my soul.

Oh, lover. Oh, darling, Oh, helpmeet. Oh, thing.
You’ll breathe me to life if I grant you my soul.

Your blue eyes were acidic, your hands gripping me.
You could feel my heart beat as it blunted my soul.

I know not my name, not Meredith or Anne
for you threw it away when you swallowed my soul.

How sweet the taste, ripe saccharine feel
on your tongue as it haunted my soul.

You Met me in Fields / Desirae Chacon

You Met me in fields
under shifting skies
each chronometric moment
folding above us
unto a changing of days
bluebirds giving hope
through unfolding of seasons
doves blessing us with peace
winter came
but it only strengthened our love
it did not shake us
as your eyes held my gaze 
steady and assuring
loyal and intentional
of devotions 

If Only To Be. . .  / Heather Frankland

If only to be a raven
gliding in the wind

before a storm.

Rain cloud heavy,

still the raven

surfs the wind

allows itself

to be tousled

from wind-wave

to wind-wave,

not struggling

to work its wings

with weight

of daily grind,

no cares, no worries

no concerns

for the future

just gliding

as if time

didn’t matter

and change

of weather

didn’t make

one wary.

A storm coming?

The raven

doesn’t fear

any altered flight.

It sheds

the cloak

of the serious

and the profound,

and plays instead.

Such a show,

if only to be

like the raven—

to enjoy the wind

and learn to let go.  

Memory Lane / John Hanright

How does Memory Lane look nowadays?


Still full of trees and freshly mown lawns?
Still full of potholes and FORECLOSED signs?


Still a Private Way with an off-duty cop?
Still a Dead End policed every hour?


Still with the smell of fresh pies and petrichor?
Still suffused with exhaust and quiet strength?


Still made up of good-looking families splitting at the seams?
Still composed of good people in dire circumstances?


How does Memory Lane look nowadays?

Ada / Jillian Humphrey

I was eleven
when, in a hurry, I
took two left shoes
to school.
My best friends
laughed and named
me: Ada.
How quickly it came
to them: A dumb ass.

They let me know
my ponytail was crooked
and my jeans were too short.
I never thought of leaving.
I never thought they may not be
my friends.
I only thought I was a dumb ass.

I wish I could take that fearful child in my arms
and help her.
I can’t.
Instead I close my eyes.
I envision
some old woman
with my own name
holding me right now.

Out of Body  / Shane Moran

–after Mia Word–

I will swim
until my mind stops fishing.

Free strokes whisper: quiet.
I listen for the singing waves,

the same tune since
the first ship reached the James,

and the ones who did not dive,
who survived, 

who stood on blocks like gold
-medal winning swimmers—

sold.
Out of breath

I wait
wading
running, burning

nose, temples vibrating
me out of place

I see my body—a body

on the shore
escaping waves,

and waving
you must survive.

When Wandering Under The Trees Doesn't Work  / Christina Vagenius

Maybe the trees don't know you, yet.
Maybe when you beg for hello
what you really want is
I see your leaves starting to fall.
And the crisp moon hanging
from a thread when you look up,
when you ask
Can I have some light too?
Here, in the dark,
with your leaves plucked clean
from every crooked limb.
Another seed, you’ll call
alive.  

Husk / Sonya Wohletz

I want to link arms with god and go in woods—
his silky mane tickling my arm from time to time.
I want to lick harpoons and fear no injury,
and hunt what dawn escapes.
Cradle in my belly a soupçon of joy,
knowing no appliances presently dysfunction.
The car mechanic—no notes over $200.
Sometimes disappearing seems like the only choice.
Fatherlessness governs me.
Tomorrow, I razor my fingers into earth,
grasp its roots.
Become wormlike, oblivious to the darkness,
its enduring, damp pressures—
excluded by the raptures of assurance.
Here is my unauthorized dispensation
to interpret the cards for my fellow subterranean besties.
Come July the water marks
on our throats will bleach in the Aegean sun.
And what of stipulations, fine grained though they may be.
I tool mine like fine leather. I can be proud in private.
My mind—an ambidextrous coppice perchance.
A fealty bearing no sign of tyranny.
The dopamine troubadours singing
this masque into bloom. The lyre—
dispatching the arguments
through thin and vagrant aethers.

May - Poem 11

Thesus  / M. Anne Avera

I become human
Not consciousness, floating above
but sticky hands, bent knees—
each cell an own will. This being
you speak of is me.

And sometimes I see that picture
I gave you
and I wonder if that really was me—
if that moment still exists.

I believe it does. Because whittled
down to the raw form, I am whole
You can take me to pieces,
string them together,
add new parts and shapes and lines
just to see if you recognize me.

Where Your Hooves Lay / Desirae Chacon

where your hooves lay
that will be our way
to venture on
to further press
like a millstone on olives
anointing oils lay
so onto now
a sunrise beyond the sea
where sunrays peak
and graze upon the early grains of sand
where creeks run in mystery
and all undiscovered lays bare
where whispers became magnified
in the quiet breezes of this atmospheric air
and where salt and brine and waters of deep
lay upon the place of the seas
to where we’re going Horse
of Victory
A place forever lain in serenities of Peace x Glories

What I Would Do If I Lived Closer  / Heather Frankland

To Mom

Make you blueberry pancakes
for Mother’s Day—balance them
on that small tray you cram
in the back of the closet
or behind the cloth napkins
and Tupperware in the cabinet.
Carry them to your bedroom
let you begin your day
with pancakes and maple syrup.
 
When young, I could make toast,
and then later, French toast,
but now I can make you more.
Imagine a small plate
of blueberry pancakes
a mug of good coffee
a  small vase and a flower
I found on my morning walk
something common, yet pretty.

If I lived closer, I’d take you
for an afternoon drive
or to a movie theatre;
I’d buy the popcorn,
the frozen Cokes, all those
expensive treats that felt
luxurious when we let
ourselves afford them.
I’d take you to the store
to pick up wine—the sweet kind
that you like more than I,
but it’s your treat
because it’s your day.

If I lived closer, our conversation
would be different than a 30 minute phone call
where distracted, I am thinking of work
grades, dreading a late night of pretending
my body can take a late night easily.
I would pay more attention perhaps
talk of the past or the day-to-day.  

If I lived closer, I would make you
blueberry pancakes, coffee,
and anything else you desired
for this day you should be treated
like you’ve always treated us,
making pancakes
for special occasions
and seeing us, any of us kids,
marked a special occasion
we don’t live down the street
or in the neighborhood or in the state
we live too far away to make you pancakes
on Sunday mornings, although
if we lived closer, we would. 

Mother Dearest / John Hanright

Your screams of Thunder and Lightning
Are tempered by the wonder of Your singing


Your Cycles are timeless –
From baby’s entry out of Your canal
Giving birth to Consciousness
To Your loving Hands guiding us all
Back into Your mysterious Bowels –


Your sublime, star-capped summits transcend
The vanity of consonants and vowels


Your “Golden finger” admonishes and portends
Ruin to all those who cross Your Will – and still
You are the mildest Ruler
Governing with Equanimity and Equality ‘til
The final Breath of Time, Your brother


Your Friendship and fierce defense of all
Exalts You – never to betray Your affection
Loyal to Your children, who must heed Your Call
And defer to Your directions –
The tiny Chipmunk and mighty Elephant both obey
Your Advice – when to consent and when to defy
Where to go and where to stay
How to Live and how to Die –


Your Life is a Mystery wrapped in an unanswered Query
And yet we are still entrapped by theory

Primal / Jillian Humphrey

Like eating, touching, dancing,
poetry is what we do
before we’re enlightened
enough to write
an essay.
A moan, a whimper,
the guttural yowl
of the human — our animal language.
I wanted to be a novelist,
but all I can do is make sound.

PLAY FIRE  / Shane Moran

It was always Friday, 
when we played—
only underwear in the creek. 

They will not understand, 
it started with throwing a fire 
into the water. We slow-toed

to fetch the playboy that Timmy threw 
when he told us what Father Kevin says—
lust is a sin. 

In the woods we gawked
at naked women from the 80s,
pointing out all that surprised us.

How We Save Ourselves  / Christina Vagenius

I ask the poem who she is —
if she’s hungry, if she needs a nap
if the syllables sting when they pierce
the page, when I pound on the door,
press an eye to the drunken peephole,
you are
the sound of a cinched scream caught
by the nape of the neck, lingering in the air
too long as it billows past the critique’s
long arms, see see see
you there,
outside the window, past the panes
of smoky lore, a girl in a garden casting spells
over a mosaic bench bathed in light, fingers coiled
over cut glass, escaping the wound, tipped toes
pressed into night’s cold soil, reckoned
by the slip of the moon. 

Unmarked Grave / Sonya Wohletz

Sangre sacúdase—crust of late earth.
I trusted this, at least.

The milk of my mother, her opalescent sea.
Though these, too, evade.

Somnolent savior, please help. A picture.
Perhaps, a flagrant wound I
pin to my dreams.

My bones drill the days through
its heart, to grind
together its many skies
in the bowl of women,
their blood-lipped chalice,
their art as yet unfinished.

Always, it seems
the path appears the same:
North along the road to Taos.
West toward Tierra Amarilla.
South to Cuba, La Jara.
East through Gallina, Jémez.

The journey describes a return
or an opening,
one might conclude.

What kind of door
evokes two names?

And were I to speak
I would say
I remember only one.

May - Poem 10

Mother’s Day  / M. Anne Avera

i dislike touching my bare stomach touching the crater in the center
where i was once attached.

that was the only time i truly, molecularly touched someone
touched my mother through umbilical tie.

how it must have hurt her to rip me out how it must have
hurt

myself to be torn from her, never to cross atoms with anyone
ever again. i believe all things go back to 

her.
once,

i had a dream where i met a godhead with the face of my mother
the soft eyelids of my mother the weary hands of my mother

and she did not speak to me she only hummed.
she was electrified by moonlight current she was humming

the same five notes.
i saw her parts changing to knit together bone

from bone, flesh from flesh. she formed a newness of herself but it
was not quite 

herself.
and then i was filled as all children desire to be filled by comfort,

by thesus’ ship sailing ever forward, yet never quite
the same as it was before.

The Beauty of Life’s Elements / Desirae Chacon

As I sit back & ponder
Upon all of life’s great moments
a few elemental contributors come to mind

Light, Air, Water & Fire

Light

As i lift my eyes up to the hills 
I see coniferous sempervirentes
shaking hands with the Sun’s temperate 
Dawning palm 

Air 

feels like it has the ability to reset
responsive
sentient of
a configurative quality 
for making all things feel new

Water

the ideographic symbol for joy
a stream charts into its own purposed course
a sense of longing develops
knowing i will never see the same waters again
bittersweet
but taking comfort in knowing the same river is by my side

Fire

this comes to mind ultimately
because it feels like a primordial beginning
as gazing meets the primal glow
among flames
already present at the initiation of time
beginning with the end
& ending with a beginning

A Tiny Poem  / Heather Frankland

It is a tiny poem
one that can wrap
around your palm
twine between
your destiny lines
claim itself
the child
that one line
prophesized.
It is a tiny poem
a sponge that doubles
in size once wet
tears from joy or pain
will do.
It’ll grow
in your sleep
a green web
around your hand
pressing its mouth
to your finger
with the writer’s bump.
It has a heart now
and that heart glows
at every slow beat.
The tiny poem
becomes its own thing
with a trace
of you inside
--a seed—
and like a dandelion
when it’s ready
the wind will take
to soils just waiting
for a tiny poem
with a scroll inside
and a blossom
so bright
that it stains. 

Ode to a Birthday Candle / John Hanright

Flaming youth,
So soon does your wick burn,
But your soft light tells the truth
About life’s little joys and turns:
Illumine my laugh-lined face;
Warm the coldness in my heart;
Reveal each gray in my hair;
Remind me of each hint and trace
In the priceless years – from start
To end – and those wishes lost to the air.

Flaming youth,
So soon does your wick burn;
Trust I speak in sooth,
Each year’s wisdoms we earn –
This fragile flame, in whose care we’re charged,
Capable of surviving even the worst rains,
Just watch as it burns fast and slow,
Contracts and then is enlarged,
Makes pleasures into pains,
And brings to death’s abyss a boundless glow.

Flaming youth,
So soon does your wick burn –
For saying so, don’t think me uncouth;
My one wish is to return
Not to my past but to my memory,
Flickering like a fading flame.
I would say goodbye to youth’s bout,
But that would be
Like placing blame
On a candle waiting to be blown out.

Tenderness / Jillian Humphrey

After breakfast I return to bed,
one of the many comforts
of benign illness.
A head cold comes
with a permission slip.
I can put off work, laundry, writing
this poem. My brain slows,
feels almost childlike again —
floating and trusting.
My doctor listens carefully
to all that is happening
inside me.
She places her hand
on my back.
Deep breath.
Even the sound of Velcro,
the blood pressure cuff,
is like church bells to me.
Someone kind
will gently take my wrist,
ask nothing of me,
tell me good job
then send me home to sleep.

Pelham Bay, 1974  / Shane Moran

—from my grandfather

You gotta understand, 
my neighborhood was all white, 
and this black woman—

for some reason—knocked 
on our door to ask about her daughter, 
who was in the crash with Aria

Allegra and the drunk Ricci twins—
the lady wanted to know if she died 
on impact…or

Fire Starter  / Christina Vagenius

There is nothing frail about the woman
who uses the scalpel against her own heart,
revealing her own hurt, laying blankets down
for the wounded — a triage for the tired, restless
eyes of want rounded as she gathers, builds fires.
A fortress for what no longer waits for recruitment.
Just the stumble-drunk, lucky likeness
she calls love.

Can I turn you around? Hold your face
to the flame and say, you are the match,
we all need. The last ember doused
in your image, a polaroid pinched sideways,
leaking life onto what remains.

And your hands, pressed together
in a prayer more powerful than the mirror
you cracked a million times over. Seven years,
too long to recover, put back together with the ash
you smeared between seams, knowing what it takes
to ignite every lost dream. 

Mother’s Day Pantoum / Sonya Wohletz

Warm spring mornings replete with laughter and some robust chaos
Requests for more blueberry pancakes and melting butter
Sun reaching in through the kitchen window (it needs cleaning, of course)
As little legs zoom by— someone needing a band-aid for the second time today

And already requests for even more blueberry pancakes and melting butter
Time to get off Minecraft! So we can get ready and play outside
Look—the warm sun is beckoning through the window
Anticipation of the day’s newness, adventures (refill the diaper bag)

So it’s really time to get off Minecraft! For real this time! So we can head outside
There are fluffy dandelions in the garden waiting for us to wish upon
And adventure is blessing us away from routine (I’ll leave the laundry for later)
Two surprisingly strong children launch into my arms, sweet smell radiating from their heads

Like precious dandelions that I have wished upon and wished upon
While a warm and patient sun smiles through
My sweet children as they jump into my arms for another round of hugs
This warm spring morning—replete with robust laughter and just the right dose of chaos

May - Poem 9

Lines  / M. Anne Avera

im not afraid of anything at all/not the way the trees cast shadows in my bedroom/not the cockroaches along the floorboard/not the mattress squeaks or the benadryl sleep/i used to think there was bravery/in being scared/like if i was strong enough to admit it things would take a step back/far back/so far away they turn to pinpricks/and i can no longer see them/but the truth is theres nothing at all to be afraid of/theres power in the knowledge/theres growth within that thought/but maybe wishing for fear to go away completely/is a fear in and of itself

Sword of Victory / Desirae Chacon

You Victory comes like endless cavalries of barded horses
standing for the sunrise
ready forth to march on
& delivery justice
at its finest
like a shining sword
of reinforced steel
ignited with Silver
& Sovereignty of Vindication
Judgement does reign 
and Truth does stand everlasting
To every corner of the land
inlaid in every place
Forever these will always Stand. 

Energized. Exhausted.  / Heather Frankland

During track meets in high school
we would sit in the sun
wearing sweats and hope
that we could be batteries—
energy and warmth, warmth and energy.

Then there were the days
when we wanted discomfort
thin shorts and shirts
naked skin, no protection—
no sweats or sweatshirts.
The wind, cold and brutal and painful,
to be so exposed—it’ll make me run faster
we’d say or that shivering energizes me.
We needed to believe it
because that run in that cold air
always the worst on the last 100 meters
hurt our lungs, made our bodies feel heavier.

Then there were the days
that the rain made the track slick
and we worried about falling
or sliding and twisting an ankle.
We’d run two laps at the start
just to test the track—which parts
were dry, which were wet,
which were not safe.
We’d share the forecast.

Sometimes, I can’t believe I was
a runner, that I was mediocre-fast,
that my legs had muscles so hard
that I could tighten them almost
like a fist. I can’t believe
that I ran for fun with friends
telling stories before we
raced at the end. I can’t believe
I tolerated running;
it’s never been my favorite sport.
But I remember the pain, the reward,
the weight of my body
not fast like wind, not always steady
but still able to transform into something
worthy of a red ribbon—and sometimes blue
and sometimes white—and sometimes
just barely crossing the finish line
tired, yes, but staying in full stride. 

See You in the Funny Papers! / John Hanright

I don’t actually like lasagna.
I just pretend to eat it while the cartoonists are sketching my likeness.
As soon as they leave for their lunch break, I shove the plate off the table
And step out of the studio to light up a catnip pre-roll in the parking lot.
Jon hops out of his car and walks over,
Scolding me for smoking.
“Y’know, Jon, the best way to quit is to stop after the last one.”
He just shakes his head and goes inside. I take the paper from the newsstand
And flip to the funnies.
Hagar the Horrible, my favorite!
I pace around the parking lot
And drift in and out of myself. They say
A little piece of you goes into any artwork – however small the frame.
As my fur starts to go grey in my sight,
The paper jaundices in my paws,
And my story begins to fade out.
The dotted white lines on the road
Give way to my past, present, and future.
Staring into bright lights, I close my eyes.
The scream of tire against asphalt –
Suddenly thrown –
Seeing streaks of dusky sky flip over on itself before
All is in darkness.
No pain.
No flights of angels singing.
Nothing but the sound of car doors slamming and muffled voices.
My eyes open to the dusky sky again.
Lucidity, that’s not like what I’ve heard of the afterlife.
Why is there a man
Where my mangled body should be?
And why does that man look so much like Jon might look if he ever got himself –
That damn SOB gave his life
For me?

Honey / Jillian Humphrey

I put things in my mouth
that don’t belong there.
The past, a small marble — I turn it
over and over under my tongue.
Also a gun.
The gun is only imagined,
so don’t worry too much.
After a few days of playing pretend
God takes the marble.
The gun he turns into honey.

Shoulder  / Shane Moran

—After Deborah Landau & for Frank 

Should we try cropped tanks? We spoke on it the whole Waymo ride.
Heterosexuals, what good would our bellybuttons do
Out for everyone to see?  Well, we could invent new men,
Unless we’re chicken.     Oh.     We’re doing it again—
Look at us—the only ones in North Beach covered up,
Desperate to fuck a stranger.         Do I know the real you?
Eventually, we gotta let the party know how hard we train,
Risk a quick squeeze on our bare skin—risk a chill up the spine.

In This Season Of Migration  / Christina Vagenius

I want to marvel again,
at the whisper of birdsong - 
pileated and red-bellied.
The Merganser crowns
and catbird cries
that sound like newborns.

I have no time for petty mouths
or blame. The unhealed wounds 
and gilded shame. Tired, of excuses
charmed takes. Manufactured
frailty in its wake.

Instead, the marvel.
All downy and hooded
and double-breasted,
skimming the shallows
for depth. Give me
the fog-licked lake
and all her scorious
secrets. The Green Heron
and her certainty. The Loon’s
quiet descent into darkness.
I will wait on the owls,
barred and short-eared
forlorn as they go.
And the turtle
that never doubts her turn
in the sun. Hang tight,

you vultures and muskrats.
You fire-eyed opossums,
your carnivorous tongues.
Your time will come.

But for now, I wait
on the Wood Thrush.
No conspiracy between
her notes. The sound
of spring, early morning
taste of rain from a daffodil’s
swollen cup. What is there

left to know?

For Rubén Darío / Sonya Wohletz

] gauze netting
splitting fruit
yerba buena
near the porticozancudos shiver
the afternoon
sacred heart flames
parnassus and its
wild dogs ] león, nicaragua
head turned away
cinders drift
earth trembles
the zinc roofs
market empty
at noon ] from the pronaos
blue körfezptera in disarray
enemy sails
blue winds
blue winds ] the far peaks
suspended in blue
fragments
marble fragments
cloud bones
or kiss
of blessed tree ] dissolving
the symbols ] sorrow
crowns itself
in wisdom