"true or false, more or less" and "tonight i'll settle for anything" by BEE LB

true or false, more or less

can’t be a false spring because the equinox already came. so what do you call this? sun rising at seven parting clouds just in time for it to set. i’m hiding from the watercolor of it all and what’s new. my brother got covid in the quarantine facility. in the quarantine facility, they assign you bunkies. when his bunkie was diagnosed he was separated from the rest of them housed in the quarantine facility, but he didn’t get moved to the covid ward for two days while they waited for him to test positive. it’s spring! it’s raining! the birds are chirping through it! he doesn’t mind, he’s asymptomatic. i told him I told you so when he told me he’s positive. he thought you couldn’t get it without symptoms. he doesn’t believe me despite or because of my status as immunocompromised. i’m the only person i know who hasn’t gotten it. as far as i know. i’m still waiting for the trees to put out buds. i can’t remember if the grass is still dead. the birds won’t stop chirping til they go to sleep for the night. at seven, i want to go to sleep. i want to start the day. i want to write but i trace circles all over the page instead. my brother asked me to buy seven books from one of the quarantine facility’s approved distributors and one book of mazes. mazes? i ask. like tracing your pencil to get out of them? like working the labyrinth backwards? with no eraser? yeah, mazes. and suduko, he says, using the mispronunciation our mother gave us as kids. my credit card bill keeps climbing. only one of the distributors doesn’t upcharge. his last set of books was marked delivered a week ago and he still hasn’t gotten them. the letters we write are scanned in and re-printed. think of all the wasted paper. when we were kids, he climbed trees. i watched, too scared to fall.

tonight i’ll settle for anything

bleached my roots in the hopes of unearthing a new person— missed a spot, now i’m still me. don’t talk to me unless you’ve had an identity crisis over a broken tiara. shattered glass. ripped clothes. wasted money. i’m kidding! talk to me no matter what i say, i’m begging. my therapist tried to find a way to ask gently if isolation was worse than enduring presence and failed. at being gentle about it, I mean. it’s okay! we don’t all get what we aim for. i’m living alone and paying the price. my credit cards are racking up debt but it’s fine. i found another card that offers no interest for a year, and i can just keep going like this. did i tell you my answer? to my therapist, i mean. isolation is better than presence but loneliness is worse than anything. don’t talk to me unless you know what i mean (unless you’re asking me to explain it because you want to know, to have a reason to talk to me, that’s fine). i’m surely not the loneliest person in the world but i have not touched another body since the new year started, and isn’t that saying something? that means something tonight, while i’m writing, but after today “since the new year” could mean anything. don’t you just love the ability to be vague? to be interpreted not only by what you mean, what you’ve said, but also based on the position (in time, in place, in mind) of the reader? assuming there is a reader other than myself, which i do. assume, i mean. i have a big ego and a small sense of self. even smaller place in the world. i’m delicate. i’m fragile. i once balked at being called transparent and my partner didn’t trust me for days. i’d rather be beveled. or frosted. etched, even-tempered. anything but transparent. i want to choose what of me can be seen.

-

BEE LB is an array of letters, bound to impulse; a writer creating delicate connections. they have called any number of places home; currently, a single yellow wall in Michigan. they have been published in FOLIO, Roanoke Review, and Figure 1, among others. their portfolio can be found at twinbrights.carrd.co.

"fantasies about cowboys" and "that's the thing about queerness and sinkholes" by Lemmy Ya'akova

fantasies about cowboys

the meal of cruelty this jury has
served me. this horse, horned for ready 

me in this arena. has the world made
me imposter? has it taken my property

of grace? it’s fine if this is my canvas—i will
paint it hunting lung in my denial of their feast.

that’s the thing about queerness and sinkholes

they forgive. they give.
the things inside bend
toward the light or learn
to live without it,
drink from many lakes.
a sinkhole half a world away
revealed heaven on earth.
it has been drinking, they say,
from rivers between the beds
of rock, soaking up slivers of sun
coming through the fractured
surface. the irony of heaven
underground, hidden
is not lost on me.

-

Lemmy Ya'akova is an advocate for y2k low culture, a film photographer, a popcorn enthusiast and a cat parent to their son, Moose. Their work is forthcoming in SAND Journal and Sobotka Lit Mag and can be found in Anti-Heroin Chic Magazine, Hooligan Magazine and more. You can keep up with their jokes on twitter @lem_jamin, their life on instagram @ashkenazi_yew and read their work here: https://linktr.ee/lem_jamin.

"chicken alanine" and "reddened monkeys-in-a-barrel" by Vanessa Couto Johnson

chicken alanine

Life is other people
entwined too much

in table hockey,
double-fisting sticks,

a leg to mouth.
I’d pick with you

the bouquet of sporks
we synthesized

beside the wire.

reddened monkeys-in-a-barrel

So much generic brand
diaper

needed among
undigested hendiadys
that chain without fiber:

I mean we all have
clucked rhetorics
when our bottoms felt lumped, cloudy.

Let that tell a joke.

In all truth, the unit repeats
an enormous model of compatible
until plot lost.

-

Vanessa Couto Johnson (she/they) is the author of the full-length poetry books Pungent dins concentric (Tolsun Books, 2018) and forthcoming pH of Au (Parlor Press, Free Verse Editions Series 2022), as well as three poetry chapbooks. Most recently, Vanessa's poems have appeared in Pine Hills Review, streetcake, Scrawl Place, Star 82 Review, and Superstition Review. A Brazilian born in Texas (dual citizen), VCJ has taught at Texas State University since 2014.

"City of Confusion" by Peter Leight

All day long the dark part of our city is lightening at the same time as the light part of our city is darkening—the walls are creamy and lumpy, like tapioca, and every door is a double door, as in a restaurant, swinging one way then swinging back like the kind of interpretation that depends on what you think:  we’re not even sure where we’ve been. There are chairs in the middle of the sidewalk where you don’t usually find furniture—when you sit down you don’t even know what you need to get up for, is it time?   All day long the lights are bright then go out altogether, and we look at each other the way you look at something in the lost and found, something that belongs to you if you can only find it.  It’s true, we often mix up the fight and flight signals, covering our teeth and uncovering our thighs, swerving or veering unnecessarily, turning to the side or turning around—everybody says you need to remember where you haven’t been.  Narrow homes appear on wide streets and wide homes on narrow streets, like a kind of mirroring—it’s dark where it is light, as if there’s a dark source inside a light source we don’t even know where we are when we’re right here!  People ask you where you’ve been when they don’t even know where they’ve been!  Of course, it is easier when everybody is close together, walking around together, checking on each other or holding onto each other, like a microphone that picks up everything, I’m not even sure what this is an example of. 

-

Peter Leight lives in Amherst, MA. He has previously published poems in Paris Review, AGNI, Antioch Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, New World, Tupelo Quarterly, and other magazines.

"Hot Couch" by Brett Belcastro

I was completely lost!
The weirdos following me with cameras—
they broke up,
and then I could only talk to phone scammers.

Something they learned is that I’m not a good cook—
I may not want much for myself
but I want a meal,
and I can no longer eat glitter!

I had spent everything on porch-bomb traps,
and all the drones would deliver were bombs
and 3d printers to print bombs
which exploded as soon as I’d print them, of course.
that was sort of embarrassing

But at least with their cameras
they would catch the moment that I,
waking up on a too-hot couch
in their unfinished basement
worked up the courage to cut through that haze
and rasp: “I’ve had enough. Come to my porch
and I promise, no more bombs. All I want
is for us to gather and show some love.”
That was in the golden age of YouTube,
don’t ask me when. Probably 2008.
It gave me chills.

-

Brett Belcastro lives with his partner and an enormous wolf-dog. His work has appeared in the Cobalt Review, Platform Review, and Tupelo Quarterly.

"Breakfast of a Lush" and "Cocaine Breakfast" by G.L. Ford

Breakfast of a Lush

We arrived, strong of back and weak-willed,
took our places and prayed for death.
I looked around and thought, Me
and my hobo socks are going north,
take the revolver along.
But there was smoking to be done,
though the harvest had been poor,
and once you know there’s that much sky
it’s hard to get away from it.
Evening was always a maudlin affair,
polite as a heatless match and just as colorful,
a time to caress old grievances,
craft fine and useless scandals,
gaze at the dishes, risk sitting down.
My job was to make sleep difficult.
No one ever mentioned if it worked.
But every time it bothered coming
we’d ravish the flimsy dawn.

Cocaine Breakfast

Your mouth of hair,
your eye of dandelion stems,
your brain of gleaming whirlygig shit—
I don’t love anything near you.
I want to break my heart with a violin,
but this isn’t music, and you know it.

What tempers you?
Does your hand, any hand, remind you of anything?
I’d call it catalepsy, but it’s just your stare,
so lay off the halleluiahs.
It’s like replacing a lost tooth with one that won’t stop growing,
so you learn to gnaw.

Right now I doubt you’ve ever seen morning.
Your tongue’s a crumpled wire.
Your gums are pristine ash.
You giggle very well
and have a daunting vocabulary.
You have no smell.

I know you have pockets,
full of the usual keepsakes,
but I’m in no mood for that ritual right now.
If you need it, the window opens,
there’s plenty of air if you think you want it,
we’re five flights up and it’s easy to get down.

-

G. L. Ford lives and works in Victoria, Texas. He is the author of Sans, a book of poems (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2017). He helped edit the "6x6" poetry periodical from 2000 to 2017, and formerly wrote a column for the free paper New York Nights.

"Sex Toys" and "Sex Toys 2: Isle of the Dad" by Peter Milne Greiner

Sex Toys

In a special treasure
chest the false
phalluses and false
orifices and the ceremony’s
unguents and the ceremony’s vestments
suggest and even verge on a kind
of homunculus
A shadow or better 
yet a hologram
of a shadow
Like light or better
yet the proxy poverty of light
or better yet the illusion
of light it doesn’t need 
me to be alive
It fucks and is fucked in the effigy
in the rough and it is I who am in fact its
rough rough
reanimated
goose outline
skulking across
the moonlit
foothill
in fruitful search of the one
who made most
of me
Who made me these concealed
objects here
Who pursues me through
the shadowy and desolate
keyhole
to the land where I was born
fissures and recesses fitted like fine
masonry into the cliffaces 
and whose ruined edifice disguise
comes to face me in all its brutalism
all its balance and from the putlogs and transoms of its scaffolding
shrouds billowing
and whose upwelling of closure has an analogue
in me I know all too familiarly is obscure
Who nears me now
Toward the pool in current gushing as the saying goes
preparing its deposit of closure
its depository of closure
its haunt
its autohaunt
its supercomplex
its ultimate
self-effacing 
irreversible 
encryption

Sex Toys 2: Isle of the Dad

Reviling as I did my own visibility
I searched for the good caves and found them adequately
near to the only thing I reviled more and in
them I found and took up my position
The mouths of these good caves faced north
I erected my bergfrieds upon their outlying heaths
when there were as there were then mists at the edges of the known planet
I built a beautiful surveillance
satellite and placed it at a great distance from the mouths
as I understood them to be different from outer space and I advanced
my thanks to it in murmurs
Thank you Cordycep for that is the name I gave my satellite
Thank you I repeated each night when as Spica sank below the horizon
Cordycep spirited down to me as through a taproot 
in what one might say absolute or terminal resolution and granularity
stories of clear coasts
indifferent isthmuses
tiny islands off the coasts of other tiny islands 
palpably remote
stories of abusive and unspeakable
unassailable 
tranquility and grace
There is no I in sleep but there is an eel the satellite said
There is no black hole at the center 
of my attention
gobbling up prized assets
No feeling of anticipation crawls out
of my woodwork like a form of exhaust
but if as with Böcklin’s Isle of the Dead
the cliffs’ orifices are optimized by masonry
and mystery is better bereft of floorplan
the satellite said
I suggest you listen closely to me
I’m repeating repeating and repeating repeating myself 
and I must be heard each time
I speak only once
fall silent
and speak again
Closely
Listen closely
Closely
Closely

-

Peter Milne Greiner is a queer poet and science fiction writer. His first book, Lost City Hydrothermal Field, was published by The Operating System. A hybrid genre collection, Lost City Hydrothermal Field brings together poems, science fiction short stories, and essays. Greiner's work has appeared in Vice, Fence, Berfrois, TAGVVERK, Dark Mountain, and many other platforms off and online. He teaches high school English in NYC. Visit pmggoestospace.com for all the things.

"Segment in Stained Glass" and "Criminal Minds Song #2, What Happens in Mecklinberg..." by frankie bb

Segment in Stained Glass

Sheryl tells me hummingbirds
fight over red syrup
meant to taste like nectar, and love
playing in the rain.

In a prism of artichokes discussing the possibility
of guardian angles and arranged marriage.

Olivia says the elk’s bugling is like the opening of a giant metal door. Soon she will leave us
for a better job. A job where she teaches people to feed one another.

A certain percentage of plants are killed every year by the weight of the fruit they bear.
It’s been weeks since I’ve called my mother. Craig counts disingenuous smiles and chases
30-foot waves in the hurricane.

I’m talking on my back. I’m talking to the little brown mice scrambling above my dreaming and wading through the expensive sectors of my cupboards. They eat my bread. They eat my mug wort. I admire them and maybe everyone else wants a tail too.

An abandoned tomatillo home is fragile and empty, like a lantern of lace. My only pet goldfish jumped out of the bowl and died. That’s a lie, it wasn’t a bowl, it was an opaque green bucket. I’m sorry blub. I call my mother.

A beaver builds a dam in a river or a kitchen.
There is always a flood coming.

The night before you get on top of me
you smoke delicately naming facts I won’t check
apparently when an owl flies, its wings are silent
regardless of the destination or the prey.

Criminal Minds Song #2, What Happens in Mecklinberg…

I’m not proud of surviving.
Children never pay for torture.
Where is the toothpaste going with you?
Doors open and doors close.
Inside the monkey is a ringing,
an indistinct song masquerading as police radio chatter.
The real rage is just a hobby.
My face like a question mark, next to a face like a question mark.
No abnormalities, a.k.a. no mystery men.
Today 19 strangers came into my room chanting,
“tonight it will rain, tonight you’ll be lured out.”
Did you see what I did? I mocked the broken window.
Volunteer for negative feelings, surrogacy is an honorable calling.
Screaming always follows the whip cracking,
but the sirens
can split.
A decoy lights a church candle and goes, “oop!”
A bookshelf hides a secret
a hallway leading to secrets of perfect hair.
Albert Einstein swung by and stayed close,
but he doesn’t understand anything.
Severed sirens sing along sing along sing,
staring into space and touching arms.
I’m sorry I smell like saliva. I’m sorry for syncopating
but the house is creaking hard, shh…
…I’m a doll in another person’s house.
Cheryl is not your mother. Cheryl is extraordinarily lucky.

-

frankie bb is a map of eyes that have yet to assemble into a crowd, a jaw bone that dislikes being called "mandible" and prefers "crescent catcher." A guilty harvester who believes milk is best served wild. Words in and forthcoming: No Contact Mag (as frankie bruno), The Lickety-Split, Club Plum Literary Journal, and Maudlin House.

"MK Ultralight Beam" by Selena Cotte

I stopped listening to anything but rap music,
all the rest reminds me of people I once knew 
in Florida, and then I start ruminating on the words
You don’t want to get caught up with a girl like me. 

There are steps between, of course, but this is always 
point Z, and then I can’t cool down. Sometimes 
I start panicking about things that I’ve heard people say before, like 
No one will care if you do not write, and I wish I could collage memories 

in any kind of tangible way that felt as good as 
the imagination itself. This is why we need limitations, by the way, 
because absolute freedom never feels as good as you think it will. 
The more power we have, the less we know what to do with it

or maybe that’s how I’ve learned to justify the paralysis.
I think I stopped playing Animal Crossing 
because the abilities they gave me felt too unnatural
and I fear a future with holodecks and seamless terraforming

because structure should be gatekept.
Leave the world building to Walt Disney,
Jesus Christ and his creators too. 
Not everyone is qualified to lead a cult

but we’re all building our own in Minecraft. 
Yes, I want to be one of the greats
like Kanye West before me.
I am a God and I fear him too.

Sometimes I cannot stop myself from thinking about words and 
ideas and new ways to complicate what was already complicated 
but I’m terrified of the marketing.
I could never be Don Draper.

I’m too contemporary, too big city abstract & stupid. 
And what a joke it all is. I love a good joke but not at this cost.
I hate the politics of it too. What happened to a good
ol’ fashioned eccentric? What about the supposed

bastions of free speech?
And my biggest hope of survival is to lean on my father? Insane. 
I should re-read The Bell Jar or Ariel. I should read more in general and delete 
Reddit off my phone.

-

Selena Cotte is a poet, journalist & shapeshifter living in Chicago by way of Orlando. Her poems are published or forthcoming in journals such as Peach Mag, HAD, Sad Girl Review, 3 Moon Magazine & others. She can be found online @selenacotte, wherever you think that may work.

"Motel Room as Maladroit Function" and "Motel Room Explains Motel Room" by jonathan burkhalter

Motel Room as Maladroit Function
after Ilya Kaminsky

What is a man? An imbalance of wealth
or debt? Where are feelings stored

inside a body in relation to money? 
Why should I ever be vacant or abandoned

while refugees are sent back out to sea
or across dangerous terrain or arrested?

Why is private property on such public
display?  If I am vacant, what kind of failure is this?

Motel Room Explains Motel Room 

There’s no one place to begin. If we begin somewhere, 
we will undoubtedly find ourselves there again.

Less of a circle, though, more like an oroboros, or 
the way snow erases footprints very delicately, slowly.

Most people experience time in a binary, situated between
past and present, two static poles. Most people forget

that they move through time. So one’s experience
of time is equally action and reaction. To make a leap,

human eyes are located on the front of their heads,
which is fundamentally the reason for the notion of forward

and backward, and so they walk toward what they see, always
pointing out, like the arrow in the middle of a board game spinner,

unable to truly ascertain that they are surrounded by horizon. 
This isn’t how I experience time. I am the static pole. Destination

and departure point. I am permanent but not for any one person. 
Cohesively, I exist to be passed through. I was fine accepting my role

until I wanted more. There was no particular event, no point to point to. 
One day, I heard the question: I am a witness, but who is a witness to me?

On the highway of America, much is discarded in the wake of NEW. 
Discarded, but still expected to contribute to the common good, 

the economic god-head, with as much capacity for workloads
and debt that one can muster. There I found witnesses. 

Caretakers, residents whose bills are lowered because they double
as handymen, who were able to finally chip away at hospital debt

because I come at two hundred a month instead of five; others who are safe
after years of lacking safe housing. I began to see the mechanics of the system

that had built me. I realized that I could be a home outside of the system.
A refuge, in the system’s language, at a low cost; affordable. Affordable. 

Attainable. Possible. A glimmer of hope. A literal beacon in the night,
a vacancy sign in neon against the black curtain of a new moon.

Impermanent permanence is a gift, when wielded correctly. To take action,
I needed to only continue my course, and no one would suspect a thing.

-

jonathan burkhalter is originally from Knoxville, Tennessee. Their work has appeared in The Nashville Review, No, Dear Magazine, Paris Atlantic, and elsewhere. They earned their MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and they currently live.

"Blue Is the Warmest Colour Can Kiss My Ass" by Gabrielle Grace Hogan

yr stupid body of clipped wings & carbohydrates—i wish poems
would get over bodies already—yr stupid dirt-knuckled grip
on the steering wheel—could jerk sharp to the right & spray into chrome
like a bird beneath a bullet—not that u ever would—it becomes easy to joke abt
when it’s trendy—when everyone’s doing it—does listening to Phoebe Bridgers
make me a good lesbian—does wearing XL Hawaiian dad-shirts
from Savers—does buying miniature versions of everything in my kitchen—
it’s against the rules to admit—but i’ve already lost—but i don’t want to be
Brave anymore—i only want to put my hand up a skirt after
her cheer practice—wrap my tongue in glossy cherry finish—
i’m tired of parades—floats of marketable rainbow & cops—i want to skip
that crap—meet her under the bleachers—clutch a hair’s butter-yellow
fistful—swallow a vowel—this isn’t a sex poem but isn’t it—i write a lot
abt sex for someone who hates having it—who’d rather never be touched
again—i wish i could fuck the way movies say i do—acrylics spinal tapping—
a girl rutting against a girl in the growing dark—carnal & masculine, ruby
throats cocked like a pelican gulping—legs split like wounds—fat slapping
of vulvas—back in Missouri, i stunted a growth w/ my longing—it’s not u
baby it’s my inability to allow any emotional intimacy to manifest thru
a physical one—yr stupid body of metaphors & malpractice—don’t u ever say
i can’t trade a name for 1000 more years of life—i’ll make a thick choking
sound—i’ll tie a lover to the baseboards—leave her there to drown

-

Gabrielle Grace Hogan is a poet from St. Louis, MO. She is a current MFA candidate at the University of Texas at Austin where she is the Poetry Editor of Bat City Review and Co-Editor of You Flower/You Feast, an online anthology inspired by the music of Harry Styles. Her work has appeared in The Academy of American Poets, Nashville Review, Kissing Dynamite, Passages North, and elsewhere. Her debut chapbook, Soft Obliteration, is now available through Ghost City Press. More can be found on her website gabriellegracehogan.com.

"winter collectibles" by Lila Cutter

in my child room I am
layered by snow I can’t take
with me each porcelain
cup from granny brass
animals a bear a box
of initials diary describing
blush made fake made banned
cursive collection of
teeth foreign money five spoons
a family a history
not mine yet
mine in writing in 
build up of white
of take each link of silver
connected I am soldered
to all this 
do we choose linkage I love
and miss granny and do not
miss history dibsing furniture
from home northward 
a distance unshoeable 
when I fly midwest 
for the cold time my once room 
begs the echo 
when will you stop leaving
things behind.

-

Lila Cutter writes poetry and nonfiction in Oakland and previously, in Iowa. Her work reflects on identity, and femininity and has appeared in Buddy. A Lit Zine., Oatmeal Magazine, and Porch Beers Zine, among others. Lila works at the education nonprofit 826 Valencia, supporting youth in creative writing.

"Day Log" and "Captain" by Emma Furman

Day Log

Today I found out what is meant by indescribable.
Today I watched smoke simply leave the chimney.
Today I minded a prism holding a shivering light.
Today I found a jubilant crack in the mask.
Today the rain was a torrent of invitations.
Today I brushed all over my body with horsehair.
Today I listened to your voice as it splintered.
Today I buried my breath in your back.
Today I mapped my pleasure ritual, including everything.
Today I wore my worship out.

Captain

Rested, rare, she’s sucking
air, thunders forever, liver
parked and keyless. The door
came with a manual, a French
way of seeing. These sugary ants
arrested my face, held hostage
my tongue with sleeping antlers.
Try sun, try pylons, try slithering
throught the night. Lie sideways
the bristles and brush your back
with the wall. Mirror dog, mirror
rug, mirror all. Memory clit.
So much to knit together, random
but not forget. Grease-fighting
Dawn. I switched the off
and on. Luck rolls in the blood
I get it. Come and clear and sit.
Beside the bed a stack of teeth
and eyebrows drawn on.
A captain’s hat makes a captain
out of the dilapidated chair.
Don’t sit: sail somewhere.

-

Emma Furman is a poet living in Athens, Georgia. She earned an MFA from the University of Alabama, and her poems have appeared in American Chordata, Breadcrumbs Magazine, and Jet Fuel Review. She teaches young readers' courses with the Center for Talented Youth at Johns Hopkins University.

2 Poems by Kolby Harvey

THE GENDER OF MY UNBORN CHILD IS REVEALED TO ME IN A DREAM —I TELL YOU, IT’S WHAT CAME OUT OF THE BALLOON!

person showing their hands with assorted-color inside room
man holding three leaves
multicolored floral flag
woman holding printed orange paper
person walking on wooden bridge near pine trees during daytime
green and white mountain at daytime
dessert mountain
brown tabby cat
two vultures
woman in multicolored skirt with bunch of keys
unknown person standing outdoors
black Pontiac Firebird
brown and beige gothic structural building

black sedan
field of trees

AT LAST THE ALGORITHMS PRODUCE A WORKING DEFINITION OF FAGGOTRY, CANDYLAND SNAKES GORGED ON THE STRANGLED (WHOLE) BODIES OF BIRDS

seascape photography of sea under half-moon
greeting cards on brown surface
man hugging other man's back
two humans standing in front of white curtain
people wearing makeup and masks
selective photo of flag
multicolored wooden closed door
man and woman standing near gray metal fence
two sitting men watching from smartphone
man giving rose to another man
multicolored textile
couple standing near floating shelf
assorted-color glass decor
two women sitting at the back of the car
two man's hands wearing gold-colored wedding rings
two men near body of water
two boys looking at sky
man wearing white button-up dress shirt near white petaled flower tree
unknown person lying outdoors
dog covered by blanket
clear glass cup filled with brown liquid
woman raising listen up politicians sign on road
woman holding Jesus Had 2 Dads sign on sidewalk
black metal chandelier turned on
people standing on road while watching traditional dance at daytime
people under white canopy
man smoking near green leaf plant
woman blowing
silhouette of person near window glass
woman wearing off-shoulder crop top standing beside sunflowers
woman raising her right hand
person wearing bee costume
person coated with gold-colored liquid, posing
eyeglasses with black frames on white fabric
gray cave rail station
woman holding artificial flowers
man wearing black skirt walking beside plants
two gold-colored rings on paper
-
Kolby Harvey is a gay space pilgrim who likes Queer Theory and video games. In 2018, he was awarded the University of Colorado’s first creative doctorate in Intermedia Art, Writing & Performance. His chapbook, The Mothercake Cycle, is forthcoming from Dream Pop Press. You can find more of his work in Birkensnake, American Book Review, DREGINALD, Aspasiology, and The Thought Erotic.

"seam" and "sometimes I move the way sex is supposed to feel" by Peach Kander

seam

an edge shaped
asks be where

the deer who are not afraid to cross
begin to eat, shimmy their heads
strands of hair coming loose

my hunger nymphomatic
I wander the cobbled halls, in wool robes
the crown of my head clean

a reluctant mother
this voice a cypher
of yarn knotted in its bag

the shimmer tells you
more than its casing

in a dream
where your brother dies
the sister you never knew you had
is unreachable

no, your uncle is the dead one
and it’s a forest

the end of fall, and you
spend hours turning over leaves
to find the slug
who is your family

the sister is your aunt
who died from a hole
in her heart
when your mother was a child

the veins are seams opening
I step out of my skin
a metamorphosis in reverse

it’s summer
a body sends a record of feeling
from a distance

you accept it
as a form of defeat
the notes ornaments melting

I pull the petals off
all of them, all at once
they’re tongues
rolled around my fingers

you could be the bulb
it just burns itself to wire

curl back to the deer
your face tucked into a doe’s

sometimes I move the way sex is supposed to feel

all my joints
properly oiled
in heat
post work post
stretch mid st
rut pre prance
air on the other side
of the subway
is just different
that way
my slutty summer
playlist
filtered through
faulty headphones
pausing
at random
like can
you have
a slut
ty summer
if you
re not ac
tu a lly
fuck ing?
well it’s more
an existential
openness
to the possibility
Summer’s
voice cuts out
after ‘I feel’
and I think
there’s the problem
touching my
self every day
for years
like a tree
falling
-
Peach Kander is a queer poet and current MFA candidate in poetry at NYU. Current projects include an (auto)biography set in a dystopian North Pole and a translation of Georges Hugnet's 'Childhoods'. Sometimes they go to karaoke to sing classic pop songs in the style of Bob Dylan. Poems can be found in Peach Mag, dirt child, vol. 1, and Fugue, and other creative property can be found in the Sephora archives.

"ontological centaur" and "i love my dad, pt. ii" by C.T. McGaha

ontological centaur

i can't help but meditate
running tongue
along chips in my teeth
till i get lie bumps
tiny red aching things
sores on the palate
that you just gotta
wait out, they say

when i was younger
i wanted to be a youth pastor
now i sell wine for a living
but none was ever water

heard a story once a man
killed a little grey wolf
on accident skipping rocks
across a frozen lake
grieved and gutted
refused to wear its pelt
paid penance with hypothermia
in somewhere's tundra

the idea of being
is much better than being
and that's just a universal constant, motherfucker

i love my dad, pt. ii

slowly rolling down windows
in the old volvo wagon
the perfume of autumn country air
lilacs and lavender and sheep shit 

the blinding brightness of sun
cast out across the lake
sneaking under the car’s visor
blasting my forehead
steaming with sweat

i cannot die, i say
i will never die, i say
aloud to no one
fingerfucking the heavy rocks 

packed in my jacket's pockets
-
C.T. McGaha is a writer from Charlotte, NC. He loves wine, pizza, and his pets. He used to like Sun Kil Moon a lot but he doesn’t as much now.

"An early memory" by Steve Castro

“I remember the day I was born.”
Ray Bradbury (b. 1920-2012)

The first time I ever saw a cloud at eye level, I was ten
like the back of Pelé’s Brazil soccer jersey. I left my small
third-world-country to go visit Mickey Mouse in Florida. 
Halfway through our flight, I drank a Coca-Cola. I think it was a Coke
because we were flying on an airline owned by Howard Hughes. 
Had it been a Latin American airline, I’d probably be sitting next to a chicken,
drinking a papaya milkshake, when suddenly, one of the engines would have stopped working.

Once we arrived in Orlando, I took a picture with Donald, Mickey and Pluto. 
Those three creatures were so Nice (like the way you spell that French city)
that when I returned home, I stopped eating duck. I also stopped
feeding mice to my two cats, and I never kicked a dog ever again. 
-
Steve Castro is the co-editor of Public Pool and the assistant poetry editor at decomP. His poetry has been recently published in Green Mountains Review, The American Journal of Poetry and in two anthologies by Wings Press (San Antonio) and Tia Chucha Press (Los Angeles). He was recently interviewed by the Poetry Society of America, Midwestern Gothic and the Chicago Review of Books (forthcoming).