Picture This

by Monica Louzon in Issue Eight, March 2023

waves crashing over us
i said goodbye to your

two hands cupping a prismatic star
shining lighthouse bright
over dark, indigo waters
refracting on the

tide rising beneath our feet

sea foam washing over our toes
i said goodbye to your

two hands plunging a prismatic star
headlong into the ...

Continue →

Instructions from a Signalman

by Crystal Sidell in Issue Eight, March 2023

Now, this is most important: Before the light in their eyes flicks off
you must ignite the wick, set it near the head, be ready to reignite it in
case breath or wind or rain snuffs out the flame. If you trip, the
mortal’s thread will be at risk of seizure because the distance

between our posts i...

Continue →

Time Travel

by Ashley Gilland in Issue Seven, November 2022

*Dedicated to my five-year-old self

It’s always me
in my carrot cake tweed jacket
its caramel collar taut around my neck
speckled with goosebumps
pores like moon craters
textured up the vase of my neck
as dehydrated flowers droop out of my parted lips.
It’s always her and her moon shoes
her...

Continue →

The Blood Tithe

by J.D. Harlock in Issue Seven, November 2022

when the smog finally devoured the dying sun,
the creatures of the night
made a throne of the carnage
and a kingdom of the earth
whereby a tithe of blood was imposed on survivors
carefully culled and nurtured
to nourish the aristocracy
that neither grew nor diminished with the years

its memb...

Continue →

That Monster Beneath the Bed

by Beth Cato in Issue Seven, November 2022

bedtime is the worst
mama off giggling and cooing
with her latest boyfriend

me sent to my room
ordered not to come out

the thing beneath my bed
oozes out and wants to talk
about stupid stuff like
what I learned at school
what I watched on TV
how I should do my hair

I tell it to shut up
a...

Continue →

S— Estate, After

by Sarah Cannavo in Issue Seven, November 2022

First published in Literary Hatchet, Issue 22

The dark house sits brooding, high on the hill;
heedless of time passing, of age and decay,
my love walked its halls—he’s roaming them still.

As spiders spin webs from windows to sills,
as velvet tapestries fade and fray,
the dark house sits broodin...

Continue →

Paradiso: A Found Cyborg Poem

by Tiffany Morris in Issue Seven, November 2022

(taken from 2020s advertisements)

it’s written in the stars:
the ingeniously simple
magnetic mechanism
of the making process —
a depth of field
stitching together
trees, mythology —
cosmic archetypes
adjustable and buzzing.

the orchestra of the future
emerges through dream
in underlying ...

Continue →

One-Way, Through the Fire

by Lin Darrow in Issue Seven, November 2022

It’s the first thing they tell you in Temporal Navigation 101:

Time is water,
But it knows no gentle ebb,
Only the rage and riot of rapids.
You can’t go back, the Temporists say;
The currents are too strong.
On this, the handbooks are agreed: don’t cling to lost time.
Drift forward, travel on...

Continue →

My FEMA trailer

by Gary Bloom in Issue Seven, November 2022

Early in the morning
I can hear my neighbor’s TV
Reverberating through the tin foil
Walls of her FEMA trailer
And into my own
Consciousness
Lying on the paper thin mattress
In my own FEMA trailer.
We are together
In a trailer park built
On the ruins of Katrina
And no matter what
They say...

Continue →

Little Arson Grasses

by Jennifer Crow in Issue Seven, November 2022

If you love me, you will burn.
Put your cheek against mine
and feel the heat my bones
release into the world. We plant
ourselves in dry soil and gather
water from every deep and shallow
source, and our thirst grows
like the weeds between rows
of corn, and the river sinks
between the stones ...

Continue →