WCU Poetry Center

brianna virabouth is a lao american poet and scholar whose words are grounded in the principles of unconditional love, care, and joy. they use their art practice to develop questions and spark curiosities about the world around them, through the worlds they have experienced. they are passionate about accessible and equitable forms of education that facilitate healing through community-oriented practice. brianna is currently working on their first collection “dear universe and the uncertain factors that create a life” under the support of Stanford’s Institute for Diversity in the Arts (IDA) Undergraduate Fellowship and about to graduate with a degree in Asian American Studies & Education.

sutthisan

               day eight (after kim hyesoon’s “commute: day one”; translation by choi don mee}

 

on the blue-line your back hits that damn pole. move your legs.

got used to the kicking and screaming of those kids. passing by. 
but you don’t really exist in that train. and did that train ever exist?

do i fit into your mold? of 
whotofollow. and 
whotoignore?

as soon as you step out, you're distracted by lianne la havas and the noises in your head. 
they kept getting louder and those footsteps.
those footsteps became silent.

3-5-0-1-pound. a man comes up behind you but you do not notice. 
he thinks of how to hurt you. but instead.

presses his weight against the door. the only thing inbetween life
and death. this wood door. two types of locks. the inability to scream for help.

you watch this all happen as if you are in third person point-of-view. but thats. 
what it is like to feel. fear.
your gaze now slowly remembering how to say no.

fear is much bigger than the silence. fear is much larger than when you say no for a second time. he leaves. but you cannot leave the foot.
of your bed that you now cry upon.

pitiful. how all you can think of is how to tell your make-believe-lover. i almost died. 
again. because.

only days ago. you slit your wrists just enough.
to not see blood.

so what’s the deal with scary. men. who. think. of. ways. to. hurt. you?

black hair. baggy jeans. strapless dress with the pink bow atop. didn’t my 
umbrella look scary. to you?

you open your eyes and you’re headed towards. 
lak song at eight-pm.
it hasn’t happened. yet.

therefore we pretend those scary. men. have. never.
thought of ways to hurt you.

Charlotte Decker is a poet from Downingtown, Pennsylvania. She is a senior at West Chester University where she is pursuing a degree in English Secondary Education with a creative writing minor. Thanks to her early exposure to creative writing classes, Charlotte has been writing poetry since she was in high school, and she hopes to someday teach high school creative writing classes of her own.

I can’t give up any more of myself

Rushing through the crisp air, gaining speed. Milestones that float in the mist pass
quickly and you can’t pull the breaks—I’m sorry. That’s just time, baby.
 
You imagine your perfect life: a plane, a new continent,
a language foreign to your ears saying life could be a dream, an endless exploration, baby.
 
Even as you age into your skin, your soul settles into its permanent setting your
floorboards get creaky, you can’t imagine your life with a baby
 
A party: you with itchy skin, rattles and bottles to decorate tables in jubilation
of yourcousin’s new little girl, her soon coming baby.
 
Songs about motherhood. Books about not wanting a child. Men in
mediacalling women useless without the shield of a baby.
 
You want to regain what you somehow missed. The feeling of being aimless
of containing wonder; of getting to wander. Are you sure you were once a baby?
 
You’re upset at nothing, maybe at everything. Drifting and drowning and taking on too
much salt water. Charlotte! snap out of it, baby!

Falina is the kind of person who chases the feeling of falling off of roofs. She dreams of places she's been only once before and places she's never known. She writes about the places she can't be and people she never sees. You may find her in an empty field somewhere nearby Tennessee, although she has never been- she found half a heartbeat somewhere way offshore. She owes her happiness to a squirrel named Peanut, and dislikes writing about herself, violently so in the third person.

“Self-Portrait as a Psychrolutes”

They should have left me a thousand meters in,
with decrepit eyes guiding through ripped up bits of flesh,
Here is where I don't know how to live.
 
They'll pry me in a net, undrown my body till it sinks,
pass me by a fishing line where a turtle wrings its neck-
they should have left me a thousand meters in.
 
Preserve me in fluorescent light that burns through blistering skin
misshapen, pale and prodded, a body consumed by head,
here is where I don't know how to live.
 
A breathless sullen face decompressed into pink
masks a ruptured mass of organs molten into brain-
they should have left me a thousand meters in
 
with my own hideousness, now mistaken
as harmless, you've never known me to myself undead,
here is where I don't know how to live,
 
under weightlessness or detritus where I'll decay
Marcidus-marks on me, patient day thirty, a body led just by legs-
they should have left me a thousand meters in
because here is where I don't know how to live.      

Darcy Combs (ey/em) is a mixed Japanese-American student and poet. Ey is always drawn to the absurb, grimy, and romantic across artistic mediums. When not writing, one can find em watching films with eir sibling, preferably at the Music Box Theatre. A born and bred Chicagoan, ey couldn't think of a better place to live. After completing eir degree, ey plans to continue eir passion for literature as a high school English teacher.

Dirt bikes and my father, the somnambulist 

It was the night after a heavy storm.
Sweet liquor seeped into muddy tracks,
the crowds and flies left in a lazy swarm.
My dad, just thirteen, padded over tacks,
shards of glass scattered ghosts of screams with teeth
shattered in pieces, his feet collected
dirt and fresh scars, something surfaced beneath
the slumber, his consciousness connected.
Pinched awake, the earth had drawn enough
blood to rest itself, post meal haziness.
The boy’s hazel eyes absorbed the rough
dawn sifting through the horizon. Restless,
               he returned to a beer soaked sleeping bag,
               lit a wet cig, watched the smoke zig and zag.

Noor Bukhari is a Pakistani-American writer based in Pennsylvania. They are studying literature at West Chester University of Pennsylvania as an undergraduate student.

Albumen

The wind is so strong
A bird’s nest rocks off balance
My baby wakes up

 

 

 

 

Andy Choi was born in 2004 in Philadelphia. He is an undergraduate student at UC Berkeley and the author of Slow Hot (London: Schism Press, 2021). His writing has been featured by the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, the Korea Policy Institute, South Dakota Review, and the Harlem International Film Festival, among others.

Flotsam 

I sift through landscapes,
metaphors, until all’s lost
and perfectly clear.

Leslie is a junior in Communication Design at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design. Poetry and writing is a hobby that Leslie is pursuing in her free time.  

Caja de Cerillas

Mi depresión es la caja de cerillas que
Llevo conmigo a todas partes en el bolsillo de mi chaqueta marrón
Está esperando cualquier tipo de tensión para
Actuar como catalizador para la acción
Está esperando el detonante que le permita
Ser envuelto en fuego.
No estoy seguro de dónde saqué la
Caja, pero un día la conseguí y nunca supe
Cómo deshacerse de él
De vez en cuando, soy capaz de olvidarme de Su
existencia
Otras veces la caja traquetea en mi chaqueta
Haciendo un ruido constante exigiendo mi
Atención.

 

(English Translation):

Matchbox 

My depression is the box of matches that I
Carry with me everywhere in my brown jacket pocket
It is waiting for any sort of tension in order to
Act as a catalyst for action
It is waiting for the trigger that will allow
Itself to be engulfed in flames
I’m not sure where I first got the
Box, but I got It one day and never found out
How to get rid of It.
Occasionally, I’m able to forget about It’s
Existence
Other times the box rattles in my jacket
Making a steady chug noise demanding my
Attention.          
 

P. Scott Cunningham is the author of Ya Te Veo (University of Arkansas, 2018), selected by Billy Collins as part of the Miller Williams Poetry Series. The manuscript was also a finalist for the National Poetry Series. His poems, essays, and translations have appeared in The Nation, American Poetry Review, Gulf Coast, POETRY, A Public Space, Harvard Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Monocle, and The Guardian, among others. Born and raised in South Florida, he is a graduate of Wesleyan University and the founder of the O, Miami Poetry Festival. He lives with his family in Illinois.

SELF-PORTRAIT AS THE “i” IN FLORIDA

          Pick up a habit. Drop it from the sky.
Wherever it lands, call me by that name.
          My sadness comes in waves. I hang it out to dry.
 
My head floats, neckless, above the tide.
          Ocean, puddle, pool—down here it’s all the same.
To the shopping carts I stole: I’m not sure why.
 
          Where am I from? Where Channel 10 arrives.
If there’s a body, someone must be blamed
          but if the cemetery’s empty, nobody has died.
 
The truth is nothing but a well-regarded lie.
          You can have my reputation. Leave me my fame.
To get to heaven, a sinner threads the needle’s eye.
 
          To get to Florida, he turns the key and drives.
If the road had intentions, it wouldn’t need to be paved.
          We saved the world, but the legislation died.
 
That I can see myself is what the mirror implies
          but if that were true, I wouldn’t need a name.
Could I have picked a more beautiful place to die?
Is that a shuttle blowing up, or just the evening sky?

Dawn Dupler is the Winter 2025 Winner of the Baltimore Review Prose Poetry Contest, 2024 Winner of the Crab Creek Review Poetry Prize and the 2023 Winner of MacGuffin’s Poet Hunt. She has been nominated for both Pushcart and Best of the Net awards, awarded Honorable Mention in the 2024 Vivian Shipley Poetry Contest and Semifinalist for the 2023 Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize. Her work has been featured on the buses and trains of St. Louis’s MetroLink, in The Chicago Quarterly Review, Natural Bridge, and other journals. She is also an Associate Editor of december literary journal. Dawn spent the beginning of her career as an engineer, then went on to earn an MFA in Writing. She lives in the St. Louis metro area.

What a House Wants is Lightening 

“I run into my daughter and her boyfriend in the Walgreens parking lot holding a prescription for birth control pills”

and I thank God she’s on it. Twenty-one next week and last year  
she dated a girl. Back then, a friend joked I didn’t have to worry
 
about her getting pregnant. I just want her unharmed 
and happy. But can anyone ever be both?
 
One day she said, Surprise. I really like a guy. And now
he stands next to her and she’s laughing. Looks a bit 
 
like me when she laughs. Even more like me when I had 
my first lover. Too innocent to know there’d be a second.
 
Or a fourth. I don’t want to tell her how much it hurt 
when he left for a job in California. Don’t want to tell her
 
how these things will happen. Like storms we can’t outrun.
She leans in to hug me in her Rutgers sweatshirt, the one 
 
that belonged to my father. I always told him I didn’t want kids.
He died before I changed my mind. How cruel his missing this, 
 
these parking lot hugs. She’s on her way back to her apartment 
in the city, to her college where she learns science I can’t explain.
 
Still, I ask about her work, and she says she’s making mutants 
in the lab, putting extra genes into bacteria. Says it’s a good thing.
 
I don’t want to tell her how often plans go wrong. No matter
the intention. Years ago, I got off the pill and miscarried. 
 
So many things have to go right, the doctor said, it’s a wonder 
anyone ever gets born. But that didn’t make the ghost feeling 
 
go away. I hope I was honest when I taught her to believe in God. 
In thinking old hymns could ward off wild beasts. In believing
 
she could see me again after I’m gone. If I was wrong,
                                                                                     I’ll have no way to say I’m sorry.
 

Madelyn has been creating stories since she could speak—with the help of her mom writing down what Madelyn so desperately wanted put to paper. (Thanks, mom!) Madelyn grew up in Texas but now calls Minnesota home, and though she misses the bluebonnets dearly she wouldn’t give up the harsh beauty of a Minnesotan winter for the world. She’s a proud lesbian, casual earring-maker, and enthusiastic teacher who has had the honor of being named a U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts. You can find her work published by YoungArts, Bennington College, and The Interlochen Review.

Alice

First the girl was a redwood and then a seedpod.
Imagine her surprise when, for the first time,
the whole world understood her crying as an act of God,
a flood, a briny swimming pool, a victimfull crime.

Imagine her surprise then, for the first time
surrounded by creatures odder than her, half-drowned
by a flood of them, a briny swimming pool, a victimfull crime
punctuated by flamingoes turned upside-down.

Surrounded by creatures odder than her, half-drowned
in tea spiked with champagne and molten jam. Croquet
punctuated by flamingoes turned upside-down.
Goodness, Alice thought. Everything is queer today.

Tea spiked with champagne and molten jam croquet,
for the fifteenth time in one afternoon, monotonous.
Goodness, goodness. Everything is queer today.
More a wish than an observation. Providence

for the fifteenth time in one afternoon becomes monotonous.
The mole world understood her crying as an act of God,
more a wish than an observation. Providence:
first the girl was a redwood and then a seedpod.

Natalie Chai Fraser is a poet from Anchorage, Alaska. She delights in chronicling everyday life, whether through writing, a capella, or twitter, and she welcomes anyone who wants to talk about her work. Currently, she studies Medical Anthropology at Swarthmore College.

Mango Man Ghazal
芒果人1

Agong hocks mucus into a tray shaped like a mango,
and tells me China was once gripped by the cult of the mango.

On a restless spring day in 1968, protestors threw sticks, stones, and sulfuric acid
Red guards broke them up with worse. Mao thanked them with a box of mango.

From his hands to the hands of the Worker Peasant Thought team
the revolution passed. In the streets, they handed out gleaming propaganda mango

Posters on every corner, Agong says. He’d never seen a mango before, much less
revolutionary mango, working-class mango, Mao’s love for the people mango.

In Fulin, they tried a dentist for slander, paraded the man through town,
And shot him in the head. For the crime of comparing a sweet potato to a mango.

My mother knocks on the doorway–interrupting his story–carrying two plates.
In our Bangkok townhome, we feast on sticky rice and mango.

On Yaowarat road, I pick up a box of roasted chestnuts for Agong
Placing them in the altar to our ancestors, I notice a wax-covered mango.

Mao Zedong died the most powerful man in China: a living god.
You can still see his body, preserved in formaldehyde like a mango.

Agong waters his mango tree every morning, pollinates every flower with a paintbrush
The tree will live longer than he does. It’s funny how far revolution makes a man go.

---

1 芒果人 translates to “mango man”, and is Mandarin slang for someone who leaves China, but remains Chinese.

Joseph (Joey) Richards is an honors student and senior at Rosemont College with an English degree, and a double minor in psychology and creative writing. His interests include vivid storytelling, from poetry and fiction writing to creating Dungeons and Dragons campaigns. Joey also enjoys an abhorrent amount of television watching, and making lasting and meaningful connections with his friends and loved ones.

Hidden

I’d find ladybug stickers in my bedroom.
She’d hide them in my drawers, and books, and clothes
I hope I never stop finding them.

She’d put them in my favorite places, after our first kiss,
there was a beautiful new addition on the windowsill.
I’d find ladybug stickers in my bedroom.

“They soak up all the bad luck” she said.
I lay down, and see one in a ridge on my headboard.
I hope I never stop finding them.

“It’s the life of a ladybug”, she said
With a smile, after the diagnosis.
I’d find ladybug stickers in my bedroom.

She didn’t have much more room for bad luck,
So she hid one hundred more.
I hope I never stop finding them.

I haven’t seen her in almost ten years now,
But yesterday I found a little ladybug, outside my windowsill
I’d find ladybug stickers in my bedroom.
I hope I never stop finding them.

Noor Bukhari is a Pakistani-American writer based in Pennsylvania. They are currently studying literature at West Chester University of Pennsylvania as an undergraduate student. As a poet, Noor has also contributed their work to the university's literary journal, Daedalus.

Nattergalen

A delicate piano is played by
the stiff hands of an automaton, its
eyes do not blink, its carved mouth cannot sigh;
Against the changing world, it only sits.
Until it has rusted over, it will
keep playing, its only purpose being
to do what it’s told so it can fulfill
what its owner had been overseeing.
And so it will play, Tchaikovsky, Chopin,
Vivaldi, Mozart, Beethoven, or Bach,
or any talented, notable man;
But its performance is still just a mock.
     Lacking emotion, the promise of gold
     means nothing to something that can be sold.

Anya Chu is a freshman at Swarthmore College who lives in Brooklyn, NY. She has been writing poems for most of her life and has served as an important emotional outlet. Her work focuses on her relationships to the people around her and her family ancestry. When not writing poetry you can find Anya exploring Philadelphia or broadcasting at her college’s radio station.

Brighton Beach with Папочка

Brighton's loud and full
D train srattle overhead:
cherries in boxes

 

 

 

 

Mouse is majoring in psychology and sociology at Maryville University and aims to be a counselor and professor in the future. Mouse also has a deep love for art and enjoys drawing, painting, and block printing. Mouse spent some years backpacking around the United States, gaining a new perspective on their home country and its inhabitants. Mouse wrote their haiku “Mount Shasta” during a hiking trip there.

Mount Shasta

I thought I saw a
Blue jay. On second glance, it
Was a Bud Light can.

Jacqueline is a first-year student at Western Washington University, where they are majoring in Ethnic Studies with two minors in Public History and Latinx Studies. After earning a Bachelor’s degree, Jacqueline will pursue a Master’s degree in Library and Information Science. A lover of the arts, history, and books, she hopes to increase accessibility to diverse stories and perspectives, and to promote learning in every space.

Si mañana amanezco con cuerpo diferente,
seguiría siendo yo.
Si mañana amanezco sin ninguna memoria,
seguiría siendo yo.
Si me dice la cirujana que solo sobreviviré
     Si me cambian mi mente o corazón
     Por aquel de cualquier,
mañana amanecería con el mismo amor.

En la filosofía hablan de identidad
y me preguntan si soy mi cuerpo, memoria, mente o alma.
Yo confeso: soy cualquier que te reconocería,
Soy cualquier que te seguiría amando.

Yo no sé qué somos - si cuerpo, memoria, mente o alma.
Pero sé que mi cuerpo reconocería el tuyo
     en la madrugada con los ojos cerrados
     en el invierno con tantos abrigos
Mi memoria recontara todas nuestras conversaciones
     las primeras y las profundas
     los secretos que compartimos
Los cuales mi mente repetirá a la tuya
     Preguntando “¿Recuerdas esa vez?”
     “¿Recuerdas cuánto nos reímos?”
Yo sé que mi alma reconocería la tuya
     En otro cuerpo, sin memorias,
     Yo te seguiré amando.

English Translation:

If I were to wake up in a different body,
I would still be myself.
If I were to wake up without any memories,
I would still be myself.
If the surgeon were to say I would only survive
     If they replaced my mind or heart
     For someone else’s,
I would wake up with this same love.

Philosophers talk about Personal Identity
They turn and ask me if I’m my body, memory, mind, or soul.
I confess: I’m whatever would recognize you,
whatever would keep on loving you.

I don’t know what we are - body, memory, mind, or soul.
But I know my body would recognize yours
     In the early morning behind heavy eyelids
     In the winter tucked into a dozen jackets
My memory would recount all our past conversations
     The initial and the in-depths
     The secrets shared and kept
Of which my mind would string into questions
     “Remember when we did that?”
     “Remember how we laughed?”
I know my soul would recognize yours
     In another body, without memories,
     I would keep on loving you.

Sunni Brown Wilkinson is a poet and essayist. She is the author of the poetry collections The Marriage of the Moon and the Field (Black Lawrence Press) and The Ache & The Wing (winner of the Sundress Chapbook Prize). Her poetry has been awarded New Ohio Review’s NORward Poetry Prize, the Joy Harjo Prize, and the Sherwin Howard Award. She teaches at Weber State University and lives in northern Utah with her husband and three sons.

Rodeo

Tonight is a rodeo night, the announcer blaring his bull
and clown doctrine so loud it carries two miles
east to our block, where just now a hummingbird
hawk-moth drinks from the pink phlox
with its long wand
and I’m alone for a moment and the sky
is bleeding itself out over the train tracks and the brick
abandoned factories. The lights
of the carpet store by the mall flicker carpe
and I wonder just what I can seize.
The homeless shelter bearing some saint’s name
fills up every night and spills
downtown next morning,
wings of strange creatures brush our flowers
while we sleep, and a hapless moose wanders
a school yard before it’s caught,
tranquilized. Everyone’s looking for it:
a warmth, a softness in the belly, in a bed
of grass. Take it when you can. Seize it.

Lately sleep is a myth and my brain
is so hard-wired for worry my whole body
crackles, then a deep fog rolls in and all day
I’m lost. Unlike this moth, greedy in its guzzling,
drinking sweetness without asking,
and now the buzzer of the bull riding sounds.
I think of the grace of that single man,
one hand on the saddle
and the other a flag waving violently
above him. A wild show of surrender.
Some days it’s like this: one part
anchored while the other begs for mercy.
And some days it’s the other, the posture
he begins with: both hands holding tight.
Sometimes you hold your own hand.
That’s all there is to take.

Guy D’Annolfo lives in the Boston area. He earned his M.A. from the University of Massachusetts in Literature. His poems have been published by Mantis (forthcoming 2024), Schuylkill Valley Journal (2023), The Courtship of Winds (2023), Paperbark (2023), Chestnut Review (2022), and Cape Cod Times (2022). When not at work, or kindling a love of Natural History with his son, or accidentally disrupting peace in a Satipaṭṭhāna class, he’s likely to be found reading and writing. For more, follow Guy on Instagram and X @guydannolfo.

Late Winter
Replicating cells

When my surgeon confirms an aggressive cancer, I think
of my grandmother sharing black and whites of family –
faint resemblances felt through strangers faces.
Do you remember his name? I wiggled my legs: no.

We are forgotten within two generations or less.
What –of palpable meaning –will I give to my son?
I turn to the woods, but still hear distant highway traffic.
Nothing stops. Rain clouds blacken with sunset.

I never notice all of the fallen trees through summer cover:
life feels like it promises something more than passing on.
One dead trunk, still standing, so long at decomposing,

sprouts a handful of helpless stems. Down at its foot
the golden chanterelles my son and I admired are gone.
Who's to distinguish them from those that sprout in spring?

Emma Bailey is a writer, creative thinker, and poet. She graduated with honors from New Yor University in 2023 with a B.A. in Individualized Study, serving on the editorial board for the Gallatin Review and interning for New Directions Publishing. Emma is an avid traveler and seeks to enhance self-actualization across the world through artistic storytelling.

To Be Dying

I’ve never felt so alone
In a way, it’s comfortable and safe
There’s so much pain, but no hurt
I curl into a ball so small
I can forget that my insides are dying
I’ve never been this cold

There isn’t much room for thinking when you’re cold
It doesn’t help to fall asleep alone
A constant reminder that I’m dying
The only way I can really be safe
So long as I remain small
I cannot get hurt

There’s nothing more terrifying than hurt
So I keep my attitude cold
And my body small
So I can stay alone
It feels so sound and safe
To be dying

Well sure I wanted to be dying
But I didn’t want to die. Wouldn’t that hurt
My family to lock my ashes up in a safe
After burning my body, I’d no longer be cold
And I’d sure be alone
And immeasurably small

Is it worth it to die over something so small
Or do I just want to say I’m dying
So that I won’t feel so alone
So that I can express the paralyzing hurt
And excuse myself for acting cold
Playing with such forces is unsafe

Love can make us safe
No matter how small
Bring warmth to the cold
Hospice for the dying
Love kills hurt
But I’d rather be alone

My body is safe because my heart is dying
If I quake with cold, I cannot hurt
Is being small worth existing alone?

Victoria Dell’Elmo is currently an undergraduate student at West Chester University studying Secondary Education with a focus in English as well as Creative Writing. She has always had a love for creative writing, especially poetry. And when she is not writing, she is probably shopping for crystals, playing tennis, or cooking a recipe from Pinterest. She dreams of one day being a published poet and wants to thank everyone who has ever encouraged her to never stop writing.

Why Not

It seems as though this choice is simple my dear, so why not?
In my mind, I know what is best my dear, so why not?

There are so many benefits to doing this, so why not?
Am I afraid to commit, is that why not?

We would have our home, our own corner of the world, so why not?
It would be just us, our story could finally unfold, why not.

I could finally focus on my writing, how could I not, why not?
You told me I could live my dream, your words are hard to resist, so why not.

I hear my mother’s words ring, telling me as to why not.
I feel as though I have to choose between him & them, she says why not.

But doesn’t true love count for something, because if so, then why not?
We are planning on marrying soon, so tell me why not?

Victoria, you are looking for reasons for why not.
No, but I love him, please just let me tie the knot, why not?

Blake Traylor is a recent graduate from Augustana College, where he majored in English, Spanish, and Creative Writing and minored in Linguistics. For most of his time as a college student, he served as an editor for SAGA, Augie's Student-Run, Student-Submitted Art & Lit Magazine, and as a peer tutor at the on-campus Reading/Writing Center. His academic interests span the intersections of history, literature, gender, sexuality, mysticism, and food. Hence the villanelle below. He would like to thank all the usual people with the special addition of Julian of Norwich, who continues to remind us all that "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well."

Imitatio

As you shape yourself for your first lover,
Immerse the flour in water, recite the maker’s oath,
and know you make yourself your mother.

Among the aprons of sisters and brothers,
knuckles and pins repeat themselves, knead the flesh slow
as you shape yourself for your first lover.

Strip the image from your palms and lay it down smothered
under a damp shroud; as the mound begins to grow,
know: you make yourself your mother.

Grip the razor and the cloth, uncover
and carve across the surface of the dough,
as you shape yourself for your first lover.

As the cavity heats, the ghosts of wheat hover
in the catseye scent rising off the warming stove;
know: you make yourself your mother.

Already, your floury hands yearn to make another
loaf while this one darkens in the oven’s dim glow;
as you shape yourself for your first lover,
you know, you’re making yourself your mother.

Grace Yu is a writer and poet based in New York City. Her poems explore the beauty of the natural world, overlapping identities and cultural experiences. She is passionate about health and educational disparities as well as music and is a recipient of the Northwestern First-Year Seminar Writing Award and the Sarah S. Weisberg Poetry Prize. In her free time, you can find her tutoring some of the best students in the world, messing around on the piano, writing poetry of varying quality, and eating lots and lots of apples.

tidal volume. and healthcare
(one in four americans refuse medical care because they can’t pay for an ambulance)

and uninsured // our twisted ribs // then this
and out // of cash // and almost // out of breath
and heaving // we are haggard // silhouettes
our midnight flesh // they scarred us // prejudice
won’t pause // and throw up // on the bathroom floor
we can’t afford // to call // an ambulance
and god don’t want // us sacred // pestilence
and we can’t see // our nighttime // anymore
all gone. and we keep coughing // up our stars,
necrotic quiet // cracked endothelium
and riots // for if they ever hear // us shout,
broken, gasping like hemorrhaged // nightjars,
our cries // our haunted mouth // our blackened lungs
always // our severed lips // refuse // fade out.

Madison Simone is going into her senior year at the University of Miami, studying Marketing and minoring in Creative Writing. Originally from New Jersey, Madison started writing as an outlet to better understand her emotions. What started as a tool, writing has become Madison’s deepest passion, and greatest skill. Madison is currently working on her first fiction novel, but poetry will always have a special place in her heart.

The Last Drip

You spoke and I bled,
a pool of red, and I stayed
until I drained out.

Elise Forslund is a non-binary poet currently living in Washington, D.C. They use poetry as a means of artistic expression and catharsis and take a lot of inspiration from the confessional poetry tradition. Elise recently graduated from Georgetown University where they studied environmental policy and minored in creative writing. Originally from Georgia, Elise writes a lot about growing up queer in the Deep South and their experiences with mental illness. Elise hopes to pursue an MFA after graduation and dedicate more time to writing. Elise draws a lot of inspiration from their favorite poets: Erica L. Sanchez and Hanif Abdurraqib and has also been published in Pen + Brush, Screen Door Review, Stone of Madness Press, and Enby Life. You can find Elise on twitter @elise_forslund. Fun fact: Elise was the winner last year of the Iris award and we congratulate Elise on winning again this year for the Haiku, Before Elysium.

Before Elysium

I confessed this flesh
was grass and still you gave me
salt and honeyed bread

Erica Reid lives in Fort Collins, Colorado. She earned her MFA at Western Colorado University and serves as assistant editor at THINK Journal. Recently her poetry has been nominated for Best New Poets and a Pushcart Prize, won the Yellowwood Poetry Prize and the Helen Schaible Sonnet Contest (Modern Sonnets category), and was commissioned by the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. Erica’s poems appear or are forthcoming in Rattle, Birmingham Poetry Review, Santa Fe Literary Review, Broadsided Press, Foothill, Able Muse, The Lyric, Yalobusha Review, Tiny Seed, and more. ericareidpoet.com.

Ghost Man on Second

My dad had too few kids to field wiffle ball, so
he introduced us to the Ghost Man. Suppose
I found myself stuck at second base
when it came my turn to bat: the Ghost Man
could take my place, continuing my parade
around the bases.

                                                Of all the ghosts
my parents left to me, this Ghost Man
serves me best—see the hurled ball
pass right through him, watch him score
a shred of glory in my name. Long after dusk
has eaten the Midwestern backyard
barely large enough to hold this game,
years after the players have gathered
the Frisbee and pie plate bases and have gone
their separate ways, the Ghost Man runs—
is still running—through the diamond-
shaped cycle that I taught him: toward and away
from home, toward and away from home.

Jason Barry holds an MFA in Poetry from Boston University, where he was a Robert Pinsky Global Fellow. His work has appeared in 32 Poems, Barrow Street, The Adroit Journal, Poetry Ireland Review, Crab Creek Review, The Cortland Review, Thrush Poetry Journal, Bad Lilies, Cimarron Review, and elsewhere. His poems have been nominated for Best of the Net and other awards, and his work was recently selected by Ada Limón to feature on the podcast, The Slowdown. He has been offered fellowships and grants by Poetry by the Sea, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and Boston University.

Fossil & Wing is published by Dos Madres Press

From Fossil & Wing
Slate

Perhaps this is the way it ought to be,
The coastal light is tame and beautiful.
A wave of silence spreads across the sea
Beneath the two-tone plumage of a gull.

If what we are is bone and memory,
And sensory is synonym for soul—
I wonder what will then become of me,
When slate-white feathers wash up in the lull.

When slate-white feathers wash up in the lull,
I wonder what will then become of me.
Is sensory a synonym for soul,
If what we are is bone and memory?

Beneath the two-tone plumage of a gull,
A wave of silence spreads across the sea.
The coastal light is tame and beautiful,
Perhaps this is the way it ought to be.

Elise Forslund is a junior at Georgetown University studying environmental policy and minoring in creative writing. Originally from Georgia, Elise writes a lot about growing up queer in the Deep South and her experiences with mental illness. She hopes to pursue an MFA after graduation and dedicate more time to writing. She draws a lot of inspiration from her favorite poets: Erica L. Sanchez and Hanif Abdurraqib. She has also been published in Pen + Brush, Screen Door Review, Stone of Madness Press, and Enby Life. You can find Elise on twitter @elise_forslund.

Spring

Persephone won't come home though it is Spring
and Demeter believes her daughter taken, this Spring

I signed a pledge at Church and got a purity ring
that was my twelfth Spring

but on the train ride home, an older man still called me a pretty little thing
that was my thirteenth Spring

and when the boy one locker over pinched me on my ass, I pretended it was just a bee sting
that was my fourteenth spring

I thought perhaps the cute boy from math was different, he was my first fling
that was my fifteenth Spring

but, no, the cute boy from math also had a sharp swing
that was my sixteenth Spring

after I pierced my own nose, I realized I only ever wanted one ring
that was my seventeenth Spring

and when I was eighteen I thought about the bee sting
and my first fling who had a sharp swing

I thought about the man who said I was pretty little thing
I remembered how the Church always said I was doing the wrong thing

how I was always sinning
but I knew that there was nothing

I could do to stop these things
and it certainly wouldn't be solved by a gold purity ring

or even a nose ring but at least now I was doing my own piercing
in my eighteenth spring.

Tesia Wieprecht has dreamt of becoming a published writer since she was in third grade, when her class's short stories were bound in a hardback book. She is currently a senior Women's and Gender Studies student with a Creative Writing minor. She writes in her spare time and can be often seen frantically typing ideas into the notes section of her phone. Her work has been described as whimsical, with a direct tone and voice. She has a particular soft spot for alliteration and repetition, which she includes in both her poetry and prose.

Ghazal for Your Fingers

Between me and you — us and space — your fingers
splaying mine. Long and thin and knuckles wide: your fingers.

Nights spent with our heads bent over a board,
rooks and knights bowing to the genius of your fingers.

I want to give you strawberries: summer-sweetened,
soft. I want to kiss their stains from your fingers.

I've waited years for a song perfect like this: music swelling,
layered harmonies. Mingles with physical bliss. Your fingers.

Shallower breaths. What in death really leaves?
How much of me can you feel through your fingers?

Please, speak of the stars, of science, of time gone amok.
I can see the blood beat slower, slower through your fingers.

Please. Do not say you are ashamed to be mine.
Temples. Minds. Filtered through glass: you, me, our fingers.

Cassidy Graham, is a third year student at West Chester University as an English Writing Major with a minor in Creative Writing. Cassidy has always been passionate about writing, but in the past couple of years, has realized it is what she wants to do for the rest of her life. Cassidy is involved in the Creative Writing Program at West Chester and will be traveling to Greece in the summer to attend a writing workshop in Crete. Cassidy had the honor of being the featured poet at West Chester University's 150th campaign celebration this past Fall. In her free time, she enjoys reading (although that may come as no shock), spending time outdoors, and eating good food. In the future, Cassidy would like to write a book, possibly a work of poetry, though she would write anything to become an author…well, maybe not anything.

Villanelle of Addiction

The disease you have will never go away.
I see it in the bloat of your belly and the twitch of your nose,
but I really need you, so please stay.

I think we both know when I realized you weren't okay.
Don't you remember the stash I found hidden in your clothes?
This disease you have will never go away.

"Please never be like me" you always say.
But part of me is worried I don't have a choice in the matter. I suppose
that's why I need you, so please stay.

I had to move out, I know you think about that day.
Screaming and crying through your denial shows
the disease you have will never go away.

For months we didn't talk, I wanted to make you pay
for your mistakes. But anger and then sadness arose
so I really need you, please stay.

Sometimes I wonder how much longer you will be here, when will the decay
become too much for you, because I know you chose
this disease you have that will never go away.
I really need you, I'm begging, please stay.

Ainsley Berg is an undergraduate student studying English and political science at Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida, where she also serves as a poetry editor for the college's literary journal, FLARE: The Flagler Review. Her work has previously been published in The Pointed Circle and Chasing Shadows Magazine. She can be found on Instagram at @ainsel.bee or outside, trying to befriend neighborhood cats.

The Dead Deer's Cry

When the doe steps out of the trees to graze by the road,
it is she and the moon for a soft moment, before headlights
cut through the satin darkness with beams made of fright,
illuminating her face with the otherworldly life it showed.
She wonders about the mechanical beasts that always strode
past her woods, shining through the shadows with their bright
glass eyes when she wandered beyond the trees at night,
and the instincts gifted to her by years of learning fear erode.

In the evening, the doe will meet her love beneath the moon,
though the thought of it makes her legs shake as she stumbles
out of the forest's safety and onto the land where no grass grows.
Eyes wide, she sees the lights and knows she will be with him soon.
One last persisting thought before her porcelain knees crumble,
and she cries out with the sharpness of finally getting to know.

Tesia Wieprecht has dreamt of becoming a published writer since she was in third grade, when her class's short stories were bound in a hardback book. She is currently a senior Women's and Gender Studies student with a Creative Writing minor. She writes in her spare time and can be often seen frantically typing ideas into the notes section of her phone. Her work has been described as whimsical, with a direct tone and voice. She has a particular soft spot for alliteration and repetition, which she includes in both her poetry and prose.

A very serious haiku

flying down the street,
bare ass on the handlebars,
I'm not coming home.

 

 

 

Kate Mahoney is a student at Boston University with a passion for the discovery and creation of new ideas, whether through research in STEM or the exploration of the human experiences through language. She enjoys writing, baking, and making music and hopes that each of these will help her bring joy to those around her.

Grief

I want to forget
Without losing myself. But
I can't, so I heal.

Raimy is a fourth-year Clark Honors College student majoring in Romance Languages and Global Studies with a focus on migration, refugees, and displacement. Raimy is passionate about using the languages they know (Arabic, French, and Spanish) to connect with and support people from around the world. Certainly, an avenue for this connection is their poetry and prose. Another is service.

Mujer de la tierra

Soy hija de las Estrellas, alimentada de mitos de otros mundos.
Las grietas que tallan las suelas de mis pies,
como las valles de la arena árabe que mis ancestros cruzaron,
susurran canciones de veranos caminando descalza.
Mis rizos de carbón se enredan con el aliento suave del viento,
creando nidos de hojas y ramitas y pelo salvaje;
he renunciado a domarlos.
Respiro los fuegos de la ira
que plaga este mundo, y lloro océanos para extinguirlos.

Soy estudiante de la Tierra: la observo, la toco, la pruebo…
Mi piel se seca después de horas besando al Sol.
Intento sumergir la Luna en las piscinas oscuras de mis ojos.
Por supuesto, no puedo seducirla.
Desafiándome de los consejos de mis abuelas, me pongo ropa corta,
¡nunca domesticaré este cuerpo!, les digo con palabras ingenuas,
escapando de sus manos arrugadas para coquetear con Tierra.

¿Qué hacer con esta mujer,
que está enamorada de ambos el Sol y la Luna?

English Translation:

Earth woman

I am daughter of Stars, fed on myths of other worlds.
Cracks carve the soles of my feet,
like the valleys of the Arabian sand my ancestors crossed,
whispering songs of summers walking barefoot.
The soft breath of wind tangles my charcoal curls,

braiding nests of leaves and twigs and wild hair;
I have given up on taming them.
I breathe in fires of anger
that plague this world, and I cry oceans to extinguish them.

I am student of Earth: I observe her, touch her, taste her…
My skin dries after hours kissing the Sun, and
I try to submerge the Moon in the dark pools of my eyes.
Of course, I can't seduce her.
Challenging my grandmothers' stories, I dress in short clothes,
I will never tame this body! I tell them with naive words,
escaping wrinkled hands to flirt with Earth.

What to do with a woman
who is in love with both the Sun and the Moon?

Amanda Trout is a senior at Pittsburg State University pursuing a double major in English (Creative Writing) and Spanish. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the Cow Creek Review and has been published in several literary magazines (The Lyric, Bacopa Literary Review, Stripes, etc.). She plans to pursue a Master's of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (Poetry) after graduation.

El laberinto del corazón en conflicto

—inspirado por Borges, maestro de laberintos

Corro por pasillo, por la esquina; pero
solamente camino con el llanto
de Asterión, la bestia descomunal.

El camino es largo y sinuoso;
solo empezó a girar ese día
la oportunidad de los dos, tú y yo,

sangró de la existencia y cubrió
el piso de adoquines, y todo
lo que pude hacer fue caminar en

rojo, manchar mis pies, y mantener
el ritmo del tiempo. Cada hora
la bestia se acerca y yo camino.

Una parte de mi quiere correr;
el otro quiere frenar y dejar
que la ira me lleve.

English Translation

The Labyrinth of the Conflicted Heart

—inspired by Borges, Master of Labyrinths

I run down the hall, around the corner; but
I only walk with the tears
of Asterion, the colossal beast.

The road is long and winding;
it only started spinning that day
when the opportunity of us, you and I

bled from existence and covered
the cobblestone floor,
and all I could do was walk

in red, stain my feet, keep
the rhythm of time. Each hour
the beast approaches, and I walk.

A part of me wants to run;
the other wants to stop
and let the anger take me.

JD Debris writes poems, songs, and prose. He was a Goldwater Fellow at New York University, where he completed his MFA. His work has been chosen for Ploughshares' Emerging Writers Prize, and he has twice been named to Narrative's 30 Below 30 list. His releases include the chapbook SPARRING (Salem State University Press, 2018) and the music albums BLACK MARKET ORGANS (Simple Truth Records, 2017) and JD DEBRIS MURDER CLUB (2022).

From THE SCORPION'S QUESTION MARK

THE VOICE OF HERCULES

Remembering that heavyweight
we'd call Hercules,
a mellow steroid fiend
who never sparred, just raised

barbells ‘til he was swollen as that solemn
British killer from Ninja 2: Shadow
of a Tear. He'd flex, hit vacuum
poses in ringside mirrors, taking photo

after photo, & lounge in the locker room,
nothing but a sideways Sox hat on.
A garden-variety goon
with a garbled, guttural monotone

& shriveled steroid balls:
so Hercules seemed, on the surface.
But every word he spoke was praise—
"So sick, bro"—softly, near-inaudible.

One night, the gym screened a pay-
per-view—De la Hoya or Money May.
All us gym rats came back
in jewelry, jeans, & the reek

of cologne instead of sweat
to cozy up between dormant
heavy bags & watch the fights
projected on industrial concrete.

I brought my old acoustic
for between-fight amusement,
background-strumming a soundtrack
to our cacophony. Hercules sat

beside me, saying, "Bro,
can you play a corrido beat?"
I started to strum a stock waltz-meter,
& Hercules, in a bass bel canto
that could rumble the cheap seats
of an opera hall, began a Spanish ballad
about a lost bantamweight
named Amen, who had disappeared,

the lyrics went, to Mexico last spring,
whom no one had heard from since.
The gym was quiet one verse in.
Pay-per-view muted, everyone listening

to this supposed bonehead
channel beauty. To his ballad,
its fragility—Fly,
little dove, fly, he'd sigh

at verses' end. I'm amazed
that no one laughed at him—
insults, back then, our lingua
franca & form of praise—

in that moment so holy
& ridiculous, when his lips formed O's
on long, pure
tones, & every chord

perfectly—somehow—
harmonized.
I can't tell you which prize-
fighter won that bout,

or if we gorged on pizza & beer,
blowing off our weight-making regimens.
I can't tell you if it rained, I can't pretend
to know if sparks flew inside all those ears

bent in unison toward the amen
Hercules incanted. As for him,
his trainer, a hardass marine,
got sick of his preening

& told him go find another gym
where he could kiss his biceps
in the mirror, & drink his creatine
& beast his endless deadlift reps.

How many songs has he sung since,
in the shower of a distant gym
where he still takes his sweet time
soaping every ropelike vein?

What I know, I'll tell:
around the campfire of the muted fights
that night, he was our horn of Gabriel,
our nightingale mid-flight.

Sing it again, Hercules?

"Aight."

Karen Petersen has traveled the world extensively, originally as a combat photojournalist and later as a foreign correspondent. Now retired from international journalism, she has devoted herself to publishing short stories, flash, and poetry both nationally and internationally in a variety of publications which deal with her many experiences both here and abroad. In 2019, she was the first person in the history of the Pushcart Prize to receive five nominations in three categories: poetry, short story, and flash. In 2021, one of her poems was long-listed for the Bridport Prize. She has also been nominated for the Forward Prize and the Best of the Net. Her poems have been translated into Persian and Spanish. To purchase Trembling, please visit Kelsay Books

From Trembling

The Return

This was the year I lost my voice.
Words, sentences, language
used to flow out of me like a magician
pulling from his mouth long strings of pearls.
Then the string broke.
Oh, I could talk all right,
but it was my inner voice
that had slipped away slowly
like a boat leaving its moorings
and gently drifting out to sea.

At the hospital
I thought I was the odd one out.
Something in me had collapsed
but I had two arms and two legs,
these other people were in wheelchairs.
And then there she was,
a young pretty girl, injured
but all smiles,
greeting a man also in a wheelchair,
seeing only him.

As she leaned forward,
the gown slipped off her thin shoulders.
Her skin was the palest pink
like a rare Gallician rose.
A deep line, angry red,
wound its snakelike way down her spine,
but she was oblivious to my stare.
Although one leg and half an arm
was all that remained on her torso
hers was the attitude of a toreador,
fierce and proud in her loving.

Suddenly I felt small, petty,
silly for having gawked.
I had to admire her defiance,
dwelling in that arcade of
needles, muscle, metal, pain.
Then she was swallowed by an elevator
and vanished,
smiling and talking
as if it were that easy.
I never saw her again.

As the nurse puts a hot towel on my neck
it's like a warm embrace,
the only warmth in my life now.
How pitiful I think, and then
my anger forces me to remember
remember the half-woman, all-woman,
and the love on her face,
the world she has made for herself.
Holding that inside me, I know I am not lost.

• Alejandro Lucero,
  University of Colorado Denver

Alejandro Lucero is a writer from Sapello, New Mexico by way of Denver. He is a senior at the University of Colorado-Denver where he serves as an intern and assistant editor for Copper Nickel. Pushcart Prize nominee, his most recent poetry can be found, or is forthcoming, in The Susquehanna Review, Thin Air Magazine, Sink Hollow, among other journals.

 

Returning

 

Talk about the dying alfalfa

fields. How what’s left of the golden straws scratch your grandmother’s

legs when she returns from the river. The fleas

who jump to her swollen ankles. How her hair

came back white and wiry. Talk about her path

to recovery. How it could be

 

like her walk home from the river. Say it could be

like walking home from the river in the dark. How she grew alfalfa

for survival. For the hay. The seeds dangling from the purple flowers were a path

to better seeds. Talk about your grandmother,

who lined the bodies of gophers in the crosshairs

of a rifle when they ruined a bush. Their bodies became grenades. Talk about the fleas

 

on the back of a barn cat. Talk about how the fleas

picked your grandmother’s blood over that cat’s. Be

sure to mention how they crawled through her hair

like the ladybugs that pocked the alfalfa

field like red zits. How, after cancer, your grandmother

hacked away at the dead alfalfa blocking her path

 

home from the river. Say how she cleared that path

with an idiot stick, and how the fleas

clung to her new hair and old ankles. How your grandmother

swung that blade, bisecting the body of a honey bee

trying to pollinate the last bulb of the dried-out alfalfa

flower. Talk about how, when you were younger, her hair

 

was long and dark like a cape. How the thick braid of her hair

shaped your path

back to the alfalfa

and the biting fleas

and the cancer be-

ginning to stain the inside of your grandmother

again. How your grandmother’s

hair

be-

came a path

to flee

the dying alfalfa.

Talk about your grandmother and the path back

from the river. How her hair pulled the fleas off a cat.

How returning home would be easier if the alfalfa were still green.

• Carmen Perez,
  Whittier College

•  

Carmen Perez is a fourth-year student attending Whittier College and majoring in English. She has found that writing poetry helps her find peace in times of stress. She lives in California with a hyper Chihuahua and enjoys hiking, baking, and sewing.

 

Claws

The rats nature sends

Are my only friends.

When the

Soft light of my lamp is turned off.

 

They scratch through the walls

With welcoming calls.

The loud,

Convivial squeaks comfort me.

 

They used to disgust

Me; had to adjust

To the

Sensation of small cutting claws.

Kelly Morgan is a junior at Vanderbilt University, where she is majoring in creative writing and minoring in mathematics. Originally from the mountains of Western North Carolina, she now lives in Nashville, Tennessee. She has worked as a bookseller and a journalism intern, and she hopes to continue her career in the literary world. She is currently the poetry editor of both The Vanderbilt Review and the SciLit Journal, and next year will begin work as editor-in-chief of The Vanderbilt Review. Her writing has appeared in Vanderbilt Lives, The Vanderbilt Review, and Scaffold: A Showcase of Vanderbilt First-Year Writing. In her free time, she enjoys drawing, ballroom dancing, and studying astronomy.

Recurring Price I Pay to Sleep Inside This Room

There is a man in my bed—

He is fucking me.

My body turns to lead.

 

The first visit, he leaned in and said,

“I’m not the sort who’ll let you stay rent-free.”

There is a man in my bed,

 

and now it is his bed instead,

and I am learning how to pay my fee

even as my body turns to lead.

 

The starting cost, the unsurprising overhead,

is that there is no privacy—

there is a man in my bed.

 

The monthly charge is “spread

yourself; I get your body.”

These times, my body turns to lead.

 

The bills collect. They pile up like dread

as I grow cold, and the unceasing memory grows heavy:

there is always a man in my bed—

and my body beneath him, turned to lead.

January Spring

 

Mesquites send yellow tendrils out unfurling

in roadside ditches, and peach blossoms break

like amethysts from geodes. It is early

for daffodils, for mourning doves to make

their slipshod nests in shrubs. Everyone knows

about encroaching seas and plastic islands,

depleted fisheries, softening floes.

I keep my distance and uneasy silence.

Today, the high is eighty. I wear shorts

and follow the meanders up the creek

to sift through cobbles, pocket cherts and quartz

and fossils. I admit it: I am weak,

and glad, and sorry. This won't last.

Not every ammonite will leave a cast.

 

• Tylyn K. Johnson,
  University of Indianapolis

Tylyn K. Johnson is a third-year honors social work student at the University of Indianapolis. He is also pursuing a minor in Applied Spanish. A part-time writer with a love for community, Tylyn nurtures his passion for writing through the occasional spoken word. In his artistry, he focuses on building communion and empowerment with other marginalized folx. His work has appeared in Etchings literary magazine, Parody Poetry Journal, Indiana Voice Journal, and Rigorous, among other spaces. If he's not writing or dialoguing, Tylyn is learning how to better support the work happening in his community. @TyKyWrites on Instagram, Twitter, and Medium.

Precious Metals

 

Melanin mama,

she steels her kind, weary soul

to sharpen gold child.

• Daniel Garcia,
  University of North Texas

Daniel Garcia's essays appear or are forthcoming in SLICE, Denver Quarterly, The Offing, Ninth Letter, Guernica, Hayden's Ferry Review and elsewhere. Poems appear or are forthcoming in The Puritan, Harbor Review, The Arkansas International, Ploughshares, Zone 3 and others. A recipient of a Short Prose Prize from Bat City Review and a Poetry Prize from So to Speak, Daniel has received awards and scholarships from Tin House and the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference, and currently serves as a reader and editorial assistant for Split Lip Magazine. Daniel's essays also appear as Notables in The Best American Essays.

 

Unstitched/Wounds

You can’t unstitch the

story from a wound. All you

can do is dress it.

• Kensington Mikhaila Eiler,
  University of Indianapolis

Kensington Eiler is from Lafayette, Indiana and is a senior at the University of Indianapolis studying Human Biology and Spanish. She spends her free time reading with her cat, writing her own stories, and singing in her university’s choir program.

Para los buscadores

Me escondo en mis poemas

En mis escrituras

En mi trabajo

 

Me escondo mis palabras

En la lenguas

Solo yo digo

 

Me escondo mis pensamientos

En los libros en mis estantes

Que mi familia no lee

 

Me escondo de todos

Nadie me ve

Soy invisible

 

Me esconderé para siempre

Es mi libertad

Es mi soledad

 

English Translation:

 

For the seekers

 

I hide in my poems

In my writings

In my work

 

I hide my words

In languages

Only I speak

 

I hide my thoughts

In the books on my shelf

That my family doesn’t read

 

I hide from everyone

No one sees me

I am invisible

 

I will hide forever

It’s my freedom

It’s my solitude

 

Alexis Sears is a graduate of the MFA program in poetry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and she earned her Bachelor’s degree from Johns Hopkins University, where she majored in Writing Seminars. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Cortland Review, Hopkins Review, Cimarron Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, and elsewhere. She was a 2019 Sewanee Writers’ Conference MFA scholar, and she was a finalist for the Vassar Miller and New Criterion poetry prizes. Currently, she lives in northern California, where she teaches sixth grade English. Out of Order is her first book and was chosen by this year's judge, Quincy Lehr.

From Out of Order

Hair Sestina

I’m 24 and yes, by now I know
I have a problem. “Oh, but don’t we all?”
everyone jokes as if it’s really brilliant.
But not like this. A slippery chunk of life
has slid on by, and still I am without
an inkling of real knowledge about black

hairstyles. Some bus driver says, “You’re ‘black’
in name, but you will never really know
their struggles.” Their. It sticks. I’m left without
a comeback (since I know it’s true). She’s all
proud now and continues on, “Your life
seems easier than most.” Gee, that is brilliant.

I’m not sure if I’m hurt or not. A brilliant
professor told me once (her hair dyed black
as licorice bites), “Sometimes, you know, in life,
you’ll want to cry but can’t. Just so you know,
the answer is to bite your thumb. That’s all.”
My cluelessness, though? Soon, I’ll be without

a thumb, a life, a man to dine with. (Out
of time.) I only care about hair now. Brilliant
black scholar’s what I aim for. I spend all
my leisure time these days researching black
hair looks. I nod, I practice, hope I’ll know
a twist-out when I see it. I watch Life

(the one with Eddie Murphy), plan a life
where someday I’ll have cornrows, braids, without
the insecurity. Should I—oh no,
no flashcards. What’s the point of being brilliant
if you wear white girl hair to Sam’s Club, lack
inheritance and understanding? All

I know is this: it wouldn’t be right to call
what happened to me abandonment. See, life
can be too hard for us, including my black
father, once-Marine, 6’2, without
someone to speak to, even me. Not brilliant,
but he could have helped me come to know

my hair, my blackness, self. Oh, well. Without
some emptiness, what’s life? 24. “Brilliant.
Accomplished.” All I know is what I don’t.

 

 

Mark Wacome Stevick directs the Princemere Poetry Prize, and the Five Ponds Writers Festival at Gordon College. Besides poetry, he writes fiction, essays, and plays, which include The Fish Mysteries, a version of The Second Shepherds Play, and Cry Innocent, which runs seasonally in Salem, Mass.. Mark leads writing workshop on ekphrasis in Orvieto, Italy, summer theatre seminars in the UK, and student storytelling sojourns to The Moth, Boston. (He’s a StorySlam winner). He earned his master’s degree in creative writing from Boston University, where he studied with poets Derek Walcott and Robert Pinsky

• Julián David Bañuelos
• Texas Tech University

Julián David Bañuelos is in his final semester for his bachelor's in creative writing at Texas Tech University. He will be pursuing his MFA in poetry at the Iowa Writers' Workshop in the Fall. He has been a finalist for Texas Tech's Stephan Ross Huffman Poetry Award and his poems can be seen in a forthcoming undergraduate journal. He currently resides in Lubbock, Texas, a city cultivating talented writers and poets.

Bodega Rosé

• Damn it all! Everything we had built rose
• Like day & night– like the moon you felt close.
• My hands were shown the cracks time filled with dust.
• My greatest adventure: peeling your hide
• To find faults, neither mine nor yours. Time saw
• Everything. Patience. Growth. Decay– We sink

• Because we bit. Our glasses in the sink,
• empty & stained with bodega rosé.
• No man is an island. Your favorite saw
• To cut deep. Kept cutting. Digging too close
• To worlds within. Buried under my hide,
• There were your words, clogging my veins like dust.

• I built an altar of cedar, saw dust
• Danced around us. We craved something to sink
• Our teeth into like animals. Our hide
• Heated in seconds, burned away, then rose
• From ashes. No one has ever been this close.
• My past: wilderness, a constant seesaw,

• Up & down, pushed & pulled just like the saw
• Used to build this body. You shook the dust,
• Brought the stars before my eyes, held me close
• Enough to taste the clouds. At times I sink
• Into myself & unfurl like the rose
• Bush outside my mother's home. Run and hide.

• The definition of a man: tough hide.
• That's what I was told & taught, but I saw
• My own skin as delicate as the rose
• Without thorns. I redefined man. Bit dust
• & poured most of myself straight down the sink.
• Ready to be filled once again & close

• Ranks. Love like a bulldog, but when up close
• The wrinkles are something not meant to hide.
• They represent the feeling when you sink
• Your teeth into guilty pleasures. We saw
• Rough times but we were able to shake the dust;
• People watched as a weed turned to a rose.

• I played a game of hide and seek & saw
• My reflection close in the sink. Dust
• Of my bones fell to my feet, and I rose.

• Latif Askia Ba
  Edinboro University

Latif Askia Ba is an emerging writer from Brooklyn & Staten Island, NY. He studies at Edinboro University, majoring in Computer Science with a minor in Mathematics and Creative Writing. It wasn't until he went away to school that he discovered his passion for literature and language. His first chapbook, "Wet Monasteries," was published by the Erie-based magazine Alien Buddha Press. He hopes to continue this fulfilling work.

Platform

• One day I'll fall into the train tracks.
• Driving along the edge of the platform,
• On the rutted yellow part, at the lowest speed,
• I steady my hand on the joystick,
• But the powerchair tumbles in my mind,
• Crushing my chest into the third rail.

• Or maybe some crazed man will throw me to the rail
• With a confident push. My lips will kiss the tracks.
• Hunched and broken, I cower from the whip of my mind,
• And search like a fiend for platform's narrow elevator.
• I think my bastion's around the next pillar, but I'm in error,
• My thoughts kicking like ground-beating horses.

• The train will come and exhale in style--
• A great sigh after miles of wheels grinding rail.
• The conductor will squawk in an analog voice with no passion nor error.
• Looking down his tunnel, his eyes will dull from the tracks.
• He'll stick his head out of his window and stare down the platform
• Like a fenced-in cow, his uniform worn out.

• He'll see me driving and twitching like a man on speed,
• Looking around the pillars of the empty platform.
• He'll gawk for a while as he sits on the rail,
• Wondering if I'll fall onto the tracks
• after he takes off—

• A minor error, that finds its catastrophe.
• Nothing like a wheelchair in the middle of the tracks
• To make New Yorkers pause for a moment
• To stare at brown flesh mangled in rail.
• Death will dangle her hairless legs off the platform.

• Strangers will flood the empty platform
• To look at the marvelous error,
• The new décor of the rail,
• The oncoming train losing all speed,
• Another delay on the piss-soaked tracks.

• Chidinma Opaigbeogu
• University of Maryland, College Park

Chidinma Opaigbeogu is an English major with a focus in Creative Writing at the University of Maryland. Her love of writing was ignited in the seventh grade when she wrote her first poem about the fear of grease splashes when frying bacon. Many of her poems focus on the cultural dissonance she has experienced as a Nigerian-American. She hopes to inspire other people from multi-cultural backgrounds to feel secure in their identity.

Aside from reading and writing, Chidinma loves watching dramas with her family and cackling with her little sister over memes. Her work has appeared in Rattle Magazine and The Lyric. She is the 2020 first place recipient of the Jimenez Porter Literary Prize for prose and second place for poetry.

Constriction

• Before class, I bound
• the girl inside of me tight
• enough to choke her.

• Emma Grunhaus
• Florida Atlantic University

Emma Grunhaus is 19-years-old and is graduating this May from Florida Atlantic University with a 4.0 GPA. She is receiving her bachelor's degree in English with a concentration in Writing and Rhetoric and a minor in Criminal Justice. She has received multiple awards in poetry from the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, including a National Gold Medal, and was a semi-finalist for the National Student Poets Program in 2017. In her free time, she enjoys writing, reading, working out, walking her dog, and bingeing Netflix shows.

repentance

• you leave left-handed
• love letters on my doorstep
• …I leave them there too

• Kara Joy Barlow
• Wheaton College

Kara grew up in Windsor, Connecticut as the youngest of four in a homeschooling family. After graduating high school, she spent a year living in a village in rural Spain as an au pair and teacher's assistant at an elementary school. Kara loves the opportunities that have come with bilingualism, from teaching high school Spanish classes online, to travelling, to writing poetry. She spent a semester studying literature at the University of Salamanca and is currently pursuing an English Writing degree at Wheaton College. Kara is working on a book of poetry, If Pebbles Were Songs, which she hopes to publish at some point in the future. Besides writing, her other passions include art, music, crafting, cross-cultural engagement, and making flower crowns.

Entre láminas de vidrio

• Cuatro cristales de ventana
• pulverizados en nube evaporada
• y un arbusto de alambre de púas
• gotean lavanda y rosa
• diáfanos como las alas
• de una mariposa.
• El ala de mariposa en la mesa,
• prensada entre dos láminas
• de vidrio con un cerco de oro
• y colgada de una cadena,
• está rota.

• Unas manos pequeñas, girando
• y punteando el vidrio para admirar
• la belleza del ala, al final
• la desgarraron. La mariposa, desvanecida
• con el tiempo – un regalo para mi abuela
• en sus días de volar (porque todos
• volamos una vez en esta vida) –
• balancea con alas de siena,
• amapola y crema como si fuera
• a volar, pero un ala – un ala
• está rota.

• Lo hicieron las manos.

• Yo también he visto mis manos
• manosear cosas hermosas y frágiles
• y destruirlas: como la mañana
• batiendo sus alas al otro lado
• del cristal:
• la manoseo, y ella se disuelve.

• Pero yo también me he disuelto.

• Quizá la mariposa
• piensa que soy yo
• la tullida –

• Quizá ella está libre
• sin pájaros y serpientes y arañas,
• contenta con su ramita
• de flores secas, sorbiendo para siempre
• el néctar de sus días de volar al alba.

• A veces me pregunto,
• bebiendo el cielo
• al amanecer, quién
• realmente reposa
• en el interior – yo

• o la mañana.

Between Sheets of Glass

• Four windowpanes
• powdered in evaporated cloud
• and a barbed-wire bush
• drip lavender and rose
• diaphanous like the wings
• of a butterfly.
• The butterfly wing on the table,
• pressed between two panes
• of glass with a gold ring
• and hung from a chain,
• is broken.

• Small hands, turning
• and tapping the glass to admire
• the wing's beauty, finally
• tore it. The butterfly, faded
• with time – a gift for my grandmother
• in her flying days (each of us
• flies once in this life) –
• balances with wings of sienna,
• poppy and cream as if it were going
• to fly, but one wing – one wing
• is broken.

• The hands did it.

• I also have seen my hands
• finger beautiful and fragile things
• and destroy them: like the morning
• beating its wings on the other side
• of the glass:
• I handle her, and she dissolves.

• But I too have dissolved.

• Perhaps the butterfly
• thinks that I am
• the cripple –

• Perhaps she is free
• without birds and serpents and spiders,
• content with her little branch
• of dried flowers, forever sipping
• the nectar from her dawn days of flying.

• Sometimes I wonder,
• drinking the sky
• at sunrise, who
• really rests
• in the interior – me

• or the morning.

JOHN FOY’s third book, No One Leaves the World Unhurt, won the 2020 Donald Justice Poetry Prize. It was selected by J. Allyn Rosser and will be out early next year from Autumn House Press. His second book, Night Vision, won the New Criterion Poetry Prize and was published by St. Augustine’s Press in 2016. It was also a finalist for the 2018 Poets’ Prize. His first book is Techne’s Clearinghouse. His work has been included in the Swallow Anthology of New American Poets, The Best of the Raintown Review, and Rabbit Ears: TV Poems. He has published widely in journals, including The New Yorker, Poetry, The Hudson Review, The New Criterion, The Village Voice, Parnassus, American Arts Quarterly, Alabama Literary Review, The Dark Horse (in Scotland), The Yale Review, Barrow Street, and The Hopkins Review. His poems have appeared online in Literary Matters, Poetry Daily, Ducts, Kin, The Nervous Breakdown, Big City Lit, and Angle, an online literary journal in the UK. His essays and reviews have run in Parnassus, The New Criterion, Contemporary Poetry Review, The Dark Horse, and other publications, and he has been a guest blogger for Best American Poetry. He lives and works in New York.

It Is What It Is

It is what it is.
It’s not what it might have been.
It’s not what it had been.
It isn’t what it could be
It’s not what it ought to be.
It won’t be what it might have been.
It was what it ought not to have been.
It will be what it ought not to be.
It ought not to be what it is.
It’s surely not what it was.
It can’t ever be what it had been.
It’ll never be what it could have been.
It ought never to have been what it had been.
It was what it was.
It’s not what it was.
It is what it is.

Jemma Fisher, Sarah Lawrence College

Snow swallows our tracks
White hushed horizon and a
Solitary finch