It’s humid in this field surrounded by miles

of nothing but you and I and grasshoppers. The hot wetness

sticks under my armpits and on the dip of my back.

 

I would prefer your hand

on the dip of my back.

 

There are no-see-ums in my brain

and under my eyes and when I cry

they get so fat on the salt, a testament

to how much I love you, or maybe

to my fucked mental health.

 

Either way, their girth hurts.

 

I lay pressed daisies in your palm

that only opens when I tug on your fingers

and you hold them in the same way a kind mother

holds a frog her son proudly brought in the house

which is to say you don’t—you let them rest

in your hand as a way of placating me until I leave.

 

When I’m alone, I crouch in the field

with the grasshoppers and pray

for a taste of their mastery of leaping

effortlessly away from what causes them pain.

---

EMILY is currently an undergraduate senior at Saint Leo University in St. Leo, Florida, where she is studying English with a specialization in creative writing. Her work has been published in The Dandelion Review, Sandhill Review‘s 2017, 2018, and 2019 issues, and is forthcoming in The Dollhouse. When not writing she can be found cuddling with her five cats and/or devouring frozen pizza.

You sloping-blue, lonely song

swimming in the deep of me.

 

You body of cerulean wishes 

that stick close as water. 

 

I keep fishing in the midnight sea black of me 

for ways to tell people about

the thoughts you slide inside my throat. 

 

But all I come up with 

are dinner-party-shallow lines

stuck like hooks in my smile.

 

Who taught the secret longing in you

to sing like that–

so that no person 

with the world firm under their feet 

could ever hope to hear it?

 

Are you lonely in there,

frequently dreaming of acceptance 

in a language located on your own frequency?

 

Do your eyes grow tired of watching 

for lighthouse hearts like yours?

 

Do they spit salt tears at the moon

whenever your worst memories surface?

 

Or does the sky rock your soul in ocean waves

until you can sleep with your mistakes wrapped around you,

and is that company enough?

 

If you answer me, will I even know you have done so?

 

Or will I keep babbling, keep bubbling up 

this cheap-champagne laugh,

until I drown out all the music you are trying to make of me?

---

MORGAN NIKOLA-WREN began writing poetry for various literary periodicals in 2013. She is a winner of the Pangaea Worldwide Poetry Slam, 2016, and has published four books of poetry. Her debut book, Magic with Skin On, received a Goodreads Choice nomination for Best Poetry Book of 2017.

Morgan ran away with her husband’s circus for a year, but now works at a school library, which is not all that different. She is perpetually searching for new favorite words, more black clothing, and the perfect design for her next tattoo.

Find her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/morgannikolawren, follow @morgannikolawren on Instagram, or visit www.morgannikolawren.com.

 

He knows because my hands

cradle his head, my fingers 

travel in packs across his arms 

and his chest, palm his chin, 

direct his smile toward mine.

 

Sometimes I rub through 

the short hair on the back 

of his head the way one does 

to a pup who’s been a very 

 

good boy, or swim under his 

elbows and over his shoulders 

to latch onto him like a warm 

marsupial in mother-worship. 

 

There needn’t be fireworks or 

pink hearts escaping overhead 

or even a mild molecular ripple 

in the air. I have decided 

 

I like being too old to anticipate 

the Earth shattering. What shatters 

is how everything gets to stay 

this way, exactly where it seems 

we will it to be.

---

RISA PAPPAS is an award-winning short filmmaker, published poet, and freelance writer/editor. Punky by nature. Fan of professional wrestling, feminism, and cartoon cheeseburgers. Editor at Tolsun Books. She lives in the Delaware Valley with a cat and too many houseplants.

 

We said ‘coming home’ without fealty to space or

love, hearts hidden in our shoes left muddy by the

door. Ma gathered us together at the table, sweet

flowers swept into her arms by a river tide at dusk.

Our fingers laced together as we gave thanks for

our blessings; she had to stretch over an empty

chair to reach us. These were the unhurried

evenings when she could relish in an instance of

being held, her hand a petal on my brother’s

lilypad palm. To think we were once buds, floating

in her milk belly now rumpled by scars. The more

we learned how to conceive ourselves, her touch

seemed to peel from our stained skin. Summer, the

season of unfolding, was upon us. This was all we

could do to keep from letting go, a ripple of prayer

bidding the spirit to remain in the distance

blossoming between us.

---

CAMILLE ROSAS is a member of the student organizations UP Writers Club and UP Esoterica, and the creative collective SARI. Her interests include alternative literary production, mysticism, and, for someone exceptionally bad at using basic technology, science fiction.

 

I.

 

I need you to do exactly what I say. Take your seatbelts off. Get down 

on the floor in front of your seat. Hold your head over your knees. We’re ok. 

We’re going to be fine. Just stay right there. Don’t lift your heads. 

The cows are going the other way. They’ll be fine. I will tell you when it’s ok 

 

to sit up again. I brought my girls with me on photo shoots.

I didn’t let them beyond the fence, but they watched

from the other side, handing me a different lens, a camera bag

hanging from their small shoulders. The sky wasn’t right this time. 

 

I yelled at them to get away from the fence, to get inside 

my station wagon. Go. I’m coming. Get in the car, girls, close the door. 

 

II.

 

We are 42 acres. We are old-growth white pine. We are 

hemlock. We are centuries. We were purchased in 1883 

to prevent logging. That day destroyed us. We became 

a study sight for ecological restoration. We protected you 

all those years.

 

III. 

 

I remember thinking those trees went on and up  

forever and that they didn’t have tops. I remember us, 

in your Dad’s ’47 baby blue Citroen convertible, on our way 

to the West Cornwall Village Memorial Day Parade, our hair wild 

around us. Or at night, in your mom’s carpool car,

headlights like lanterns moving through the night together.

How it must have looked from out by the white church 

and the open stretch of road.

---

SARAH ANDERSON holds an MFA in poetry from the Warren Wilson Program for Writers. She has 15 years of high school teaching experience. With her husband, she owns and operates The Word Barn in Exeter, NH, a gathering space for literary and musical events, where she runs a reading series as well as writing workshops. Her poems have appeared in various journals, including December Magazine, The Café Review, North American Review, and Raleigh Review.