Issue #81
Jade Kleiner
I-95 Streetlights
the highwayside midnight we punctuate,
our halogen firmament,
the parishioners beneath our bulbs,
the redundancy of other stars,
the hurdy-gurdy hymn of moth wings
harmonizing with a prius,
and then morning wins again:
after our streetlights
I can for one instant hear
the failed prayers of bugs.
Jade Kleiner is a trans fiction writer and poet. She often writes about history, the body, and red leaves. Her poems can be found in Gingerbread Ritual, The Orchards Poetry Journal, and New Note Poetry. She lives in New England.
Virginia Watts
Historic Cemetary Tour
I wander rows, sprays of spruce, bows
plots adorned with grave blankets
as if bones can be kept warm
once they are on their own
In the distance across field and river
the buildings of Manhattan
as cold and grey as these monuments
winged angels, boxy mausoleums
I assume the man is here
to visit his wife, he’s brought her
a poinsettia, shiny green foil
decorates the pot, white price tag
stuck on clear plastic around petals
His foot is perched on its rim
three times wind snatched the poinsettia
tumbled it away from him
the man’s wobbly legs gave chase
trapped the object like a soccer ball
What will he do? Cast around for a stone
to weigh down the pot, take it home
to his undecorated apartment in Queens
throw it away, fall to his knees and dig?
A swarm of squawking crows
unfolds and folds upon itself
a giant, pleated, ebony fan settles
on nearby tree branches, refuses to quiet
Birds take flight, a wild, rolling wave
black specks careen into a blue future
the man lifts his foot, the poinsettia tilts
wind wins, strews the red of her
across trampled terrain a dazzling stain
Virginia Watts is the author of poetry and stories found in Epiphany, CRAFT, The Florida Review, Reed Magazine, Pithead Chapel, Permafrost Magazine, and Sky Island Journal among others. She has been nominated four times for a Pushcart Prize and four times for Best of the Net.
Jennifer Lothrigel
Milky Silence
Empty shell / milky white silence,
born from intimacy / slowly fading
exoskeleton / leftover tough of tender /
brave outside bones / slow secretion /
possessed by damp, by loss / song for
wander and nowhere / hollow holder
of breeze / lyrical body / tidal armor
offering / broken oath / newly warm,
surrendered on shore.
Jennifer Lothrigel is a poet and artist in the San Francisco Bay area. She is the author of Pneuma (Liquid Light Press, 2018,) Wormhole Weaver (self published, 2022) and Secret Futures (Bottlecap Press, 2023.) Her work has also been published in Phoebe Journal, Arcturus, Dash Literary Journal, and Adanna Journal, amongst others.
Michael Conner
Manifesto
In a clearing by the lake, the young poet
wrote on a fresh page about the murmuration
of starlings pulsing in the pale gold twilight:
Behold —
one thousand black rubies moving through time
to the holy spirit’s baton, as if peeking beyond
a keyhole into the Kingdom’s ineffable harmony —
Like water, like sand — I sing
in humble praise to the mystery that eludes
my grasping hand —
Enough already.
Too short on time for poetic mystery.
This poet is foremost bone and memory —
both of which offer utility
only for so long.
In a world emaciated by gray
tendrils of cureless extraction
the spirit does not move
through praise and song.
The answered prayer is mobilization — uniting
en masse to outflank the screeching peregrine.
I need solidarity, not a metaphor —
I am responsible for children.
Heaven is precision.
Michael Conner is a writer and graduate student of Theology living in Swannanoa, North Carolina. He is the author of Total Annihilation (Bottlecap Press, 2023). Other work can be read in Tenderly, Spectra, and Shambles Literary Magazine.
Byron Hoot
Winter Sightings
Four crow on four top branches
on a January morning
I passed at 67 miles per hour
the calculus of vision
a blink or two then the scene
gone. What I don’t understand
is the calculus of memory,
those birds, feathers fluffed out
to trap their body heat,
gray winter sky,
how something so brief
lingers and if it meant nothing
why I still am seeing it.
Byron was born and raised in Appalachia. Left. And returned and live in The Wilds of Pennsylvania. Retired. He is a nemophilist: One who is fond of forests or forest scenery. A haunter of the woods. Someone who regularly spends time in a particular place. He writes what he knows.
Mike Goodwin
Jenga
The masterminds packing trucks stack
Larger boxes above the eye line. Pull from
The wrong slot an avalanche,
Merchandise cascading off teetering pallets.
One guy took a case of iPads to his face
Purpling and yellowing the space around
His eye for at least a month.
Another broke a toe when a desk fell on it.
He limped long afterward, refusing
A doctor accepting something
Corporeally new and sad while earning
Just above the required minimum wage.
Management demands from each of us
“From door to floor in twenty-four”
Where despite our best efforts otherwise
We left each night with weak knees
Stiff backs sore necks warped minds
And many of us numbed our aging
Bodies by imbibing so we could mangle
Ourselves the next day hoping not to fall
Over.
Mike Goodwin is a rapidly aging teacher and former retail monkey. He has a five-year-old son who takes up much of his time. Otherwise, beyond some published fiction and nonfiction, his poetry appears in pacificREVIEW and Slab among several others.
Eugene Datta
Sitting on a Park Bench on a Snowy Evening
The thoughts lie white
on the black filigree
of branches.
Where my head should be,
the sound of snow-
flakes.
Eugene Datta’s recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Dalhousie Review, Mantis, Unbroken Journal, Rust & Moth, Arboreal, Hamilton Stone Review, Main Street Rag, and elsewhere. Born in India, he lives in Aachen, Germany.
Kelly Houle
In the Bookstore
stalagmites form
the mystery section
trees of knowledge
planed
geological superposition of ideas
pulp fiction stacked
like cordwood petrified
striated evidence stratified
as origamic
architecture
to maximize
surface area
of the mind
a steady drip
echoes
the salt caverns
book lovers we tilt our heads
like planets killing time, space
a coordinated heist
we’re all in on
the perfect crime—
customers appear
to stand
against
a book case
we are stealing
whatever we can get
our hands on
invisible sapphires
quantized
packets of light
jump from shelves
into the pockets
of the mind
the walls are lined—
thousands of doors
leading out
Kelly Houle’s poems have been published or are forthcoming in Alba, CALYX, Connecticut River Review, Crab Orchard Review, Kenyon Review, Radar Poetry, Sequestrum, and others. She was a finalist for the Arts and Letters ‘Unclassifiable’ contest and winner of a 2023 Vivian Shipley Award. She is also a painter.