On the eastbound commute

to my university

at dawn

on Tuesday

the morning clouds

are not spun sugar sticky skin—

they are not the faded red

of your upturned lips

waiting

or the slippery rose of me

after us.

 

There are hints

a persisting hopefulness

a smattering tang

on my tongue

in my Jeep

            beyond the apartment where I left

you reaching

below our bedclothes

and

 

once the persistent golden

light claws

just past

the first of the horizon

and lifts and melts on the low sky

 

everything has changed.

I have already neglected my focus

I was trying to remember

the subtle

specifics of pink.

---

DEVON FULFORD is a writer and English instructor at Colorado State University. While most of her prior publication history has been in educational writing, she has been honored with publication of various fiction, non-fiction, and poetry endeavors in the Same literary journal, Handbasket Magazine, Foundpolaroids.com, and others. Devon resides on the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains with her partner Levi and their chocolate Labrador, The Walrus. She has Masters degrees in both Education and in Creative Writing, and is currently pursuing her Doctor of Education in transformative leadership. In her pockets of free time, Devon can be found riding her Triumph Street Twin, hiking with her family, and attending live musical shows.

after John Singer Sargent’s “Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose”

when i 

grow up

i would like

to stay

like this– 

among 

the flowers.

 

the lamp 

glows dimly

across my sister’s

face, curls floating 

in the breeze.

 

her lips are painted

red from pomegranates

that we ate just before,

fingers digging in 

and ripping skin, 

seeds spilling across

the grass, juice pooling

in the crook 

of my arm.

 

i can see one 

seed now,

peeking between 

pink roses. it looks 

like fire in the night, 

smoldering.

i feel

the earth 

continue to

turn.

 

my sister looks so grown 

with her white gown 

but she

is only 7, i 

am only 11.

 

why are you 

watching me?

 

who are you waiting 

for me to become?

---

GRACE McGOVERN is a writer from Chicago waiting for the one week of spring to kick in. Grace’s work has appeared in OUT/CAST, Open Minds Quarterly, and Illinois’ Best Emerging Poets Anthology, and she was the recipient of the 2016 and 2018 Academy of American Poet’s University Prize.

 

Shadroch Minkins walked out federal prison.

I

hear, beneath the dearth of sky, 

hear, the buried dead in a seated posture.

“follow the drinking gourd! 

follow the drinking gourd!”

 

Hear, an empty search warrant to the soul 

A hand quaint flirted a bone heap, wooded patrol,

     dim and dark runs, from Mobile Alabama up the Tombigbee only runs

cold in the woodcutters veins; not among black—

 

what stalks in silence                      against the black skies 

in cover of mother sky.

Let lantern, enter-  

let petals regard the light

now let me fly, now let me fly.

 

II

Search the deepest hollow,                         the light is in the east

fill a pattern transformed,            the song talks of the promised land.

 

In the common lilies, among the shadows 

Property-less breath, heart, sweat, nose

there were lions in the way, I don’t expect to stay much longer – this ancient game of go

 

III

The canary in the coal-mine, my drum fell where the dead

turn pale-faced, no turmoil, 

nor sweat nor tears nor sweat, 

a sympathizer in the stocks

the cabin offers exigency plans.

Foaming dogs tear            lyrics nor, by strict lines of undergrowth. 

 

Hear, the city where once, children dreamt of life, 

hear where Dad happened        to pass an angel 

 

Hear, it falls from the sky. 

In the surrounding air and the surrounding sea.

 

this extradition has no space to hold

a democracy like instinct                           opens a shuttered eye.

---

JONATHAN ANDREW PÉREZ, Esq. has published poetry online and in print in Prelude, The River Heron Review, The Write Launch, Meniscus Literary Journal, Rigorous Literary Journal, The Florida Review’s Latinx publication, Panoply Magazine, the Raw Art Review, Junto Magazine, Watermelanin, Cold Mountain Review’s Justice Issue, Yes, Adelaide Literary Magazine, Mud Season Review, Meat for Tea: The Valley Review, The Esthetic Apostle, The Piltdown Review, The Tulane Review, The Tiny Journal, The Westchester Review, Metafore Magazine, Silver Needle Press, and Swimming with Elephant. He has poems forthcoming in Projector Magazine, Cape Cod Poetry Review, The Chicago Quarterly Review, The Worcester Review, Abstract: Contemporary Expressions, Quiddity on NPR, Cathexis Northwest Press, Ars Poetica 2019, and Pamplemousse.

Jonathan was selected by The Virginia Quarterly Review 2018 for a workshop with Jericho Brown and Cave Canem in 2018 and 2019 for workshops. He is a 2019 Pushcart Prize in Poetry Nominee.

He has a day job as a prosecutor. He is currently working on his first collection, “Victomology Pastoral” about racial history and natural destruction.

think flat line that

sunlight punched through,

ragged pulsing star,

quiescent glowstick 

cracking the room.

 

picture the space between

two fingers,

light setting fire to vein

until leaf hums 

a quiet fuse. 

 

words take on their lot 

and i choke on walls 

and all their fume. i think seal

and ceiling and lip with no hinge,

arm with no elbow.

 

a room with no square of light is

trying to know your own mouth

with no tongue. any wet spot

in dark room  

may as well be blood.

 

i hemorrhage 

drool, sweat, the stuff of my womb,

swell with fever and shiver a dream

of talons. 

i claw a hole in the wall and 

wake up to the sun,

 

stick my tongue out at the dark

as it dries out like a scab,

curls and unfurls and falls,

leaving behind a pale shadow

that has almost ears, almost stray hairs,

almost fingers, reaching for sun.

---

ALISON LANDES is a women’s health nurse and sometimes neglectful cat mom living in San Francisco. She writes on the themes of trauma and womanhood, often on the nearest paper towel, often between snuggles with other people’s babies

 

1. Ashen is the highway of my tongue. Someone ran out of gas and pulled over. Accidentally smudged its pinkness and disappeared into the woods. The aftertaste, caustic. I don’t know how long it will take for my tongue to recover its blandness. 

2. Hell, I didn’t even charge a toll fee. Soot, they say is an acquired taste. When you have passed a certain age, nothing is sweeter than bittersweet.  My tongue is still learning the craft. 

3. A friend fragrant with self-consumption had once asked me. Pick one: One great fulfilling love story for your life or a lot of mediocre, even decent affairs? Before I could answer, the madman passed out drunk. I’m still mad at him because I think he left me a permanent lump in my throat. 

4. I don’t want to move tonight. I want to be a plant, even better a flower. Oblivious to beauty. How otherwise can one practice the virtuosity of ignorance in an age where information and technology scheme to make a love child every night? 

5. I press into the sliding door of my balcony. Willing it to bend and wrap me inside an éclair. Then save me on the windowpane for the morning birds. I would explode inside them. The possibilities two fold. Either, I become a bird. Or they turn human. 

6. I want to be a cinder that’s still keen to burn in love. Even if it is to die from the ordeal. Desperate times call for desperate measures. And is there anything as desperate as the desire to be pitied? 

7. I cried for fun while stuck in a traffic jam yesterday. Because I saw a man peeing on the cracked sidewalk. A thousand cars watching him sprout. Such a pathetic spectacle. But oh, I could kill to be a spirit like that. Free of affectation, a cat without whiskers. Absolved of presence, a god without followers. 

8. I’m the most empathetic and the most narcissistic person I know. Typical human strain. Bones smeared with the blood of duplicity. Flesh baked from oxymoron dough. There, I’ve arrived at a plan for Monday. To rise feeble. Resurrect by noon. Meander through dusk. And retreat to myself by night.

---

SATYA DASH‘s recent poems have been published or are forthcoming in Passages North, Prelude, The Florida Review, Porridge amongst others. He has dabbled with short fiction in the past and been a cricket commentator too. He spent his early years in Odisha, India and has a degree in electronics from BITS Goa. Now he lives in Bangalore and recites his poetry in the city’s cafes. Twitter Handle – https://twitter.com/satya043

 

We shoulder everyone to the bar,

seagulls swish past floor to ceiling

windows, the air’s familiar and the lighting

just orange enough to flatter.

 

I can’t speak

to the bartender. He’s a deaf

and blind orang-utan

he thinks I’m asking for medical aid.

 

Besides, that’s when you put your

hand on my wrist. It is the balm

of a Portuguese night, the Algarve Sun

the apocalypse by flaming meteor.

 

I cannot keep my eyes off the nape

of your neck, imagining a miniature

surfer gliding down your brown back

where everything becomes warm and touchable.

 

You pronounce my name like it’s chocolate,

like it’s the name of your hometown,

like you have practiced.

 

When I stop rambling about the dialectics

of being a shitfaced mess, you buy me

another drink (is it water?) and a choice

presents itself: to leave forever or stay

till one of us dies, till one of us breaks a vow.

You know my answer because I’ve cried

it out in grocery stores, I’ve poured

it onto strangers’ heads

 

I’ve given it to pregnant women, I’ve painted

it on the walls of suburbia, I’ve drank

enough tonight anyways — You know

 

I will sit cross legged, both arms raised

like a wagon, ready to be hauled

filled with dirt or water or something

more sinister, down to the place where you dispose

 

of my contents. I am ready to be emptied,

embraced, embarrassed, lubricated

fabricated, dreamt, sent home,

sent to heaven, pulled, dragged, drowned.

 

You cannot read my mind but I can read yours

 

You’re in for a treat.

You’re in for a have-I-wedded-a-psycho treat.

The answer, with me, is always yes.

---

Montreal native CAMILLE BROWN stumbled upon the city of Vancouver, BC at the crisp age of 19. This is where she formed a band and released her first EP, After Earth. She has since been attending UBC’s Undergraduate Creative Writing program, writing songs, poems and occasional short screenplays. She now goes under the name Malade and is working on her first solo record.