Issue #60
Emily Polson
It is a truth universally acknowledged
after Jane Austen
A man in possession of a woman in want
of a good fortune, must be a good man
A woman in want of a good man is single,
must be in possession of good fortune
A wife must be a possession of a man
of good fortune, a single possession of want
A man in possession of a wife
must also be in want of a single woman
A wife in possession of a man
in possession of a single woman is in want
A wife in possession of a man
must be in want of a single woman
A man in want of a woman
in want of a woman must be a single man
A woman in want of a wife
must also be a possession
A wife must be in want of a single man
A woman in want must be a possession of a man
A wife: must be good
Must be good fortune: a single woman
Emily Polson’s poems have appeared in Epoch Press, The Daily Drunk, Capsule Stories, Anti-Heroin Chic, and elsewhere. Originally from Iowa, she now lives in Brooklyn and works as an editor at Scribner. You can find her on Twitter @emilycpolson.
DB Jonas
SQUALOR WILL FIND YOU
You’ve always been so careful
To spare the one who’s not yet here,
to spare some future you the little squalors
of an evening’s rumpled, unmade bed,
the morning’s dirty dishes in the sink.
You’ve invested all your present moments
in some someone else’s future, the future
presence of the stranger you will be tonight
or in the daylight’s dawn when last night’s child,
the you you are today, is long forgotten.
You’ve always seemed to imagine
the unimaginable always waiting
just around the corner, the squalor
that drifts along each soft horizon,
that lies like mist and penetrates like poison
the quiet corners of the world he’ll see
if you don’t get busy soon and tidy up
the tidy world you’ll want the guest to have
around him in the dying light or morning dew,
for well you know how squalor always locates you.
DB Jonas is an orchardist living in the Sangre de Cristo mountains of northern New Mexico. Born in California in 1951, he was raised in Japan and Mexico. His work has recently appeared in Tar River, Whistling Shade, Neologism, Consilience Journal, The Ekphrastic Review, Innisfree Poetry Journal, The Decadent Review and others.
Christian Paulisich
Residual
|
High wired in Honolulu so my sister and I said Fuck it, let’s hike Diamond Head, the sun in its slow ascent. The whole time we talked about two things: our grandma’s ghost and boys— I remember the smell He pulled over. The water split the moon- When it ended, the water folded in from this height. |
Christian Paulisich is an undergraduate student at Johns Hopkins University. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland, but is originally from the Bay Area, California. His poems appear in Monterey Poetry Review and Beltway Poetry Quarterly.
Ren Pike
Bring me down
wood duckling at mother call
paper kite losing the breeze
pilot caught in sudden stall
creaking mast in maelstrom sea
yo-yo as the string unwinds
true shot from a hunter’s gun
mushroom of the deadly kind
defense cannon at Verdun
lightning strike from anvil clouds
misstep on the slickest ice
bully taunt cast in a crowd
stomach when one sees the price
hot air thinks it can resist
ballast is amused by this
Reincarnated as a bird
would be okay
angry face suits
beak stabby
head hardy
choke down
insect after insect
leg twitch
wriggle-slip
gullet constrict
eye flicker shadow kick
heart freak
wing beat close call
good reason, finally
to be ever fraught
Ren Pike grew up in Newfoundland. Through sheer luck, she was born into a family who understood the exceptional value of a library card. Her work has appeared in Whale Road Review, Riddle Fence and Portmanteau LDN. When she is not writing, she wrangles data in Calgary, Canada.
Jordan Potter
No memorial
If something should happen
and I do become, like this deer,
robed in guts, dragged to the median;
if something like this night, clear
and unimportant, should be my night,
and all my rage disappear
into these same cliffs, all blood-born might
trickle, now inanimate, to shore;
if passing cars briefly ignite
the vagrant seconds of my gore,
turning to mansions, and the cold wall
dividing east and west should store
my only epitaph, then this, too, is all
I desire, anonymous as beasts,
unwept, with no memorial.
Jordan Potter is a writer and actor from Huntington Beach.
Sakina Qazi
The Crane
In the melting light a crane
I have seen. Just a limber, milken wraith
Proclaims all chiding sense,
For upon this weary lane,
No sacred feather does fall.
But still across the languid pond,
From eyes set in snowy cream
Glides sweet and mute a call.
How has vesper’s jewel come
To stand amid my lot of blighted dirt?
Flee it will, it will, it will,
This silver thing of silver custom.
Yet even as a richer murk the night attains
The silent, legged dream remains.
Sakina Qazi is a student at the University of Miami. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Amethyst Review and Wilder Things Magazine.
Lynda Blair Vernalia
THE UNKNOWN SETTLING OF THE MIND
The clouds never clear now passing,
overcasting monochromatic bands
of impatience and despair
casting our journeys unrepaired
into sharp relief
of open fingertips on flat screens screaming
goodbyes across unstable streaming
or flying without net into the void.
I mean, we just spoke on the phone two weeks ago,
I was annoyed I hadn’t planned a visit…
…Now I’ve missed it
Because the mist drifted in and hid you
till there was no…you. Just. Went…
with a leftover scent of asparagus and sandalwood…
What good is grief when even the tombstones
require an appointment
chained against the echoes of your last sentiment,
“Love you! Love you, love you…”
The earworm burrowing in my crumbled crust,
dust in the unknown settling of the mind
floating blindly,
reminiscing deeply,
but you no longer empathize with earth
or feel the worth of my love for you,
the incessant ache of this looping song…
“Love you! Love you, love you…”
…longing to know, amidst the grey
If I will ever move beyond today
(For Mai, who passed suddenly from COVID – May 9th 2020)
Lynda Blair Vernalia, EdM, is a published poet, produced playwright and veteran actor. Her poems have appeared in the Bibliophilos (vol X #1), VoicesNet (Fall 2003), Poetry Nation, WantonWords (#3), The Christian Communicator (Winter 2004 and Spring 2004) and several anthologies, and she has received several Honorable Mentions. Lynda performs and competes her poetry across New England.
Preeti Talwai
Dragon Fruit
No fruit ever had a name so singularly fitting. What else would you call this fantastical pop of color in the produce section, looking almost plastic, screaming summer? It is the OPI bottle picked out in the nail salon the day after the last day of high school. A flamboyance of flamingos at the San Diego Zoo. A flash of bubble gum between teeth. Jolly Rancher tongue. Yet, for all the swagger and noise, its taste is a whisper against the roof of the mouth. So delicate that even my hyperactive gut doesn’t sense a threat. They say its seeds are dangerous, that they can get lodged in the ulcers. Imagine a hundred black flecks rooting into inflamed intestine: resowing angry red soil with a garden of wild fuchsia dreams.
Preeti Talwai writes from the California coast, where she is also a researcher at Google. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Typehouse, The Dillydoun Review, Right Hand Pointing, and Unbroken, among others.
Meghan Kemp-Gee
WHAT WE PUT INTO THE GROUND
was terror, but a terror like someone saying I don’t know, but then again it was a long time ago, was no hope, never hope. What we put into the ground was a question about why, about what we love and what we don’t, what we have names for, what lives in fragments and elsewhere behind perfect windexed panes of someone else’s glass.
Meghan Kemp-Gee lives between Vancouver BC and Fredericton NB. She writes poetry, comics, and scripts of all kinds. Her debut poetry collection, The Animal in the Room, is forthcoming in 2023. She also co-created Contested Strip, the world’s best comic about ultimate frisbee. Find her on Twitter @MadMollGreen
Courtney LeBlanc
A Quatern About Joy
I’m trying to write about joy
but instead think of his hands,
his mouth against my wrist,
my heartbeat pounding against his lips.
I want to talk about the sunsets we watched but
I’m trying to write about joy
and every time the ocean swallowed the sun
I knew it was another day gone.
I think of the salt air that licked skin,
his hands tangled in my hair,
the joy I’m trying to write about:
my name in his mouth,
Good morning, beautiful, falling from
his lips before he even opened his eyes.
How he always wanted me
to write about joy. I’m trying.
Courtney LeBlanc is the author of the full-length collections Exquisite Bloody, Beating Heart (Riot in Your Throat) and Beautiful & Full of Monsters (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press). She is a winner of the Jack McCarthy book prize, and her next collection of poetry will be published by Write Bloody in spring 2023.