Poetry
Teen in Recovery from Dystopian Books that Were Portals
by G.E. Woods in Issue Twelve, December 2023
Teach yourself joy,
the therapist sings to you, white strands splitting her black hair.
One paper heavier, you leave her office,
contemplating the self-care list she gifted you. Cursed you with.
‘Eat flowers. Be music. Make friends with beating hearts.
Feel yourself m
o
v
e
with patience.’ ... Continue →
Ourasphaira giraldae Awakens
by H.V. Patterson in Issue Twelve, December 2023
Gods writ microscopic,
we are the children of extremes
chitin-clothed, long-dead spores enduring still,
ghosts of ghosts
a billion years dead
For millennia,
we collected your buried tribute
flesh, blood, bones
plastics, garbage, toxic sludge
every sacrifice you unknowingly gave
Now, we eme...
Continue →Made of Glass
by Anna Madden in Issue Twelve, December 2023
the air smells of brine and night spirits
of bare feet sinking into the orchard’s dark earth
where pink ladies dream standing upright
their old branches like my withered arms
and the sea of green I can’t see in the failing light
dark waves of bluegrass and mason jars filled with fireflies
this ...
Continue →Interstellar Catalog: Romantic Interlude
by Shana Ross in Issue Twelve, December 2023
On this world all the colors are named anew
with each child. I have a word for yellow &
a word for blue, but it will not help me talk
to another soul in this city. We point to
the sun & the sky and the piped icing
& buttercream roses on these small
cakes we picked out from the bakery.
On this...
For the attention of my future self
by Brian Hugenbruch in Issue Twelve, December 2023
While you are me, and I am almost you,
I cannot help but think you spin me lies.
I do not think that what we say is true.
Your letter's from our future—and we rise
to conquer bloody challenges ahead—
though you are me, and I am almost you.
I find it less than clear, sir, that we prize
a simil...
Elegy for the Wood Nymphs
by Goran Lowie in Issue Twelve, December 2023
it starts with screams in summer.
there have been signs beforehand—
the trees have started to refuse the rain.
the sky did not submit and coated the trees,
unceasing, in layers of water.
water sits on the ground with open mouth,
waiting to be taken by the tongues of animals,
but even they ref...
A Kelpie Sees Mari Lwyd from Afar
by Maria Schrater in Issue Twelve, December 2023
‘Twas the night before Christmas and I froze in my pond
When I heard a wassailing from the town close anon
A dozen stout peasants with drink all aglow
Were knocking on doors in the gentle-fall snow
I spied you in their midst like an ancestor’s ghost
Bedecked with bright garlands, the object of ...
The Field
by Sandra Pope in Issue Eleven, October 2023
Beyond the boundaries of my yard,
water flows through furrows in a field,
harvested and fallow now, where corn waved
and last year's winter wheat greened the ground
through all the cold brown barren time.
Beneath that soil, I believe, an olden lake—
not a molten core—comes and goes.
I've seen...
Continue →Sestainability
by Rebecca A. Demarest in Issue Eleven, October 2023
The plasticsmith waits for the children to return
with buckets full of scraps, bags, bottles, and toys
meticulously scrapped and washed and clean.
The buckets are weighed, then into the crucible they go,
rendered down to grayish brown ingots, made ready
for shipment from the Patch to the factor...
Queen of the Underworld
by Connie La-Huynh in Issue Eleven, October 2023
When I float along the deep abyss, every rotting worm writhes
to be near me, every putrid parasite begs
for me to eat him whole. The School of Worship
comes out from hiding, longing for salvation
in my generous arms, and in the Midnight Mass,
the angler’s lure is dimmed by my dazzling spring.
...