Kumweni CC




My brother, dead at thirty-three

Sometimes I blame psychiatry.
The meds: his mind made dull and flat,
His body swollen with its fat.

Or I could blame society:
None of his traumas were his fault.
He broke his leg. He witnessed shots
One time. Another night, some cops
Beat him, then charged him with assault.

Sometimes I blame myself. He should
Have come and lived with me… If I
Had spent more time with him…  And why…

My brother would just let it go.
He loved loud music, sweet fried food.
Bad movies. Grunge. Taking it slow.





Night Vision

The ridgeline’s sharp across the valley—dark
Sky, but much darker hills, a perfect line
Of dark, without a single light. The stark
Line must be something like the sight, sublime
And common, people saw ten thousand years
Ago, when we were part of nature, not
Apart from it. The thought invites, not fear,
But awe, fear’s older, wiser kin. A lot
Of what we think we know is just 
Fleeting, invented for a momentary whim,
When what we need is deeper, darker. In
This bowl of dark within the ridgeline’s rim,
Coyote howls express a human sense of sin,
And stars above seem ancient human dust.





Summer song 

Kayaks
slide
by
fast.
Why ask
why?
Abide.
Relax.
The season’s
got reasons.
Namely:
That tree;
my daughter;
this water.




Eric Colburn’s poetry has been published in The Literary Review, Appalachia, Blue Unicorn, The Orchards, THINK Journal, and other places. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree from MIT and lives with his family in Cambridge, MA, where he rides his bicycle everywhere.

     Flickr CC




On Considering a Move to the Country

This was once Factory Hill, a mill 
town that dammed a creek for power. 
High Rock Knitting Company, hollow 
now beside the spillway, wintry pallor, 
red doors steeped in brick. Elegant 
lintels still frame the view, windows--
some boarded, some broke. Beyond 
the building, water plunges down fifteen 
hundred feet of craggy rockface, spectacular 
display, rainbows of ghost yarn billowing 
in the spray. 
                         Mere yards from the cliff, 
I spot a wayward kayak—must have washed 
up in the storm—oarless, orange, caught 
in the brambles, nose lifted, sniffing the wind.

​


​Karen Hildebrand is the author of Crossing Pleasure Avenue (Indolent Books). Recent poems appear or are forthcoming in Braving the Body (Harbor Editions), LEON, Mom Egg Review, No Dear, Pigeon Pages, Rust+Moth, Scoundrel Time, Slipstream, Southern Florida Poetry Review, SWIMM, Trailer Park Quarterly, Maintenant, and Beacon Radiant (great weather for MEDIA). Her writing on dance appears in Fjord Review and The Brooklyn Rail, and she has hosted podcast episodes for Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. She lives in Brooklyn.
​

    jxj CC




The Difference Between Midwest & Southern Hospitality

No surprise, I am still waiting for snow. Mine is
a shoes-off kind of one-bedroom one-bathroom
this side of campus. Nowhere near the Greek houses,
so it’s quiet. A seven-minute drive from the designated
free speech zone. I look for excuses to get out of town.
The festivals have different names, different vendors,
no parking. I bring strawberry shortcake
trifle, fresh guacamole, & powdered lemonade
to the party, no matter the occasion: A funeral.
An occupation. A teacher’s going away picnic. As long
as the fruit is in season. As long as I use
my mother’s recipe. The trees are bleeding
yellow onto the sidewalks & car windshields.
The caseworker at the hospital calls me baby doll.
I ask my gyno if she is planning on leaving the state.

​



Aubade with Affirmations & a Dirty Kitchen

Forgot to run the dishwasher last night.
I wipe the knife on my t-shirt. I’m so fuckable

it’s ridiculous. I wash dishes by hand & the leftover green sauce
& yellow crumbs don’t touch my skin & make me want to die.

I have gloves for that. I’m so fuckable it hurts.
Only some of my waking hours are consumed

by other people’s feelings. Last night, I gave up
my bed in favor of the couch for fun, 

so that I could watch the sunrise through the screen door
& now I don’t need to straighten the sheets,

the comforter, or the pillows. I have better
things to do. In three hours or so, 

I will fill out a questionnaire on the quality
& sound of my thoughts in front of a nurse

& score highly. Tomorrow, I will wake up & hear
every version of “It Had to Be You” at once.

A traveling tour of Les Misérables is coming to town.
Soon after, the State Fair, with food trucks & pigs.




Madison Lazenby is a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet living in the Midwest. She has been the recipient of fellowships from Brooklyn Poets, the Looking Glass Rock Writers' Conference, and the Kettle Pond Writers’ Residency. She is currently a poetry reader for $ - Poetry is Currency and has been recognized by the Academy of American Poets.
​

     Jochen Spieker CC




Milk of dreams

i walked without walking
snowbound, with the deer
up to the heights 
where all that matters
is the inevitable turn of sky 

when it becomes as sharp
as a disembodied dream

they are everywhere, the deer
even in the soul of winter
as nothing dies and everything does
even in the city that lags behind 
me, distant as a wayward child

and as wilful, daring
to let go of what has somehow
salvaged me

like the trees that must now become
significant, reaching up
to where the constellations 
are carved out
of broken antlers

by way of pilferage

here, nothing speaks and yet
they are, tough as an entrance
and as unforgiving
as the milk
they curdle into being

                (a masterful stroke, of practiced hands)

into strings, like stars, of all our jawbone
magnitude

​

​

Milla van der Have is a Gemini. She is the author of 3 chapbooks. Her latest collection Ox and Mandarin | Wayfaring Strangers is published in English by Dancing Girl Press and in Spanish by Ril Editores. Milla lives in Utrecht, The Netherlands. She is the host of Poetry Lit!

     Flickr CC




Mahålang

mahålang
in my Chamorro language
relates to expressions of longing
sentiments of sadness

there are some words
we learn through experience
and some words
we become through experience

example of the first
i felt mahålang when my brother died
example of the second
i am mahålang for my brother

when I was a little girl
i used a mnemonic device
a memory trick to
remember it

my poetic inclinations
and love of literature
led me to use a lovely device 
called alliteration

the repeating of
initial same letter or sound
in neighboring words such as
mahålang means missing

missing someone
missing home
missing what once was
missing what is no longer

feelings of nostalgia
intense desire for something unreachable
deep yearning for the familiar
symptoms of homesickness

it is wanting to return
to a person place or thing
aching for what is absent from our lives
wishful thinking

an intermittent discharge
steam rising from a spring 
turbulent tears bursting
geysers of our grief

mahålang yu’ nu hågu.
what it means
in English translation 
i miss you

​


Chanelle Pingree is an indigenous Chamorro poet and writer from the Pacific Island of Guam. She holds a B.A.in Philosophy and minor in Asian Studies. Her work has been published in Libretto Magazine, The Southern Quill, Epiphany, Salt Lake City Public Library Zine and Pacific Daily News. She is a raging bookworm and is passionate about education, philosophy, saving public libraries, mental health advocacy, space exploration, and environmentalism. She thoroughly enjoys discussing and writing about existential topics highlighted in science fiction, fantasy books, comics, and films. She explores the cosmos full-time living in a TARDIS with her bearded Viking husband and two brilliant sons.

    Tripp CC



Quandary

Because when I think about it
it is a raincoat
under an umbrella
over boots

It is not, as I forgot to say
a means of fending off the rain

It is a way forward
a means of getting the wrong things
the dissonant things
to slide off 

It is, as I said before
a means of slipping through

The things we know we shouldn’t
acquiesce, yet, we do
even though they add, 
they add up
they add to

We don’t know any other 
way forward
it is not, as I said before
a means to being better

You like it to be liked
You like it to like yourself
You like it to pretend you don’t 
have a hand in it 

When all you have is a hand
And so many thumbs up
For so many things
That add up to nothing





​What I Know
 
I belly up to a table
spend the night
drinking vodka cranberry’s
from the girl in fishnets.
Banter with the Filipino
Guy who plays for a living
Hands High Let ‘em Fly
and nod to the Boxman.

I know I won the pass line 
bet on the come-out roll and
I know playing from the dark side
is risky if I want to make friends
but sometimes I do it anyway. 
Hard & horny doesn't mean
what you think it means, but
I know ten the hard way is still
a woman’s best friend.

Lay, push, come, don’t come.
Big Dick, Little Joe, like all
the men of my youth,
I know those dice have no memory.
They always make their way back to me,
but they are perfect strangers
every time I pick ‘em up.

I know when to place a lay bet.
I know if the numbers came hard.
I know entire evenings spent
tossing dice, tossing drinks,
tossing my hair, playing the field.
I know my kids are getting
themselves ready for school.
My money, my dignity
ten hours of precious,
dwindling life: vaporized.
Because of what I know.




​
Monalisa Maione is a Pushcart-nominated poet and visual artist. She suffered a brainstem stroke which left her with neurodivergent aphasia, synesthesias and sometimes difficult neurological fluctuations previously unfamiliar to her. These symptoms inform her life in mysterious ways, and she lives her life hour by hour. Her poems have been accepted into the anthology “30 Years of the San Luis Obispo Poetry Festival,” “The Long Islander,” Great Weather for Media NYC “I Let Go of the Stars in My Hand,” “Cultural Weekly L.A.,” “The Fem” and “B O D Y.”  Monalisa is an accomplished reader, featuring at San Francisco’s Beat Museum, Beyond Baroque in Venice Beach, The San Luis Obispo Poetry Festival, The Tanta International Poetry Forum in Egypt where her work is translated into Arabic, Culture Rapide for Paris Lit Up, and Au Chat Noir/La Cave Cafe Spoken Word in Paris, France (where she also resides). Poetry is her constant companion. 
​

    Billy Bergen CC





Gospel of Rosie


My best friend Rosie loves to bake.

She puts her hair up in a bun and rolls up her sleeves,

and whatever she makes, she makes at least two dozen.

She says she only does things all the way.

It's all about the investment.

It's with-rolled-up-sleeves, or not at all, she says.


She hand-delivers plates to loved ones

on Sunday afternoon dinners,

cascades through rooms like wheels live on the bottoms of her feet.

In and out she flies from kitchen to living room

with cups and plates in her hands and balanced on arms

because part of loving

is serving

and every time she hands you a silver spoon

to eat your ice cream with she is actually

remembering everything her grandmother ever taught her

about love.


My Rosie loves Italian wine paired with Manchego.

She pairs it with a rich Tempranillo,

she can tell you why they're good together.

Sometimes I call her from the market and I say,

“Rosie, I'm at Capellas. I am buying wine to go with Manchego Fresco.

What kind should I get?"

She laughs and I fall in love with our friendship again, for the seven thousandth time.

"Get the Tempranillo, Crazy," she says to me with all the confidence in the world.

She laughs because she thinks that my phone call from the grocery store

is what I consider "an emergency,"

but the truth is, I remembered what kind of wine to get before I called.

I just wanted to hear Rosie's voice.

She taught me the beauty of a ritual, and now I can't get enough of them.


My Rosie brushed and french-braided my hair on my birthday last year,

had me sit down in front of her cross-legged as she sat stooped up above me

on the chair.

This was the position of Saturday evenings with my grandmother as a child.

I always stared straight ahead, head perfectly still,

but I could feel her through her hands.

It was more than enough.

The truth is, I'm not sure I've ever felt closer to another person than on those nights

when I sat in front of my grandmother, wordless.


My Rosie who brushes my hair,

drives to hospitals at night,

sometimes after our phone conversation where she tells me

about the Manchego and the rich Tempranillo.

I guess it's a testament to the fact that we can be

two things at once.

I guess it’s a testament to the fact that

we do it all the time. 

She doesn't tell anyone about the hospitals. She doesn’t even tell me.

According to her she goes for the warmth of their blankets,

but she told me later that ever since she was diagnosed with a chronic illness

she's  afraid that she's dying

and she just needs somebody to tell her that she's not.

Yeah, I think that's how it started, the more I think about my Rosie the more I think it started small,

a need for reassurance one cold night, a touch on the arm from a stranger

in a white coat with credentials

and eyes that have special powers to see inside bodies.

I think she started thinking that every time she got afraid, she could go

to the men in white coats with super-power-eyes, the ones who walk into the room after the

ones who hand you super-power-blankets

and she could be pronounced "suitable for a normal life."


It's almost like a production, you wait for the curtain to open and

the white coat man to enter.

She told me that she has sat for hours before watching feet walk back and forth

underneath hospital curtains, studying shoes and the way people step: 

some quickly, haphazardly, gently, carelessly, lazily,

Lovingly.

When the white coat man entered,

he counted Rosie’s heartbeats,

he listened to her lungs,

he pressed down on various parts of her body,

"You

aren't

dying,"

he  announced,

and every time he said it it may as well have been a speech from the president

for how prolific it sounded to her ears.

And when she left that night,

her shoes

were the hopeful ones.


She asked me once,

"Does anybody else ever wish that

the white coat man

was your father?

Has anyone ever thought it?"

My Rosie told me once that her father

used to close all the blinds in the house, shut every window tight.

Some nights when he hadn't taken his medicine

he would make her push all the furniture in front of every entrance and exit to the house.

He said they couldn't leave.


He said they mustn't talk or they might hear us

and she never knew who they were

but only that she loved them, all of them.

Why?

Because he did.

So they pushed lazy boy chairs, dressers, end-tables in front of the front door.

When people kept asking her why on earth she would have done that

the only answer that she could think of to explain it was:

because he makes the best omelette on Saturday mornings,

or,

because his smile is warm like the sun.

I guess it's a testament to the fact that we can be two things at once.

I guess it's a testament to the fact that we do it all the time. 


So, he made her barricade the world out

and crouch down alongside him next to the door

until the rustling of people subsided

When my Rosie got older, she spotted postmen from far away and watched them push their mail carts down sidewalks,

and door-to-door salesmen,

and women who planted flowers in yards on bended knee as though in prayer,

they were the Amen women, they were the Oh Mercy Me! women.

They were the people who mowed their lawns, and well, pretty much everyone else who walked outside.
She waves at them.

That's my Rosie. Sometimes she can’t stop looking, and waving.

I think it's why she loves people as much as she does.

I think it's because she loved them long before she ever knew them.

She stared at them through secret openings and tiny crevices within boarded up houses

and, well, you could spend a lot of time gathering up your love in a place like that.

It's with-rolled-up-sleeves, or not at all, she says.


I go around now telling people about my Rosie.

I go around telling them about duality

and how we all stand so close to our own edges

and I write stanzas of poetry that are mostly about the good things that Rosie does

because the world is full of people who become addicted to something

and sometimes the thing they become addicted to, is a thought,

and it doesn't erase their Love. Or their omelettes. 

In fact, sometimes,

it just makes all of it so much stronger.

And what I try to do now, is point out the Gospel of 

All The Other Things They Do That Matter.


So here goes:

My Rosie loves to bake. She's beyond her years in the art of shortbread-making.

She is the only woman, besides my grandmother,
​
who has ever attempted to brush my hair

and see it through to the end.

She is a connoisseur of cheese and wine and

is resourceful enough,

even in the depths of her compulsion,

to see the beauty in the tops of people's sneakers.

Lovingly, life-changingly:  those are yours, my Rosie.

Your sneakers are the loving ones





This Is How I Tend, A Poem for Community


When we commit to a practice

we make it a habit

I’ve learned so many ways

to pray / 

This is how I tend 


Like walking at the same time

every day, for instance, 

and passing the same Apostle Plant
 
on 27th Street

It knows my name,

I know its name

We bow to one another /

This is how I tend 


Repetition doesn’t broadcast its notoriety

and it might not tell you because it's humble

but it secretly heals:

holds our tears

kneels next to them 

makes them tea with honey /

This is how I tend 


We listen 

not with words

but with the ability to 

live inside    a pause

to build a nest 

so that you can rest

a nest, soft like feathers 

so that you will have a place to land

that maybe looks like my eyes,

my voice, my breathing, 

all simply vehicles 

that we lend 

that we offer 

for communion / 

This is how we tend 


and I am trying to take my ego out of it

so that I can simply be part of the frame  

like landscape: like a trellis

that you will remember quietly standing there 

when you look back some day 

because I don’t need to relate 

or even understand 

in order to be a witness /

This is how I tend 


Your emotion

is not weakness

It is majestic 

like the ocean 

It has seen every kind of weather 

and people still visit it

because it is: 

alchemy, chemistry,

awakening, resonance

and we need it 

to live. /

This is how I tend


You waited with me

in the pandemic

as we grieved the loss of

the Theater of Love

the loss of

tactile costume gloves

and stage managing light

that reflects off of faces,

and the excited energy bouncing off walls

before the show,

the trays of cakes and brownies 

We always cherish that part, you and I 

When we feed you it means we love you /

This is how we tend 


It wasn’t an obligation

but our truest inclination

my deepest intention

to listen / without solving 

This is how I tend 


We water 

the garden

so that we can see it

blossom

We nurture

the fire

so that we can feel

its warmth


We tend

We connect 

We care

We shepherd

We hold space

collectively

We gather with other beings 

with patience and in genuflection 


We bless

We pray

We seek 

We listen 

We grow 

We look after 

We watch over /

This is how we tend 


We didn’t know 

that the caregiving

from our own hands

could heal wounds

That the care from another’s hands

could heal ours

It happened when we weren't looking 

Transformation is quiet, like grass swaying /

This is how we tend


It was presence

that has shifted my position in this world

It is connection

that nourishes 

us back to health /
​
This is how we tend 




Ana Marie Boyd is a poet, writer, and educator who lives in Eugene, Oregon. A graduate of the University of Oregon, she studied English literature, psychology, and world religions. Raised in a multiracial and multigenerational home, her writing seeks to explore themes around family heritage, personal identity, pandemic loss, grief/trauma, spirituality, and reckoning.
​

     Martin Cathrae CC




Long Division
​
In the framed photo 
that sits on a dusty sill, 
the two of us draped
in a landscape of wildflowers,
flowers only you could name:

larkspur, foxglove, yarrow.

We were envied
for our spirit and the grace 
in which we walked, talked, and loved.

You believed in the overall 
goodness of every gesture,
I fixated on details, 
dissecting all we  shared:

larkspur, foxglove, yarrow.

I was the worst of us.
You had the more genuine smile,
the thicker hair, the thinner frame,
the floating gait, the accepting heart.

This kind of love between opposites
 can only remain intact
when put in a gilded frame:

larkspur, foxglove, yarrow.

We parted in summer, 
when the lavender bushes were in full scent.

Now, approaching another bloom
you come back to me, but only in this photo 
where we walk those blooming paths:

larkspur, foxglove, yarrow.

 Once, in an uninterrupted dream,
I saw you in a crowded bar--
a place you would never enter... 
far from rural hideouts.

You were surrounded by friends, 
the kind I have now that you are gone
they loved you, not me. 

In this dream, you were the best of us. 
I am foolish to ignore the years falling 
like rusty coins from a frayed pocket.

When I stare at the photo,
engraving your weak smile into memory,
I still try to do the math of forgiveness,
but you are bent on long division.

Sister, sharer of secrets, maker of plans
until the plans never ripened 

Unlike, larkspur, foxglove, yarrow.





Balance

I could write endlessly 
about all things foreboding
hurricanes and turbulence
more likely due to  warmer air 
that reminds us of a season 
we hope to thrive in.

From  June's blossoms come 
a life in harvest,  
dark soil blankets the roots 
of all that green:
a pasture, cross haired vines, 
meadows abundant with wild petals 
every bloom opens in summer's endless embrace.
We live as if nothing will ever end.

But, an end always comes,
hurricanes and turbulence takeover
a country's spirit, a body's betrayal,
an erosion of simple kindness.

Yet, somewhere a child 
is learning to ride a wave,
a mother is picking lilacs and lavender,
a father holds the seat of a two wheel bike
promising not to let go. 

We all need that balance 
to embrace an endless summer state of mind
while dancing in the eye of a storm.





​Laurie Kuntz has published six poetry collections (That Infinite Roar, Gyroscope Press, Talking Me Off The Roof, Kelsay Books, The Moon Over My Mother’s House, Finishing Line Press, Simple Gestures, Texas Review Press, Women at the Onsen, Blue Light Press and  Somewhere in the Telling, Mellen Press). Simple Gestures, won the Texas Review Poetry Chapbook Contest, and Women at the Onsen won the Blue Light Press Chapbook Contest. 
​
She has been nominated for four Pushcart Prizes and two Best of the Net Prizes. She won a Pushcart Prize in 2024.
 
Her work has been published in Autumn Sky, Gyroscope Review, Roanoke Review, Third Wednesday, One Art, Sheila Na Gig, The Bloomsbury Review, The MacGuffin, The Louisville Review, The Charlotte Poetry Review, The Roanoke Review, The Southern Review, The Eleventh Muse, Poetry Miscellany, The New Virginia Review, Crosscurrents, The South Florida Review, The Contemporary Review, and many other literary journals and anthologies. 

     Flickr CC




Binomial
            — a mathematical expression consisting of two terms connected 
            by a plus sign or a minus sign.
                                                               (Merriam-Webster)


Two horses grazed apart, 
one on each side of the corral 
split in half by a stockade fence 
stretching up and disappearing
over the grassy hill. The chestnut
watched the dappled gray, more
gaze than graze in her stance.
It may have gone on forever,
not the fence receding, but
the longing the horses felt
to be near one another, 
the same ache I still feel 
when I miss my mother’s voice. 
It’s easy to forget it’s not my job
to put the world back together.
Six hours and an axe, I could
probably take that fence down,
split and cast the cedar rails,
just fence post stumps
sticking up from the ground. 
Two weeks before she died
I asked her why she wanted
her ashes in an urn behind 
a granite slab. She told me
she’d always lived too far away 
to be scattered in some ocean
so it all became about remaining 
whole. There is no ocean, no lake,
or even a river for miles around 
here—just a pasture beyond
the corral, beyond the fence line 
stretching to the sunrise, 
mirages in the blurred distance 
of perspective, into which 
the separate horses now run.

​



Timothy Geiger is the author of the poetry collections Weatherbox, (winner of the 2019 Vern Rutsala Poetry Prize from Cloudbank Books), The Curse of Pheromones, and Blue Light Factory. His newest collection, In a Field of Hallowed Be, is forthcoming in September 2024 from Terrapin Books. He lives on a small farmstead in Northwest Ohio and teaches Creative Writing, Poetry, and Book Arts at the University of Toledo.

     Dane CC




A Tendril & Two Nasty Peas in a Pod

I’m 6 to 8 years old, because 
who concentrates on birthdays 
in these circumstances?

Snapping shut the cobalt suitcase’s 
faux leather shell. Gold latches, scuffed 
shoes shuffling the garden’s dirt.

Back by the well, at the edge of our land. 
His land & her land, to be precise, 
because I can’t own what isn’t shared.

The whole world—the neighbor’s field
—a footfall away. Despite my luggage, 
I’m too light to take that step. 

Or maybe too heavy: bogged by 
the blue, the pink of my trauma. 
Last year’s weeds trip, taunting me.

I dig a hole, curl myself 
up into a seed, bury in the fresh 
manure. The flower’s bloom

dries to brown rattling packets, 
which loft and fade in fall’s winds.
I’m housed but I’ll never be home.

​


Blair Martin grew up on a small farm in Lancaster County, PA. They received their PhD in Clinical Psychology from Bowling Green State University and teach at Joliet Junior College as a professor of psychology. They are participating in the Lit!Commons community with the Loft Literary Center.
​