Category: Issue 6

What I’ll MissProb won’t be sycamores, a childhood of nesting robins,peeling bark. Will it be the bald cypresses at Corkscrew Swamp, the last three miles of a 30-mile swath saved from chopping and draining, conversion to crop or pasture use? I know I’ll def miss the return of the swallows to Seattle on or about… Continue reading Martha Silano

When my partner is sad, she thinks she’s an 1.You are not the ostrich you think you are. Your grief does not stretch beyond your torso like a tunnel into the brain. You have taken lessons in flying and dodging the electric wires. What’s really heavy is the season’s duvet, the brashness of the bleak… Continue reading Debmalya Bandyopadhyay

sea otters hold hands in their sleepas if saying this will not be the river hero & leander drowned in,so let this little story be something more than survival, please? i finally want to learn how to want to live:adrift but afloat, making a daisy chain of short & slender fingers. now’s as good a… Continue reading Leander He

Vows Let’s store our jewels and guns together in the same safe, the same salt mine. I know I’ve been frantically looking around this room like a head with its chicken cut off, but don’t worry: it’s only Monday. Meanwhile fentanyl is added to everything, and I find myself in the flypaper sometimes. Sweet adhesive.… Continue reading Alex Tretbar

Figures in PrologueWe expected other cozy needs. Frequentlycaught seat lines in the Buick. We were enoughin illogical rustling. All roadside widespread.Donuts. Chinese food. Bellows, sisters in impatient rain.Her countenance is one of the oldest I know.I declare her pretty mouth and polite.When solicited, she reasoned her name to anotherand was soon outfit in tropical light.Fountains… Continue reading Lauren Camp

My Picture of the World“We have our picture of the world and that’s the creation.” Charles OlsonOf smoothly marbled backdropsgreen and Lifetouch-like, our dollhouse lookpreadolescent at Tilden Parkwaxy and flaxen as young grapefruitsbeads in a braid two strangers madewe watched our mother intently pressinto a faintly perfumed citrusshapely nails glazed with polish the color of… Continue reading Parker Menzimer

From the Author: These two poems are part of a longer series about the invisible work of chronic illness, parenting, and the impossible tasks of both in the kyriarchy. They are also – always – about love. Adrie Rose lives next to an orchard in western MA and is the editor of Nine Syllables Press.… Continue reading Adrie Rose

AwayThere are no dreams in the ocean. At Strandhill,the waves comply with the tall grass, the tall grass obeys the storm wind. Contrary to my vacant imagination, I findthe marmalade to be bitter. The pizza, I requestwithout cheese. Every day, I take a bus somewhere.When I cry in an oversized bathtub, the crystallized saltknitted in… Continue reading Arpita Roy

The Doors of PerceptionThis is an egg. This egg has a green shell with gold flecks, like some god sneezed on it. The shade, let’s call it “spring anxiety dream,” contains all greens in the known universe. Green is a very emotional color, the way the wind is emotional. The thing about green is that… Continue reading Rhoni Blankenhorn

A Middle Kingdom after Tomaž ŠalamunWill you climb to the roof? Can you stomach the sky?I won’t climb to the roof. I’ll hold tight to my skin.Will you pillage the city? Will you seed it with salt?I won’t pillage the city. I’ll pull paint from its thighs.What about the city frightens you?Light. It wants to… Continue reading Dan Rosenberg