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3/28/2023 Poetry By Laura Tanenbaum Matteo Paciotti CC
Mama Dough What did the mother dough say? A pink February morning. You have to hear it a few times. Or read it, maybe in a poem. Or hear it in your kitchen from a child with yeasty fingers. Otherwise, you might think it's about a deer, not bread. She says, I want to feel kneaded! So poetic, this matter of yeast & rising dough. Cookbook writers, carried away, wax on about mother earth, forget the matter of cups, mixing and teaspoons. Maybe it's on purpose. A mystification, rendering matters knottier than necessary. As with bread, so with poems. So with mothering, so with mornings. I didn't make up that joke. Late at night, almost on the other side, the child leans close, confesses. Someone told me it. But I'll never tell you who. Laura Tanenbaum is a writer, teacher and parent. She has published poetry and short fiction in many venues including Cleaver, Rattle, Catamaran, Aji. Her essays and book reviews have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The New Republic, Dissent, Entropy, and many other venues. She teaches composition, literature and creative writing at LaGuardia Community College, City University of New York. You can follow her at @LauraTanenbaum on twitter and read her writing at https://lauratanenbaum.substack.com/. 3/28/2023 Poetry By Katherine Schmidt knehcsg CC
I hate the word liminal It’s 3 PM on a Wednesday and I’m dancing to my favorite anime theme song eating mozzarella in the kitchen – so fucking quirky. Yesterday I took a shower for so long the inner curtain fused to the outer. Steam invaded my bedroom and hung there while I lay naked on my bed, best friend on speaker, towel bleeding my pillow from cyan into azure. We cried about grief not yet realized: mine, my parents dying; hers, her own inevitable death. I mentioned how droplets don’t just slide, but also skim and stick. She told me she has a compartment in her fridge just for cheese. I hate the word liminal. You can restart your life at any moment. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise. Katherine Schmidt is a researcher currently based in Washington, D.C. Her poems are published or forthcoming in Thimble Literary Magazine, 3Elements Literary Review, Unbroken, and New Note Poetry. She is a co-founder and co-editor of Spark to Flame Journal. 3/28/2023 Poetry By Kelly Cutchin Flickr CC
Wild Now We are all vanilla and dog hair, spilling like blonde roast from couch to bed to bathtub, saying grace to whoever is responsible for ease. Our lips are pizza grease kisses and I sometimes taste the timid ghost of the woman I was four states ago under his tongue. She covers her eyes, not ready for what comes next, but I tell her we are wild now. We have used fist and palm muddling tears with forgiveness, cast a spell to burn what’s dead but spare the plot of land where we almost dug our graves. We have built a chapel out of clavicle and mandible, cinnamon and marigold petals, held service at four on a Thursday and called it good. We have braided our hair with pappus tufts of dandelions, tied the plaits with piñon bark, lost our heads bare naked in Galisteo Creek. I whisper, No one hunts us anymore. We got away, drove the getaway car clear into the desert. I tell her there is space for her and her dreams of riding horses through mountain passes, a lover following in awe of their luck. She wavers, but I can’t remember why. I tuck her back in, tell her she’ll catch up to us soon. From what I recall, she won’t take long to get free. Kelly Cutchin (she/her/hers) should’ve been named YELLY and is a writer, teaching artist, and workshop facilitator based in suburban Colorado. She is the self-proclaimed DoorDash of downhome holler witches and a human interrobang. You can read more of her rad peculiar poems in Olney Magazine and Querencia Press’ Spring Anthology. 3/28/2023 Poetry By Lynn Tait Dave Cowley CC
janis joplin, cry cry baby I’m in for the diamonds but please call me pearl— an irritation on the half shell, salt in your wound-- so pass me the bottle, pass me that spoon, riding the white horse I’ll be fine, ya know my veins are vinyl. hold me loose brother, the company wants my flesh, my mouth wrapped ‘round their dicks, anyone goin’ down on me ain’t stayin’ long, it’s way too dark down there. did I do ok? I’m still a f-ing freak but with greenbacks in my hair. take me back to san francisco. bury me alive in needles and glass. I’m your southern comfort, your levi lovin’ fix. look! I’m flying! trippin’ but not on stars. I’m goin’ full tilt ‘til I bust. man, this big blue kozmic ride sure as hell beats texas dust. Writing About All This During the Polar Vortex There’s a weather report—another front of unpredictability is heading this way. And why not head directly towards me, right now, right here? It’s happened before, the change that snaps at us. I could compare my life to the story of Job, but that wouldn’t be right. It’s been a good run: all the bad stuff that didn’t happen, all those years dancing to the sound of broken drums, all the paths leading to dead ends, surviving dark sides without light sabres. And I did get exactly what I asked for, forever and in earnest: unto me a son was born-- unaware of an expiry date. Was death the only safety net? “Jesus, look out for him,” I prayed. Perhaps he did exactly that. And in the time it takes a grain of sand to fall, I’m one thing less than I was before. A soundless door slams shut. Everything remains the same yet there’s a minus. A without, but with a business as usual feel to the air, a grounding—while I hover, harness my life to a sled-dog lead, command it to heel; and if not careful, this metaphor will grow larger, more powerful, turn into the black ice and blizzard I’ve been dreading all my life. Lynn Tait is an award-winning poet/photographer residing in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada. Her poems have appeared in FreeFall, Vallum, CV2, Literary Review of Canada, Trinity Review, High Shelf Press, Quarantine Review, Verse/Virtual, Muleskinner, Last Leaves and published in over 100 anthologies. She is a member of the Ontario Poetry Society, the League of Canadian Poets, the Writers’ Union of Canada and associate member of the American Academy of Poets and. Her debut poetry collection You Break It, You Buy It is forthcoming in 2023 with Guernica Editions. 3/28/2023 Poetry By Susan Michele Coronel Till Borchers CC
They called me Redbone but I’d rather be Strawberry Shortcake & they called me Communist but I’d rather be a yucca shrub, my petals boiled & eaten with lemon juice. They called me category when I refused to be defined by the seasons — not spring but sprung, not fall but fallen, not summer but surmounting stereotypes, not winter but winded from walking all night without a sweater. They called me security but none could be found when I was napping, only between my fingers as they lapped against a rainbow of blurred oil. They called me pastel & powder puff, but I was more powerful than soft cake. How I aspired to be Wonder Woman, golden lasso forcing captives to sift facts from a draught of lies manufactured by companies touting toxins, deceptive because sickly sweet. They called me daisy but I was more like burnt toast or shorn blades of grass swinging in a hammock. They named me broken, but I wasn’t born damaged. I only wished to be a sprout hemlocked by magenta spots, mauve & golden with a touch of ambergris. The title of this poem was adapted from the title of Amy Sherald’s painting (2009), They Call Me Redbone but I’d Rather Be Strawberry Shortcake. On Every Page I first became conscious of my mother as a gust of wind, trips to the library with pages flipped, her voice carrying language on kites & tiny prayer flags, stories spilled from dry lips. It was as if she mined the moon for milk but settled on a daughter’s hair that wanted similes & syllables for braids, ribbons woven from tales of strength to overcome. When I was born, I burrowed into songs that she whispered, made louder as I understood what they meant. Now my mother casts shadows on every page I turn, little flicks of ink rising, the movement of my pen on straight lines. She’s not the forest or river I need to keep warm but a voice veering, strange bell that fortresses against losses. I’m hammered on the anvil of time but carried by diaphanous diphthongs, consonants & vowels that nest in corners-- curved & crooked but anaphora blessed. Susan Michele Coronel lives in New York City. Her poems have appeared in numerous publications including Spillway 29, TAB Journal, Streetcake, Gyroscope Review, Redivider, and One Art. She has received two Pushcart nominations. Her first full-length poetry manuscript was a finalist in Harbor Editions' 2021 Laureate Prize. 3/28/2023 Poetry By Sarah A. Rae zmmrc CC
Learning of your death on a gray day in January (for CR, in memoriam) It was later, later than it seemed, that last time I saw you, that last Sunday in April, beginning of daylight time, back when daylight time started then, the hour shift forcing light to shine in angles strange and awkward, everything off-kilter-- you were naked on the couch, had been sleeping, the sun, strong, drowned you in its beams, a ratty blanket fell from your shoulders. You’d just yelled at me to come in after I’d knocked at the front door, and I was there-- to return a book, an LP, to borrow something? Not for sex. That had long since ended (though maybe I was still hoping.) You reached for your jeans, went to get whatever it was. And I’m thinking about that sun now, how it flooded the room, lit dust spinning in the air, spotlighted the coffee table— the silent TV set in front, stacks of yellowed newspapers in the corners, stains on the sofa. I remember wondering what the hell was I there for anyway? What was I looking for? And now with this news I am looking to find you still, Googling your name, searching legacy.com and Facebook, exhuming profiles of friends of friends, people I haven’t thought about for thirty years, those I knew but not too much, some who had seen some trouble, some who had been strung out or served time. Here they are, gazing from photos with partners and kids and guitars and gardens, older and wrinkled, but here, more or less settled, looking more or less healthy and content, and all I can find of you is a grayed-out empty profile with a whited-out outline of a face, only a handful of “friends” listed, and I am wondering, why and how did everyone survive and not you? And I am thinking about that time—how we all tried to act so cool back then, pretending as if nothing really mattered when everything did, the still-fresh scabs picked at too soon, pink skin underneath, tender, bleeding, as we tried to find— Enough. I’m not up for going there again. And I’ve had it with this cold, gray, winter day. Let me call back the light. Let me look beyond the dust, the stains, the newspapers. Let me feel the heat, notice again how the sun gleamed on your skin, how it illuminated the contours of your hard, muscled body, how it shimmered in your long blonde hair. How it shimmered. How it shimmered your hair gold. Sarah A. Rae’s publications include her chapbook, Someplace Else (dancing girl press, 2020), poems in On A Wednesday Night (UNO Press, 2019,) and work in Jet Fuel Review, Burlesque Press, Revista Blanco Y Negro, and Naugatuck River Review, among others. Her translations of poems by the Mexican poet Guadalupe Ángela may be found in Ezra, and in video format in Jill! A Woman+ in Translation Reading Series. A native of Champaign, Illinois, she lives in Chicago 3/27/2023 Poetry By Lucinda Trew Michael Cory CC
metaphor me I say to my lover’s back, curled like early fern over laptop keys metaphor me I repeat til he turns, unfurling wiping smudged glasses, waking from dream make me a color, make me a tree a tsunami, a warrior queen – make me a winter-white crane, a harpsichord with broken strings make me the bread you soak sauce with, the book that falls to your chest, the cheap watch you wind that doesn’t keep time make me a wizard, make me a wand make me a river without any tears make me a chime that strikes in Shakespearean rhyme make me a dragon, make me a swan make me a locket, Minerva’s key a safe to break and a get-away car make me a silver-finned dolphin a golden doubloon, a platinum promise breaking to tin metaphor me then I’ll do you portage If you must carry me find a way to water lift me to your shoulder as you do canoes steady me, steady you scan the path ahead fan your feet for root and hitch of all that lies beneath listen for the whisper-breath the sound of pending wet – thirsty kew of sparrow- hawk, the give of funneled ground read the signs of nearing stream – rising fog, mayfly drone, moss beard on the chin of rock – find the unseen spring and when the river reveals itself, ease me down to earth then cup your hands that held so well so long so close drink from the veil of watershed and set me out to sea Lucinda writes, reads and contemplates the large and small of life in Weddington, N.C. Her poetry and essays have been featured in Timberline Review, Broad River Review, storySouth, Eastern Iowa Review, Mockingheart Review, Flying South and other journals and anthologies. She was named a North Carolina Poetry Society poet laureate award finalist in 2021 and 2022, is a Best of the Net nominee, a 2021 Randall Jarrell Poetry Competition finalist, and a Finishing Line Press New Women’s Voices chapbook finalist. She teaches at Wingate University and lives and writes in Union County, N.C. 3/27/2023 Poetry By Jaimee Boake briantf CC
Failing The principal will tell you he’s prone to violent, volatile outbursts. See that hole in the science lab wall? That’s Logan. Before I ever laid eyes on him, I was made well aware of the many ways he’s broken school rules and property. It’s a long list. But the boy is more bruise than fist. Sure, Logan will arrive late, sour beer on breath, eyes red as an x on a page marking him incorrect. He won’t say sorry. A split-lipped snarl and cut knuckles confirm he chose fighting last night as his extracurricular. Of course he did. When a 15 year old kid stays up to stand guard against his stepfather outside his little sister’s room, can’t sleep, can’t eat, can’t leave, and has to choose to let something go between
of course the answer is d) all of the above A standardized test will tell you he can’t comprehend Shakespeare, is reading at a fifth grade level; he struggles to grasp grammar and never capitalizes i, which is the most heart-rending. The boy should have been more story than ending. Buzzed and bloodied in yesterday’s sweatpants, he was just searching for someone who could see past the page torn from a textbook to the misspelled metaphors in the margins, a poem in spiky scrawl of a child cupping a tiny sparrow in shaky hands. Jaimee Boake (she/her) is a high school English Language Arts, Creative Writing, and Leadership Teacher in Sherwood Park, Alberta (Treaty 6 Territory). She loves reading, writing, spending time with her dogs, and is happiest, always, in the mountains. A recipient of the Martin Godfrey Award for Young Writers, more of her work can be found in various literary magazines and anthologies or on Instagram @jaimeeannethology 3/26/2023 Poetry By Matilda Young Alexandr Trubetskoy CC
For Our Last Anniversary My ex-girlfriend gave me a broken heart. It came out that way in the oven, she said, one of its tiny lobes cracked completely off. Gold with glitter from a Michael’s kit, everything afterwards gold for days, my pockets, my hands, my cell phone case, my soap-grayed, graying hair stuck in the drain. I still love her. She loves my semi-feral cat; she laughed at my dad jokes; she taught me about birds, although I think I am remembering some things wrong. This fall, before it ended, we went to count the chimney swifts, watched them gather like a tornado above a squat brick church, till a thousand circled above us in the darkening sky -- two, three at a time diving impossibly into one narrow chimney, wing to wing, belly to belly, quick as breath. I got her a card that says “you bacon me crazy.” I still have it on my desk. I was waiting for a time I feel less crazy: crazy with grief, crazy with rage, crazy with doom tailgaiting me on 95 in the right lane. Doom doesn’t care I’m going the speed of traffic. Doom doesn’t care that the heart my ex gave me was all that she could give, and that it meant something that she tried. We gave each other our best, already shattered. The shock of icy air like May frost, creeping over the mouths of just hatched swifts, tiny gold mouths. Matilda Young (she/they) is a poet with an M.F.A. in Poetry from the University of Maryland. They have been published in several journals, including Anatolios Magazine, Angel City Review, and Entropy Magazine’s Blackcackle. They enjoy Edgar Allan Poe jokes, not being in their apartment, and being obnoxious about the benefits of stovetop popcorn. 3/26/2023 Poetry By Laura Andrea Franck Michel CC
Good Girls Good girls who hate being good girls stop paying attention at church, clutch their bony fingers and pray for bad boys to love them. Good girls who are virgins are obsessed with the Marias and light candles to not be the next one, eternal, fake. Manicured. Good girls who are virgins who don’t want to be commune with Lilith, Puerto Rican Boa and burn Christmas trees in el campo. These good girls used to make love potions in the bathroom sink with recipes from Barbie doll spellbooks: a pump of pink hand soap, six second pour of Para Mi Bebé cologne Cetaphil bar shavings (must use fingernail) and yellow tap water. These good girls fall in love with better girls: the bad girls who stopped going to church altogether and ran anti-statehood Facebook groups while dressed in all black in the dead of Caribbean summer to signal the coven. They learn to pray for those better girls to love them. They learn that if you ask God you can be a virgin again. The trick is to ask the right God and the right God is no god at all. The good girls meditate because that’s half of witchcraft. They see la Virgen de la Monserrate and their deaf great-grandmother. They cry because their gift is hearing and the bestiary of spells wrinkled into her homemade sign language dies with God- mothers who lead rosary prayers for the hearing. Laura Andrea is a writer from Carolina, Puerto Rico. They hold an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Texas at El Paso and is a 2023 Periplus Fellow. Her work can be found in Luna Luna Magazine, Acentos Review, and Rio Grande Review, among others. They’re the author of ‘genderbi’ (Ghost City Press, 2022) a poetry microchap, and writes the column Monsterfucker for Final Girl Bulletin Board. You can follow her day to day @lauranlora |
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