Issue #105
MB Duffy
Dahlias
Into this time of year
the season of grief is folded
& placed on the nearby shelf
We feel the equinox tilt us
towards the summer sun
like a sick man choosing life again
Walking through an endless doorway
each etching different, each frame contiguous
Wild sorrow, blossoming
across the horizon
like a superbloom
& at the end, you say,
lies fire like dahlias
M. B. Duffy is a retired aid worker who spent a decade working on humanitarian issues—most of which was spent across West and Central Africa. He now lives in San Francisco with his wife and newborn daughter. You can find his photography and poetry on Instagram, TikTok, and Substack @mbduffy.
Dana Holley Maloney
Finish Line
The stone was planted first—grey granite
in a field beside the old church his brothers
helped build, five miles from his bride’s
family farm. Their names carved there,
one below the other, though neither was
dead. Just old and done with it, just waiting
for final dates to follow. Only a decade before,
he had stood in a field in Hastings,
where his family had come from worlds
away the century before. His foot on the stump
of a tree he’d both planted and felled, he pulled
a pipe from his mouth with a puff, looking
like a statue rooted to the earth. But at ninety-
four, he was shrinking beneath his city clothes,
just waiting days in an armchair, saying
all his friends were dead. And that spring day
when my mother said we’d visit, he growled
with what voice he had left, "I ain't goin'”
and “I can't see nothin'." Sitting in the front seat
as we crossed the Alleghany, he only spoke up
miles later, to correct us when we nearly missed
the shadowed turn. It was just a break
between some trees, but it marked his final
sprint. And he came to life on the road
to his grave. He showed us the church,
talked about his wedding as if the day before,
detailed the telescope his brothers had built
for their friend Father Benno, who followed
planets, painted in the fields, and longed for
home. Later, when he sent me to find the priest’s
stone in the clergy plot, he said, “I’ll be here soon,”
his voice satisfied, like when you’ve nearly
reached the finish line after a long and trying
race across an ever-changing century, and
every single part of you is ready for a rest.
Dana Holley Maloney is a native New Jerseyan who lives and writes in midcoast Maine. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in Chiron Review, The Lake, Paterson Literary Review, Pine Hills Review, Tar River Poetry, and elsewhere. She teaches English at Montclair State University. More at danamaloney.com.
Najka Altazy
although she loved the evening: eulogy
She's gone.
She wouldn't want a tender lie.
She wouldn't lie to us.
We could depend on her for hearty
truth to ice a bruise.
Her voice,
(the one that makes your conscience ring)
it isn't her,
just echoes of her bell already struck;
the clapper drifting free.
Yet hear her happiness in favorite songs,
and see her iris’ color drape the sky;
perhaps the grasp of summer’s sweltered end will hold your hand for her,
but don't confuse yourself.
She's gone.
So if there's anything you did together (or that she did well)
then do it.
Do it now
vivaciously
for she would want your night to turn to dawn.
Najka Altazy has been an archivist and librarian at America’s largest archive, the world’s biggest museum complex, and the most extensive repository of Shakespeare-related materials in the universe. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia with a lady, a girl, and a boy, only one of whom is a dog.
Kay Ann Kestner
After My Lover Died
Thoughts move slower now.
There are spaces between
the seconds now.
The cars are unaffected.
The streetlights the bills do not care.
Time to them is scientific is definite.
The checkout girl—talks too fast—
bags too fast—says good-bye too soon.
The morning paper
hangs in the air…
Are you ready yet?
Ready for the day after?
Tomorrow is delivered to my doorstep
but it will be months before I can
get there.
Kay Ann Kestner’s screenplays have placed in a variety of competitions. She is the founder and editor of the literary journal Poetry Breakfast, which she established in 2011. Her poems and short stories have been published internationally. You can read more of her work and find her latest projects at www.KayKestner.com.
J.I. Kleinberg
the commotion
J.I. Kleinberg lives in Bellingham, Washington, USA, and on Instagram @jikleinberg. Collections of her visual poems include How to pronounce the wind (Paper View Books, 2023), Desire’s Authority (Ravenna Press Triple Series No. 23, 2023), and She needs the river (Poem Atlas, 2024).
Norman Hills
Chicago
A Mondrian in glass, in steel and stone—
geometry of great complexity.
The intricate reflections draw the city
schematic in urban structures built, not grown.
The light of shuttlecocks lacing the known
from here to why, creating knotted, gritty
designs of ceaseless flux aglow from the smithy;
rococo patterns define the interzone.
The brain and place have made an interface,
this labyrinth of things to classify.
The need for ordered plan can only trace
the restless urge of mind to codify.
Creating the world anew, we must displace—
the inner eye must also signify.
Norman Hills is a retired software engineer, working for many years as a consultant. Writing poetry was the main thing that kept him half-way sane. He has a BS (yes, I know) in English, but rarely wrote poetry until much later. He simply wasn’t ready.
Sarah E N Kohrs
Tomorrow—
I run through a scripted list
that may be or may not be
|: until the sun sparks wildfires
where mountains seem to breathe. ⊕
Night closes its eyes
to a daylight that twinkles
in a constellation for other planets.
Tomorrow—as nebulous as
some place foreign and vacuous,
like the circling stance of two people
struggling as much with themselves
as with one another for a pin;
and yet, familiar, too: the
helplessness of today, looking at
tomorrow—tomorrow looking at
today, uncertain, really, :|
_____________________
Read to the repeat :|
Return to |:
Read to the coda, ⊕,
which brings the poem to resolution.
Sarah E N Kohrs has poetry published in Arboreal Literary Magazine, Bluebird Word, Culinary Origami, The Elevation, Kitchen Quarterly Review, Louisiana Literature, Rattle, and numerous other journals. Her chapbook Chameleon Sky won Kingdoms in the Wild’s 2022 Poetry Award. SENK lives in Shenandoah County, Virginia, kindling hope amidst asperity. https://senkohrs.com.
Christian DeBrady
I’m having overcooked rice for dinner again
|
But this time I convince myself it’s a delicacy A slow-simmered risotto or savory rice pudding over blackened rice cracker crust I even delicately scrape every last charred grain from my still crackling pot because I made it to the kitchen today after marinating over a mattress that sticks hotly to my skin when I look away I forgot for days to rinse the starch off my hair sticks together in brittle clumps if I let myself sit long enough Add several cupfuls of white wine and I’d make a hearty pulp reduction I’ve reduced my dinner to one daily energy shot I’m stuck at the counter for a half hour too long I don’t dare unseal my eyes and disturb the salt-to-water ratio My energy is so shot I tell my mother not to waste time coming over now I made more than enough for two this time and tossing it would be a waste I toss it back and read how scorched rice is the basis for cuisines in Ghana and Japan Burned into an expanding union of lonely stovetops the black ring of my scarred pot is the world I wonder if it’s possible to ruin something so essential Given this edible clay absorbing that which it is tasked to hold I mold it into six tupperwares for the week By Saturday I may congeal in the shape of a studio apartment and become too tough to stomach |
Christian DeBrady is a poet and spoken word artist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He has been published in Black Minds Magazine and reads literary submissions for Apricity Magazine. He is currently completing a degree in journalism and creative writing at The University of Texas at Austin.
Jamez Terry
A Pocketful of Paradise
after Roger Robinson
When I learn to fit Paradise in my pocket
will its edges be sharpened to startle
where my fingertips graze?
will it be soft like felted wool,
barely noticed in its fabric cave?
or crystalline and wet, spreading
like snowballs a fool tried to save?
will it grow skyward in shoots and fronds,
refusing to stay contained?
No, this Paradise of mine will be an old stone,
solid and cool to the touch,
worn smooth by ocean waves,
sparkling when struck by the sun,
glistening when dampened with rain,
but humble, a small stone it will be,
in my pocket, nothing to inspire praise,
just a stone held in a tightened fist
now ready to unfurl, release, liberate
Jamez Terry (he/him) is a queer and trans poet, novelist, zinester, parent, chaplain, and rabblerouser. His poetry has mostly been published in DIY zines and spit from stages across North America. His debut novel is forthcoming from Generous Press. He lives in Alaska.
Roxanne Cardona
GALLEON ON THE CUSP
after painting Mar con Bote c. 1933 by Juan Antonio Rosado
Pulled from beyond—
the clouds, it emerges
no surprise, it has been here before.
Ghost or galleon.
What it has—stealth, the sneaking, strut,
crawl of its rudders.
It tiptoes in on barnacled shoes, well-worn
with dead sargassum.
Snakes through this twisted pot
of salinity and archaea.
It has traveled so far yet not at all.
Long comma on the horizon.
In the haze of three p.m. sun
or the mist of midnight rain,
it sails. Forward, to meet the undertow.
Steadies itself for collision
with history and its awkward
appearance in the present.
There are no people in this canvas.
They inhabit the shoreline, wave
from the rocks. Take pictures.
Gather gastropods
in beach bags—abalone, conch, cone shell.
In the collage of colors
and bathing suits, we have forgotten
the Spanish galleon
even as it pokes its way towards
the rocks, the scorched sand,
this sleepy island. Instead, open
our beach umbrellas and pull
down our darkest shades.
Roxanne Cardona, of Puerto Rican heritage is the author of Caught in the Principal’s Lens, finalist, 2024 Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prize. Her poems appeared in: Frontier Poetry, finalist 2023 Ekphrastic Poetry Contest/New Voices, Connecticut River Review, Mason Street, Loch Raven Review, Willows Wept Review, The Westchester Review, and elsewhere.