Poetry
Behemoth
by Julie Allyn Johnson in Issue Four, May 2022
Watch as I tend
these ice-blue flames,
poking and prodding
every faltering gash.
Lean in as I expatriate the spark
and sizzle
of kindred combatants.
My hell-mouth
reeks
of animus.
Distillation by fire,
the hiss and whine
of the Great Machine,
its clunk and growl
of rotors and gears—
witne...
A Wreckful Planting of Small Pockets of Thirst
by Nnadi Samuel in Issue Four, May 2022
First published in Uncanny Magazine, March 2022
I run out of ways to keep you urgent in my mouth,
stomach your shouting relic.
so, when grief comes for an unburial, unearthing you into the forgotten,
I stuff you under my tongue.
how I've learnt to carry you across borders,
across turnpikes & ra...
sestina for the summer solstice
by Claire McNerney in Issue Three, March 2022
dot the j and cross the seven.
upcoming in neon, in oppressive heat
we dream with night-opened windows.
too-small frogs can’t eat the mosquitos,
preparing the party, the cake is neat
but in this rotting mansion we’re still far from heaven.
the kid still thinks cream cake is heaven—
she wears...
The Nymphs Are Migrating
by Madalena Daleziou in Issue Three, March 2022
In the small hours, under the wolf light
my best friend throws peanuts
at my window. It is the nymphs.
They are migrating.
The scorched mosaic
of dirt moans under my feet.
The woods are dressed in red
but not the red they should be.
too soon, too soon
In my part of the world, summer is
...
And it dries and dries
by Marisca Pichette in Issue Three, March 2022
In my mind a butterfly catches pneumonia:
Flap flap the world is changed.
There’s a second life but not a first,
there’s you and no there’s just me—
no we no us just just just
iron and
lilies and
coffin nails.
All I want to see is darkness today.
But the light keeps intruding
even after...
Misconceptions Regarding the Moon
by Avra Margariti in Issue Two, January 2022
The moon is a ghost, a god.
She is a white rabbit of silver
Eyes and whiskers.
He is an ancient demon, a teething child.
There is a person in the moon
And they’re crying crater tears.
To climb to the moon you must build
A ladder of night-bleached bones.
To launch yourself into lunar orbit
You need ...
Wolf Rune
by Thomas Zimmerman in Issue One, November 2021
The forest lands link earth with heaven,
spruce-tree tips like dendrites of elder earthen gods.
The long, dark, lonely winters swirl within
a song, the singer’s storm-tossed mind at odds
with frozen lakes, the fir trees’ needle-bed.
Moose-haunted evergreens stretch miles and miles,
and fallow fields...
The Opposite of Time
by Brian Hugenbruch in Issue One, November 2021
The opposite of Time is Might-Have-Been.
We travel through the tempered void and thus
can change the stream of time to flatter us,
but currents pull us toward what we’ve seen
has come to pass. It lives within us still.
How many restless empires have we torn
down, broken, with their murderers unborn?...
Ascenkin's Roots
by Ai Jiang in Issue One, November 2021
We are crowded sisters
with roots that tangle and quiver
in the wind. Our roots cling
onto brittle pieces of shattered,
dried soil. Only crumbles hold
our skeletal bodies upright.
The leaves have long fallen,
consumed by creatures
who abandoned the forests
and now barren grounds of Ascenkin. ...