Issue #66

Miriam Mason

Narcissus Poeticus

Pool wasn’t stilling clear with mirrors either,
was once the pond a puddle self, our
cracks and glass. Ripples too quickly sour,
looking these eyes at nothing nothing neither.
 
As a glass smooth and a darksome, slick ether,
so did sordid tears snap the face collapse or flower
and echo Echo nature eats devour;
but the dust flesh and some bone meal deceiver.
 
Cuz silence spots in the wandering find;
self put dissolved in that stilling warm clear-
ing we with glitting hope this ego not near.
So plush its gentle pleasantness, loose mind,
admire! Admire! Cleaving our flower’s failure,
forgotten now that be all misbehavior

Miriam Mason is a sophomore majoring in English and Gender Studies at Columbia University. Their work is forthcoming in The Gadfly and The Rambler! Miriam grew up in Bethesda, Maryland.

Rebecca Kilroy

Sestina for the Harvest

The farm sign offers apples, eggs, and chickens.
You pull over to paw through baskets of fruit, shiny and red.
In Latin they’re called Malus something. Right?
You know malus means bad. Original sin and Eve
and all that. You imagine taking a bundle home, taking a knife
and in one long serpentine strip, carving the skin off the apple.

Your grandmother knew the trick of skinning apples.
You can see her at the stove, frying chicken,
a pie crust waiting. Her grip was never slack on the knife.
Her work-worn hands shiny and red.
She first told you about the Curse of Eve
and how to get blood stains out of your sheets the right

way. She taught you a trick for finding Mr. Right:
              1. Peel the long sensuous strip off the apple

              2. Toss it over your shoulder, high into the eaves

              3. Watch it flutter down like a startled chicken

              4.The initial of your true love will curl on the floor to be read.

But you must get the peel in a single strip. No slip of the knife.

You follow the road past the farm until it jack-knifes,
dither at the four-way stop, turn right.
The road snakes over the hills, running through red
Maple groves and you pass more signs for apples,
honey, pies, home-baked, farm fresh, eggs, chickens
Which came first? Apples or eggs? Adam or Eve?

Your mother almost named you Eve
but then decided that would just be twisting the knife
in an otherwise unlucky life. She chickened
and called you Mary. Sensible, plain, right.
You turn left and remember the Latin name for apple–
Malus domestica– a word you want to write in red

lipstick. Domestic evil, is the translation you once read;
Bad house is what stuck in your head. For Eve,
it fits. And for your mother. And the apple
is never far from the tree. You think of your kitchen knife
of the malice in its blade, the heft just right,
the way it cleaves straight through the neck of a chicken.

The sun hangs red over the hills.
You want to pick it like an apple.
You want it warm like chicken’s blood.
You bet Eve
wanted to slide a knife under the sun too
and peel the light but that’d be wrong. Right?

Rebecca Kilroy is a novelist, poet and short story writer. Her work has been published in Oranges Journal, Fatal Flaw, Capulet Magazine and others. She is the editor-in-chief of The Mount Holyoke Review and founder-editor of Thanatos.

Carlie Williams

REINCARNATION

IF GOD IS REALLY CRUEL YOU’LL BE A CATERPILLAR IN YOUR NEXT LIFE AND ILL BE A BEE SO CLOSE BUT NEVER TOUCHING IF GOD IS REALLY CRUEL WE’LL BE SENT TO SEPARATE HEAVENS AND I’LL SPEND ETERNITY LOOKING FOR YOU IF GOD IS REALLY CRUEL I’M IMMORTAL AND I’LL WANDER THE EARTH FOR FOREVER, TASTING YOUR ABSENCE IF GOD IS REALLY CRUEL THEN OUR DEATH FALLS AT THE HANDS OF WORDS LIKE TIMING AND GRIEF AND WE LIVE UNTIL WE’RE EIGHTY-ONE LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE WHO NEVER SEE EACH OTHER AGAIN BUT I CHOOSE TO BELIEVE GOD IS LOVING AND I DON’T SEE A LIFE WITHOUT YOU IN IT

Carlie Williams is from Arkansas and a student at Duke University. She’s been writing poetry all her life.

Elias Kerr

THE HISTORY // THE WITNESS

Elias Kerr (they/he) is a transmasculine poet who has been published in Esprit, Evening Street Review (forthcoming December 2022), The Hollins Critic (forthcoming 2023), and Rappahannock Review. Kerr is a recipient of the inaugural 2022 Stemmler/Dennis LGBT& Award. Their poetry focuses on how the literary arts can be used to explore and represent identity.

Ken Poyner

Piety

After years of gospels,
Psalms, prayers, admissions
Of sin, celibacy and
Flagellation, she is to be
Taken bodily by God,
Lifted from the earth and
Its wickedness, placed
Above destruction and divine
Retribution. Light as soap
Bubbles she rises outstretched
In crucifixion pose carefully
From the floor, her clothes
Now vestments, her hair
Struggling to form into halo,
And thunders into the bedroom
Ceiling, a saintly thwack,
Again and again and again.

Ken Poyner has been publishing for 48 years, married for 45 years, retired for seven years. He writes to defeat the numbers. Find his eight available books at www.kpoyner.com, or any number of on-line book vendors.