"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.

"I Forgive the Trespasses I Made Against Myself" by Levi Cain

i forgive myself
for the incessant scouring of my body
the callous examination of flesh
every hour. all apologies to myself
for the alienation of the body,
for the hunger,
for naming it as something other
than a gift, that which allows me
to squat among the tall wet grass
in the thick august heat, to kiss,
to be kissed. i will speak to myself
in loving tones. i will wink
at my face in all the mirrors
in the hallway, tell myself
how splendid
how marvelous
how blessed it is to have
come scrabbling, zombie-like,
from a grave i dug
when i could not fathom a future
of wanting to carry myself
as a loved one in my own heart.
-
Levi Cain is a gay Black writer from Boston, an Aries moon, and a 2019 Pushcart Prize nominee. Their work can be found in Vagabond City Lit, Lunch Ticket, The Thought Erotic, and elsewhere. dogteeth. is their first chapbook.

"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.

"Your voice is a mirror- it has its white tongue and its white teeth" by Fin Sorrel

Another window can create or destroy. I figured out a voice is a pair of folded hands, from within the throat, strangled out of a white mouth (personified,) she hangs from the ceiling. This voice was something I found while digging into the wall. I'm trying to figure out who is with me in my house. A voice is a pair of clapping hands, folding out my window, folding with the cloth I hung by my bedside lamp for confusion.

This mouth is so white, I watch it weave little frozen bunkers out of scattered ribbons in the hair of my doll I found exploring the attic. She sits in the corner, frozen. (how they wove her together out of fornicating noises I don’t know. Probably from the many white tongues, and teeth from the mirror.) Folding replicas of dolls who once escaped the ceilings’ chandelier teeth; she is an odd Russian toy, she lets me repaint her chipped nail polish; refinish her chipped eyes, make the surface from the body of the house, dangling down as we sleep. She takes the surface there for hours; she hovers above our resting. Before dawn, I always go to the yard through the fog, I like to witness the old hallow– the silhouettes of junk haunt the ponds mist. I was touched in the head in my house, I realize. God's hand went through my body, into the center of my garden of tongues. The statue we found together (her and I) she found me looking older and beaten down. I heard somewhere in her soft whisper, something in the trees.

-

Fin Sorrel is the author of Caramel Floods (2017) and Transversal (2019). He is the founding editor at MANNEQUIN HAUS (infii2.weebly.com).

"drink" and "brilliance" by Celina McManus

drink

to put a name on learning of flamboyance—

the shrimp-pink feathers flock, you realize there is a joy in living.

the edge of the sea is a clock, the dorito-bag-jelly my entire tongue—

a sword, a war, knowing an apple contained of only salt.

we preserve, persevere, and poke holes into the sky,

open a wormhole to 1969, miss the moon landing, end up in woodstock.

dance, dance alone, until a crowd forms, or it doesn’t, and you are a bird of paradise.

i was hungry for cake urchin, but inside it was empty.

we cannot drink ourselves, so we must give ourselves to those who thirst.

brilliance

hum is light

dust   our bodies

we whisper   who and

i swallow a globe 

of brilliance my tongue gilt

as not shame but nails

welded as rosemallow

for when we die

we vibrate

no one saw the sun

until it gulped 

the moon like a sliver of ham

-

Celina McManus writes poetry, fiction, and children’s literature. She is an MFA candidate at Randolph College, and her work is featured or forthcoming in Hooligan Magazine, Cosmographia Books, and Rabid Oak. She is from East Tennessee and lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. When she isn’t writing, she spends her free time in bodies of water with any pal who may join her.

3 Poems by Ben Still

Lump Sum
Ocala, Florida, United States, 1982

fifteen horse
killings ordered

in from out of town
the specialists favoring

two strands of wire
clipped and a wall socket

an untimeliness
taken to be colic

or accidental knock-knee
the vet will take care of

a stable can                 be burned
to the ground

a dad never asks              his daughter
can you forgive me

Fuselage #3 (creation)
Jornada del Muerto, New Mexico, United States, 1945

absent            fuel tank
accidental          blaze
abandoned         mammal
                            detonation

the coal mine      its own canary

*

a thousand
obviousnesses

come down kilotons
scorching the earth

searing a permanent
crime scene

*

in the beginning we were
suspended in a jar

sought after for years
in one war or another

grew up to speak
yellowcake the atom

grasped at mastered
and split at its middle

our moral afflictions 
physical by dint by virtue

pounding on the table
red knuckle

an imprint etched in light  
all across the city

red carpet // purple dogheart
Argonne, France, 1918

lore abiding a lost leg
a pigeon conscripted
with one eye, decorated

at the awards for animal bravery

for a flight through trees
and friendly fire, she is
forestworthy, seen off by the general 

we dreamed up tractable war
games, rescue dogs 

words
to make
a man
a mess

military parade
pantomimic
our upstart
police horse

*

taxidermy our conduct 
closed at the limits of life underfed
the meaning we’re starving for

our likeness will be known
by the light that peels our lids back

pet photo ops, we are developing
the film, keeping up with the history
we know what’s coming and deserve it

-
Ben Still is a PhD candidate at New York University, a 2019 UnionDocs fellow, and a founding editor of the collage journal ctrl + v. He has directed, produced, and edited films for the Visible Poetry Project. His poetry has appeared in Virga Magazine, Salamander Magazine, and GASHER Journal.

"Refusing to Do Anything" and "I'd" by Kenneth Pobo

Refusing to Do Anything

Like a minnow 
I can’t decide which school 
to travel with. Maybe if I stay still 
I’ll make friends with the bay 
or ripples circling a water lily.   

Most of my life,  
six decades of busy. 

I’m off to loll inside 
a red tulip.  
Yes, lolling is an activity.  
Contradictions kiss.   

A bee buzzes overhead.  
I think his name is Death.

I’d

march into my old Bible Church 
of Villa Park with my husband 
and sit in the front pew 
holding hands 
as Pastor unpacks several 
grocery bags stuffed 
with shoulds. The church

sold to another church 
and even that church died.  
Real estate must give God 
a headache. In my youth, 
the same forty or so people 
came each week, the same 
ideas batted back and forth 
like a badminton birdie.  

What would they have done 
to see us together?  
Fenced us in with angry words?  
Fenced us out with silence?   

Church offered candles 
and poison. It can no longer 
break us. Or get in the last word.
-
Kenneth Pobo has ten books and twenty-eight chapbooks published, the most recent being Winbuds from Cyberwit.net.  His work has appeared in: Amsterdam Review, The Fiddlehead, Hawaii Review, Atlanta Review, Nimrod, Brittle Star, and elsewhere.

"Where Can I Put It Down?" and "In Defense of Artifact" by Natalie Stamatopoulos

Where Can I Put It Down?

Thought repeats. Says, oops, already wrote that. And dawn like fingers cracking. Aubade like song. Home comes dreamt and I, economy of self, split to be a piece of night. Piece of time and fruit. The fig, damp as April’s light. And I, economy of self, split to windows. For one last ray before daybreak. It is unsaid, saying. I and longscraped knees, traffic of remembering. And beating wings of days. Carried, surprised. This feeling. Where can I put it down?

In Defense of Artifact

~~~

Who am I, sometimes?
Artificial and in many
places. Immediately
memory has mind,

carries shadow
genderless in blueblack
wordless in conversation
with each animal.

Bats and pups
mourn above the sky,
mud drinks the days hour,
to which I’m not invited.

And what of apricots?
Immutable pits,
summer’s spoons,
dark like the horse’s
throat,

and limitless,
the million eggs
carried on the donkey’s
back.

~~~

Even relic I trip
on, and to who do I ask
my questions? Endless
season in the soup bowl,
my my hands lean to warmth,
a small steam,
a piece of land,
an ever emptied church.

~~~

No memory is wrong
but inarticulate most times,
like the sea that raises
the swallow’s angles,
exacting gestures of reach.

(Here the swallow mimics
grief (or the wild syllable
of yellowing dreams (stung
by the tongue of the wind.

And the wind’s instinct
to follow the sea—
or is it the other way—
convinces my hands
to meet my eyes,
there and always
a conduit and I,
addicted to salt,
reclaim addiction
and am maddened
by physicality, pleasure.

~~~

These two eyes
an archaeology
of spent time,
of ruined water.

The mare’s head,
her stained teeth,
mastic in the clear bowl.

(Each jaw,
ancient (masks
an opening.

~~~

Notebooks, content, opened
documents, wooden trunk
of chests, tempted artery
gazing and,

annotation, anthropology,
anchored in anachronism.

Knots justify the mastery
of trees, death and longing,
textile, undone, bottomless,
which is to say, endless,
finally,

~~~

I am trembling in this year’s
indifference. The fevered
sun comments without end,
and I am sure to throw
up my arms in accent.

So silence, fire
and fire, and thousands
of skins attempt
impossible ideas ,
a new leaf glistens
with new water.

~~~

Time is a perfect
argument for these hundred
curiosities (these genealogies
of loose thread.

The cat on the table
is Greek,
is now at my feet,
and grandmother
ages backwards.

~~~

All negative is ours
and green and sick
like the birds, tall
like grasses shining
in November and dying.

So where is the throat
to crawl into? Tongueless
and in awe of uninfinite hour,
unaesthetic art and evening,
headed for unvertical morning
where moths gather
in causation
following light for home.

~~~

This fragile house,
eroded by salted wind,
those walks we took
on the roadside
where now, a dog,
displaced by the thick
plumage of night, weeps
at a hanging orange,
confusing it for the moon.

~~~
-
Natalie Stamatopoulos is a Greek/American poet concerned with language as relic, artifact, as micro-connection to our infinite timelines. Her work has been published in No, Dear Magazine, Slanted House, Ctrl + V, The Paris/Atlantic, and elsewhere. She earned her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and lives in Brooklyn.

"Since Havana" by Suzanne Gardinier

Since Havana I can see under the hoods of new cars the boat engines the poor
will someday suspend there.
Since Havana I can see, beside the shiny tools, the rows of combs & shovels &
pencils on the dirt.

Since Havana I can see the gulls & the vultures & the seeps of dawn crossing the cordon.
I can see the cordon: an oregami of Benjamins, watched over by focus groups of
newborn Marines.

Since Havana I dream the night traffic stops, the sans-weapons police & the drivers,
discussing tail-lights as they stand together on the shoulder.
Since Havana I dream not a single citizen murdered by a uniform where those watching
can see.

Since Havana the smell of money is inflected by the smell of mangoes.
Since Havana the burned drums sometimes interrupt the advertisements, just before the
signal fades.

Since Havana the charter made by slavers talks over the one banning the latifundio.
Bans & liberties weave their ways like smoke through the castle ruins where I live.

Since Havana ay chica & oh girl answer the news together or is it the olds:
old wheels, old snipers by old wells, old bought stories, old annointed gangsters,
interchangeable.

Since Havana the changeable has expanded to include castles & casinos, real estate
agreements & the river.
Since Havana possibilities of contagion rise from the last public pool across the street.

Since Havana I discuss the weather with bike messengers & cooks at the back & waiters
& the women cleaning the toilets.
Since Havana I can see the former royal marina made a place they could take a vacation
someday.

Since Havana longing for Cadillac convertibles & suitcases of appreciation for the
senators & a woman convertible to a vehicle : not so much.
Since Havana longing for Víctor's laugh describing the box in which he escaped the
mercenaries & how he calls his wife compañera : more.

Since Havana so much plastic, so much feasting on the way to the famine, such rising-
tide revels, so few eyes meeting mine.

Since Havana the neighbors with their pint of garbage call across the straits to my
neighbors, throwing away a palace wing's worth of furniture.
Since Havana the 5 Marianao forks & 10 plates shared among 50 at Leo's birthday true
the pitch of a bite of steak.

Since Havana I sit in corners of exiles' restaurants, waiting for the delivery
of the address of the paid ghost who killed the poet, & of the package of an unpaid
ghost's severed hands.

Since Havana I look under the emperor's edicts
for the rolled scroll transcripts of the future tribunals.

Since Havana the glints of the new day shimmer from the cars in line for the tunnel.
Since Havana I carry something to gather them. Since Havana I waste nothing.
-
Suzanne Gardinier is the author of, most recently, Amérika: The Post-Election Malas, Atlas, and Homeland. Other works include Iridium & Selected Poems 1986–2009 (2011), Today: 101 Ghazals (2008), and the long poem The New World (1993), which Lucille Clifton chose for the Associated Writing Program’s Award Series in Poetry. She has also published a collection of essays, A World That Will Hold All The People (1996). Gardinier’s poetry has been included in the anthologies Best American Poetry (1989) and Under 35: The New Generation of American Poets (1989). She is the recipient of the Kenyon Review Award for Excellence in the Essay as well as grants from the Lannan Foundation and the New York Foundation. Gardinier lives in Manhattan and has taught at Sarah Lawrence College since 1994.

2 Poems by Justin Lacour

Dear Naomi,

The woman who sells bootlegs never has a copy of Marat/Sade. I’d press the issue, but then I would be the asshole. People here crave a bete noire like Theresa of Avila pictured a tiny Christ living in her heart. Usually, I’m happy to oblige. Daddy said you don’t get to pick your penance, just like you don’t get to pick your nickname, which sounds stupid, but it’s his laconic code for “things don’t get any better from here.” The self-pity is bottomless. I spent a quarter-hour staring at my reflection in the coffee like some character from beatnik mythology. The voice on the radio says this is Water Music by Handel as opposed to Water Music by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, I guess, and the stick figures in the restroom will turn absolutely carnal by midday. This is the third poem I’ve read this morning where I’ve found the alcoholism insincere. If I read stuff like this when I was young, I would have been afraid to ever fall in love. It’s all backyards and tearful birds and phony salvation. I wish you best of luck in your art. I aspire to be the Olive Garden of Letters, where the portions are so overwhelming, the low quality is beside the point. Please keep writing. You’re the only person that I miss. I can see the last pay phone on Williams Blvd. from here. One day, I’ll light a candle there in memory of our conversations.

Dear Naomi

It’s not Mardi Gras where you live and probably too cold for parades anyhow. I’m up to it with pacification disguised as noblesse oblige, though maybe I’m looking at it wrong, maybe every year the streets fill with fulmination and portent, and I just miss it. I’m far from the brightest and the best. In the new photos of you by the bead curtain, your house looks ghostly, by which I mean, it feels like there’s someone else with you in the photo who doesn’t make their presence known. It’s as if the image of you now is superimposed on the image I had of you then, plus all the times I must have missed, yet, on the surface, the picture looks uncrowded. It speaks to your elegance, a burden you wield well. Someone at work said prima nocte is all made up. Is that true? That sounds like something you would know. We had an early and intense spring, but now the cold’s returned. When it gets dark, I like to imagine I’m wounded and a little edgy out on the streets of large rodents and bicycle thieves, serving some obscure principle that, if it has a face, keeps it hid behind layers of transparency, and any residual nobility comes from never knowing if you’re actually being noble. Your letters give me a spit of land to stand on. Thank you. There’s no cheering section out here for the ruminative soul; you’re right to stay away. I should be more hard-boiled by these little life lessons. I shouldn’t be afraid to stop writing.
-
Justin Lacour lives in New Orleans. His work has appeared or is forthcoming from Susan / The Journal, New Orleans Review (Web Features), and other journals.

"Helix in Profile" by Nicholas h Politan

I want
            want
to feed 
            my feed
the want
            I want
others
            to see
in me
            and not me
ideally
            not in me
to be seen
            as me
I need
            a screen
to screen
            reams
of 
            iniquity
to clean
            me
suds
            me clean
what’s 
            me
keyed
            on a scene
where
            it all stops
the lie
            I want
to want
            a want
free
            of me
-
Nicholas h Politan works as a wine merchant and lives in Brooklyn. What on Earth has he become?

"iii" by Lora Kinkade

i snagged

the neck i wreckt

the ringer at the crease

a wrinkle timed

immaculately full spine lurch

the 13 pointed teeth gleams

my image like the dart

of crick-hid scales

u knew well

to straighten the teeth

but couldn’t wait to jingle

the coin icy in yr

swollen palm the fat

kernals of corn

the minty floss threaded

blanket stitch n the smell of

winterfresh & blood

u knew better

but yr voice won’t topple the

babbling motor

they touch your arm without asking

call you sugar

yr jaw sore from the clench
-
Lora Kinkade is a queer, rural poet and farmer living in Freestone, California. She received her B.A. of Creative Writing, Poetry from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She was a founding member of the Omni Writing Collective. Her most recent publications include The Bombay Gin, Matchbox Magazine, and The Red Wheelbarrow.

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.

"consangui(sh)inity" and "beacon in brink" by Ty Little

consangui(sh)inity

deciduous is a haunting word
I would like to change
the definition
if only

for you,

liberation of my cunt!

in the form of organ
trans plant

take it with you and I will kiss it
goodbye for the
abscission
of
cherishing

the only way I know how
to evolve
into an internal ecosystem

my
brothers
are
hunters
for
mushrooms / completion

I
search
for
both

liberation of fungal spore!

a coming

to
an
external
cycle
of
predetermined
choice

beacon in brink

some of you are ghosts now
a different type of animal
throats expunging
ectoplasm surely wrestles against the space
between where we stand

and stood

call the cops to the front!
I want to see them shrouded
in the uptick of
their own recession
from this poet’s fingers

if old technology
was like new technology
I’d photoshop their eyes

shut
-
Ty Little is a poet/vessel. They believe all dogs and poems are sacred. Recently, they moved to Richmond, Virginia and feel a little less scared of everything. Magic is real.

Excerpt from "American Girl Doll" by Naomi Washer

America, I used to sit in my bedroom in the suburbs in high school listening to Allen Ginsberg’s “America” set to “Closing Time” by Tom Waits. I listened over and over as the music swelled and I felt an uprising in my chest, America. Do you know how lonely it is to feel an uprising in your chest in the suburbs, America? This was my poetry. It was the late 90s and the start of a new millennium—we didn’t want to hear any female voices yet, we weren’t uncovering the roots of our devastation. America, I am grown up now, cooking a 1950s recipe for Mexican Chicken, can you imagine how truly Mexican that recipe could be? America, I barely speak Spanish. America, I thought my heritage was Irish but it’s actually Scottish. America, white people in my generation don’t know a thing about their heritage but love to claim whatever could be theirs. America, I thought I was Russian-Romanian but my people are from Warsaw. We’re from a place near Loch Lomond, a place close to home. America, do you know that Poland tried to erase its devastation of its own Jews? America, I am troubled, and so are you. America, I had been in college for two months when the first black president was elected. Everyone ran drunken screaming happy through the streets. America, I used to call myself a-political, can you imagine? America, I was on a school trip in France when Bush declared war. It was the middle of the night in Paris, we were 12 year-old kids, we woke up to watch the speech on TV. France didn’t want to get involved in this mess, America. Can you blame them? It was confusing for us. We were 12 year-old kids watching our country declare war, far away from our families in America. But then we realized this meant the airports might close; we might not be able to get back home to you, America. That was confusing for us. We didn’t know how to feel about that, America. There were rumblings before we left for France. Most families didn’t let their kids go, America, but not my parents. My parents weren’t afraid, America, they wanted me to experience Real Culture, and Real Culture, America, always skirts the edge of danger. 
//
America, the whole idea of war didn’t seem like a very good idea. It wasn’t the best idea you’d ever had, America, but it is the idea you always seem most famous for.
//
America, the first bar I ever went to underage was McSorley’s. I was 18, they served only “light and dark beer,” I didn’t know which one I liked or how to order, it was Valentine’s Day in the East Village, I was sitting in McSorley’s, this formerly “Men Only” pub, do you know what that meant to me, America? To be sitting in McSorley’s when outside it was indeed New York and beautifully snowing? America, I bought my copy of A Coney Island of the Mind from a bookseller hidden in a corner of Boston. I read “I Am Waiting” sitting on a bench next to a homeless man while a white man dressed in Revolutionary garb led a tour of schoolchildren through the city. America, my favorite Girl Doll was Molly. She had long brown hair and glasses. She read books and she looked like me. My grandmother made us matching smock dresses. America, do you know how much cigarettes cost these days? Do you know there are people my age who can afford to feed themselves but never bother learning to cook? What would you say about this, America? America, I have lived in San Francisco, do you know what your children live like on those streets? Do you know how many still seek in California the American Dream? The American Dream in California is a multi-million dollar apartment with flimsy walls, America, it’s a shared front lawn the size of a stamp filled with brands of imported cactus.

America, I was born in the South and raised in New England, don’t know where I should be.
-
Naomi Washer is the author of Phantoms (dancing girl press, 2019) and the translator from the Spanish of Sebastián Jiménez Galindo’s Experimental Gardening Manual: create your own habitat in thirty-something simple steps(Toad Press, 2019). Other work has appeared in Court Green, Pithead Chapel, Asymptote, Sundog Lit, Split Lip Magazine, and other journals. She has been awarded fellowships and residencies from Yaddo, Vermont Studio Center, Studio Faire and Chateau d’Orquevaux in France, and Columbia College Chicago where she earned her MFA in Nonfiction. In 2019, she was named one of 30 Writers to Watch by The Guild Literary Complex. She lives in Chicago where she is the editor and publisher of Ghost Proposal.

"Restless" and "In the Country of Uncertainty 2" by Peter Leight

Restless

I’m not pointing,

this is just the way I hold my hands with the wrists curved back when I’m not sure what I’m going to use them for.

Sometimes I go upstairs 

in order to come downstairs,

loosening my pants to get started—

I’m not even thinking about free will or the other kind that falls in your lap when you don’t even notice anything,

I believe I’m light enough to leave the ground and heavy enough to come back down,

do you see what I’m saying?

If I’m shivering

it’s only because I’m sitting still—

a standstill arrangement settles nothing,

solves nothing, 

it’s actually a shame,

are we still okay?

My friend thinks it’s better to get rid of the things you’re not happy with, 

together with the ones that aren’t happy with you

Not even hesitating,

when you hesitate people think you don’t care,

or there’s something you’re hiding— 

you’re hiding something you don’t even care about.

How do you know if it’s annoying?

I don’t even need to rest,

if my veins are swollen it’s only because there’s so much stuff in them, 

like a form of bravery—

I’m actually moving around while I’m resting, as if I’m in a different country right next to the country I’m in,

what if you don’t need to be

anywhere at all?

I know it’s selfish, as when you pick up a photo album and the first thing you look for is a picture of yourself,

if you don’t find one 

it’s a shame.

When my friend tells me to calm down

and get some rest,

I have to tell her we need to get going right now,

is it too obvious?

I think I’m light enough to lift myself up and heavy enough to do all the chores, 

as soon as I sit down 

I start moving around—

I often think there isn’t enough happiness for everybody to have some, not in the country we’re in, 

I don’t know what’s the matter with me.

The shame is what you feel 

when you can’t even explain it to yourself.

In the Country of Uncertainty 2

When you look through your hands it’s cut off at the sides, as if your eyes are biting into something,

it’s probably something you haven’t even thought of,

there are probably some things you’re not even thinking about,

when you don’t know what it is is this what they mean by secret offer?

Moving around a lot,

as if it’s only the first domino—

you often mix up the fight and flight signals,

covering your teeth

and uncovering your calves,

touching the tips of one hand to the tips of the other hand, as when you take something apart in order to be able

to put it back together.

You’re not even sure if you’re offering

or being offered—

sometimes you think you don’t understand anything,

I mean nobody understands everything.

What if you’re putting it together like one of those old maps before they knew what the countries looked like?

Before they knew about everything that happened?

Of course when something happens there’s almost always something that isn’t happening at the same time,

it’s probably something you haven’t even thought of,

probably something you’re not even thinking about—

you’re not even sure if you appreciate it

or you don’t appreciate it enough.

How is it going to be fair

when everybody needs something different?

And what about the others,

the ones you don’t know anything about?

In our own lives we’re covering our eyes with our hands,

there are so many things that are unbelievable believing you have the key is the same as letting yourself in,

the same as being inside,

as if you’re putting together a secret offer.

When you put it together it’s easier to think it belongs to you,

otherwise it wouldn’t be what it is.

When you take something apart it’s easier to imagine it belongs to you because it isn’t what it is.

There are a lot of distinctions we’re not even making,

not right now,

as if it’s one of those maps where you’re in more than one country at the same time,

or you’re in the wrong country,

or some other country—

that’s when you take your hands away from your face.
-
Peter Leight lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.  He has previously published poems in Paris Review, AGNI, Antioch Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, FIELD, and other magazines.  

"It's All Around Germantown" by Keegan Cook Finberg

Rustic weathered chestnut and cream
Brownchickenbrowncow
He passed me in the intersection 
and said “hey” I returned the “hey”
and kept walking.

high volume of criminal activity
almond milk a dollar cheaper
non residents slipping in,
me, working weekends.
-
Keegan Cook Finberg is a poet and a scholar of literature. Her poetry has appeared in Sixth Finch, Prelude Magazine, Rove, Two Serious Ladies, Bone Bouquet and elsewhere. Her essays have been published in Textual Practice and Canada and Beyond, and her public scholarship has appeared in Jacket2, The Rumpus, The Believerand Southern Indiana Review.