March Contributors
Izzy Nameth Beck, Allyn Bernkopf, David Calogero Centorbi, Cat Dixon, Deron Eckert, R.M. Engelhardt, Marc Frazier, Devon Fulford, Bex Hainsworth, Adele Hally, Jeff Hardin, Katie Johntz, David Lee, Naomi Bess Leimsider, Joshua Lillie, KG Miles, Tempest Miller, James Morehead, Yvonne Morris, Blair Nelsen, Hailey Paetzel, Cara Paleschi, · R L · powell, Prahi Rajput, Mikki Rios, Brad Rose, Mykyta Ryzhykh, Maisie Kennedy Sherriff, Kalina Smith, Annie Williams, Brandon Yu
Poetry
March Highlights
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anything that casts a shadow
by Joshua Lillie
“I’m what happens when you surprise an armadillo / with a weekend trip to Pensacola. / I’m the face in the crowd that you can’t quite place. / Am I your uncle? I’m too young to be your uncle.”
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the legend of thumbelina as generational trauma: glosa on sylvia plath’s “lady lazarus”
by Kalina Smith
“The apples didn’t fall far / from the gnarled family tree, / covered in cockchafers / who kill the lilies and violet, / burning every shred of beauty down / in just a moment’s flash.”
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remedy
by Bex Hainsworth
“It's been fifteen years since I allowed / her fussing, but now we both indulge. / I can’t say which balm soothes the burn. / When she slips teabags into my suitcase, / I smile, hold close her charms.”
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museum for the somnambulists
by James Morehead
“We’re together in the galleries / holding hands and pointing / Your father joyous after Canadian Thanksgiving / my father’s father unreadable over a poker hand…”
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ass
by Tempest Miller
“A donkey bites my hair / a bear hides in a tree / a bear hides in a tree / but the donkey kicks back legs into a woodburner / and lets go…”
two poems
by Sumayya Arshed
“the car hums like a throat clearing before confession, / fear sits beside her, always by her side, / palpable as sweat sinking into vinyl seats…”
two poems
by Len Kuntz
“…when it hugs you pats your back says Son you’re a tall bastard now that laugh again his new set of eyes nearly as black as the ants that danced throughout our home the ones that still come looking.”
four poems
by a.d.
“Having sated his calling, the prostitute / returns under the first blush / of dawn, & in the vestry smothers / his hard-earned holiness.”
five poems
by Clay Waters
“How do we do it / messing up our very first garden, / embarrassments / buried in squared-off corners, / forebears crucified on palm frond, / thorny warnings…”
two poems
by Mykyta Ryzhykh
“When I buried you the oceans didn't move however / When I buried you it didn't rain and nothing changed / When I buried you I realized that you still hear and even breathe”
pascal’s death
by Nick Power
“Pascal’s death was a cliffhanger / merciful and swift like the maintenance train / the Kinsellas got him – / one in the ear one in the eye, like Morningstar / he lay there outside The Blood Tub / beneath flashing Bass / a contented Sealion…”
five poems
by Robert Sheppard
“…nature’s resonating chamber / perfectly formed and moulding pure / breath / into a song that will never die – / honed by judgement / of restraint / and extension, phrasing / speech into song / Stardust!”
three poems
by Mark McConville
“The glow / The gleam / The light that cuts through the darkness…”
three poems
by Geoffrey Aitken
“it was said his hat rested / on the hook by the door. / convenience, / might have been why.”
five poems
by Emma Johnson-Rivard
“We were abandoned to our mantras. / You know, like a bomb.”
cider teeth
by Tempest Miller
“Soho shakes as he walks through / combat boots, Carnaby street, leather jacket / his collar turned up leaning on the black bollard…”
three poems
by Francesca Leader
“…it sounds like you, sliding / into my dark bed, matching your/soft metal to my / tender ore, the safety of a door *clicking* shut—fit / tight, world contained.”
five poems
by William Teets
“Some wayward detachment tries to change his providence by texting with Satan. Seeks true love—the kind you find spray-painted on overpasses, carved into bark—to modify his heart, heal his Lonely Avenue blues.”
five poems
by Noah Berlatsky
“The potato chip does not have dominion over me. / I have dominion over the potato chip!”
ancestry
by John Jeffire
“A Navy machinist’s mate second class, he died on November 24, 1943, when his ship the USS Linscome Bay was torpedoed by a Japan submarine. He was 22.”
three poems
by Jacob Butlett
“Growing weary, I continue writing words: / unthumbed magazines, dusty side tables, fake petunias / in plastic pots—too many petals to count.”
three poems
by Jonathan Chan
“i have mastered the contours of this island. / i have made straight the crags of its coast. / i have removed water from the salt of the sea. / i have burned everything to the fecundity of dust.”
five poems
by john compton
“—the neurologist explains: / nerves / in your nose / remember something dead / & the putrid scent / are their memories…”
five poems
by Jeffrey Zable
“Receiving a call on my landline from some realty guy, he says, / ‘I heard that you’re interested in selling your house. Could you / please answer some questions. . .’”
your majesty
by Shaylynn Marks
“Arms lifted, he commands, “Have Miss Marks blow.” / In that deep, Appalachian twang—native to West Virginia./ I said, “of course, your majesty” with a wink / And a curtsy, I blew the little Jail in West Virginia down.”