Issue #109
Faye Brinsmead
Sonnet against 14-line boxes
After Johannes Göransson
Here I am, nine again, already unable to sleep the normal way so I experiment, an untrained musician inventing new forms. Head where my feet should be. Mid-bedspread dormouse curl. Last night, disastrously, I slid under the bed, face facing the wall, finally fell. I wake in a cold tunnel, crunched between bedsprings and floorboards. No memory of boxing myself in this living grave. Horror eats my cries for Mom, for Dad, for the guardian angel they swear I have though I’ve never seen even a shining wingtip. I’m alone with my breath. Leaving me. In jerks. It’s worse than the nightmares of being left on beaches, hilltops, in dim echoing parking lots. The hard narrowness refuses to melt away. My ribcage is locked, I don’t have the key. Finally, the grammar reveals itself: bedsprings, floor, wall. Parts of everyday speech, expressed at a slant. Even now, writing this, my chest hardens to
varnished pine. No to all boxes.
Faye Brinsmead’s writing appears in journals including South Florida Poetry Journal, Wales Haiku Journal, New Flash Fiction Review, The Ekphrastic Review, and Meniscus. One of her pieces was selected for inclusion in the annual Best Microfiction anthology; another was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She lives in Canberra, Australia.
Annette Sisson
Filling in the Bare Spots
~ Atlanta Botanical Gardens
Through tall trees, profusions of roses,
azaleas, hydrangeas, we stroll the raised
walkways above the slopes. This morning
I miss my son’s family, tethered to home,
new baby’s arrival just weeks away—
but the blossoms ease my thoughts
of the vacant room at our holiday rental.
Here in the gardens, leafy hills open
suddenly to clearing: A colossal metal
sculpture, Earth Goddess, rises three
full stories, waist to head, her tunic, skin,
hair—all plants, smooth and knurled,
umber, olive, gold and lime. Her eyes,
cast down, meditate on her hand, water
spilling between index finger and thumb
to the pond which undulates against her torso.
We hadn’t expected her. We gaze, transfixed
by her flowing plaits, her layered texture—
a few blank patches, too, in early season.
I photograph her from the front, picture
how she’ll look in July, then August,
thick-browed, ambered. I snap her
from the side, ponder autumn’s withering,
first features to fade. Already I long
to view her again, to see the spaces fill in,
lush and full as fleece. And after, to witness
the return of bare spots—her mouth thinned,
shoulders bowed, languishing. We move on
to orchids, ramble back to the oversized
Vrbo. But her sleek form follows me—
patterns, changes, face calm as dew,
affirming the impossibility of holding water:
it slips away even while you watch.
Annette Sisson’s poems appear in Penn Review, Birmingham PR, Rust + Moth, Cutleaf, and others. Her second book, Winter Sharp with Apples, was published by Terrapin Books (2024), and her third manuscript, Rhizomes and Bones, was runner-up in the 2025 Cider Press Book Award. She won The Porch Writers’ Collective’s prize.
Spencer K. M. Brown
MOWING
|
The neighbor left a note saying how impolite it is to have grass so tall, How the street loses its value. Value is so slippery, she wrote. She thinks we should be like her—every day mowing and pruning, Every day cleaning and making things better and better. But never for anyone, never is there purpose to all the work. For me, it’s enough to watch things grow, to stand in the street Coming home from a walk, see the golden house lights on and hear My fellas running around, screaming their little heads off. It’s enough most of the time just to stand in awe of things. But I’ve let her letter rile me up tonight. I think about how this poet I once knew used to get up At two o’clock and do all of his mowing and pruning and burning In the middle of the night. He told me, before he died, it kept his depression Tamed and that that was when the best ideas came to him. He went out at the same time each night to meet them, Years on end, until he couldn’t tame things any longer. I think about it now—a quarter past two. I think how the value Of things often becomes more important than the things themselves. So I get up, let Atlas out. I fill the mower with gas and wait, listening As nothing makes a noise. I pull the mower to life and push a clean, Single line through the tall grass and let the mower die again. Inside, everyone’s asleep. I sit in my lawn chair as two slides into three, Letting the hours pass until I’ll rise, make breakfast for my boys, kiss my wife, And go to work, waiting to see daylight cut across that clean line in the grass. |
Spencer K.M. Brown is a poet and novelist from the foothills of North Carolina, where he lives with his wife and three sons. His debut collection of poems, “The Salvation of Me,” will be published by Press 53 in Fall 2026.
Nancy Sobanik
Backstitch, Berlin 1989
|
Shriek of voices swept under rubble the amorphous faces of fugitives along concrete, rebar scaling arterial rust stains bold in two dimensions where compressed hearts wield a pickaxe to open space across the border |
Reconcile into crypts of memory where the persecuted straddled tags of resistance and hope where freedom crumbled at the crossroad to tear down this wall against what fights an open border |
Nancy Sobanik is a Pushcart nominated poet with poems curated by Jackdaw Review, The New Verse News, Hole In The Head Review, Eclectica, and others. A manuscript screener for Alice James Books, she lives in Maine. Her chapbook “The Unfolding” will be released by Finishing Line Press in May, 2026.
Marie Isabel Matthews-Schlinzig
Roadside Sonnet
‘Moss […] is a resurrection engine.’
Elizabeth Gilbert
Oh, invader resolute, how I adore thee:
your leafy letters wrought on leather,
tarmac, bark; the soft shades of your
name; your patient do-no-harm which
cushions everything that’s hard. Thou
makst me lie on curbs, bury my face
in silky forklets, listen to quiet water
bears pontificate about persistence. —
If only you would settle on my porous
skin, reciprocate my passion with a
patch of soothing, cooling fur, across
my shoulders maybe, or underneath
my breasts. That, in faith, would be a
consummation, Devoutly to be wish’d.
Marie Isabel Matthews-Schlinzig is a freelance editor and translator. Her poetry publications include the pamphlet ‘kinscapes’ and the anthology ‘The Joy of Living’, which she edited to support The Maggie’s Centres. Her work has appeared in anthologies as well as Poetry Scotland, Dust Poetry, and The Candyman’s Trumpet, among others.
Saad Kayani
Burke and Paine
A vessel rides at anchor in the shoals.
Its neighbour rides at anchor in the deep.
The arcs they trace when wind and current shift
reflect the length of rode from ship to bed.
The first is bound within a narrow swing;
it marks a glowing crescent on the sea.
While far below, the second’s rode, paid out
through darker water, grants a wider swing.
Then sudden gales arrive; the water heaves.
The shallow-moored resists the rising wave
until the keelson snaps against the rush.
The deep one drags its anchor as it rides
the surging chaos till it fades from sight.
The winds subside, and then the sea is still.
Saad Kayani lives in Toronto. Recent poems appear in Shot Glass Journal and Snakeskin.
JD Aurelius von Béres
how every star casts a shadow
the billboards promise freedom through consumption
while unmarked vans slide into driveways at 4 AM—
no plates, no warrants, just the boot-heel smile
and someone’s father: gone.
chain-linked camps rise from defunct warehouses,
razor wire catching sunrise the way church stained glass used to.
we watch from our phones as drones record the protests.
rubber bullets baptize pavement.
someone becomes a chalk outline, a meme. the
lesson: stay silent.
this is the promised land
where they disappear families, silence critics
and call it democracy!
we scroll past children torn from arms, past
women in cages, past the missing —
scroll until our thumbs forget any other prayer,
until scrolling becomes the body’s only motion, our
collective kneeling before the screen’s altar.
somewhere in the shadow of the flag
a child learns the pledge:
hand over heart, eyes forward, voice
clear and certain.
later, alone, she practices a different lesson —
how to make herself small, how to pass unmarked, how
silence becomes armor.
Moloch whose detention centers hum with children’s silence—
your data is being processed
Moloch whose scripture is
scroll-velocity
you have agreed to these terms
Moloch who enters through blue light we cup like communion —
recommended for you
Moloch whose sacrifice is the child who learns not to scream —
would you like to continue?
Moloch whose love is our infinite capacity to look away —
your session is about to expire
until one morning the van idles in your driveway
and you understand what all those scrolled-past videos meant.
but your phone is already confiscated.
there is no one left to film.
your child will learn to armor your name in silence
as she recites the pledge:
hand over heart, eyes forward,
tracing the flag’s geometry:
how every star casts a shadow,
how stripes are what you see through
bars, how red is the color of what happens
when you forget to be silent,
how blue is the light of the screen
that taught us to keep scrolling,
how white is
the space you left behind.
JD Aurelius von Béres is a queer writer, educator, and Air Force and Army veteran. Their poetry explores the human condition and the spiritual amid social media and AI. Based in Boulder, Colorado, they teach coding, robotics, and space science. Their work appears in Literary Orphans, Bohemia Literary and Art Journal and Red River Review.
Kip Knott
To a Friend Who Can’t Remember Winter
Three months after a stroke scattered
your memories like milkweed seeds
into the vast atmosphere of your mind,
you reach out to tell me that you can’t recall
what our breaths looked like in the cold
when we lived together years ago in Alaska.
You ask me to write down everything
we experienced, everyone who mattered to us,
every time we laughed or cried or yelled,
every time we saw the Northern Lights
burn silently, benignly over our heads.
You ask me to do the remembering for you.
All I can think to do is to fold
the winter Ohio field I call home
like a letter, slip it into an envelope,
and send it down to you in the deep south
where you live now, patiently
waiting for your memories to return.
I can only hope that the cold and snow
that will spill out when you open my note
will tell you all that you need to know.
Kip Knott is a writer, poet, photographer, and part-time art dealer living in Ohio. His poetry has recently appeared in Bending Genres, FERAL, The Greensboro Review, HAD, New World Writing, and ONE ART. His most recent book of poems, Rothko’s Gospels, is available from tiny wren publishing
Chris Vola
Once More to the Lake
early fall
spills a tomb
the panicked stench
of
a chipmunk’s harvest
branches down
in bunches
like
wooden
ribcages
& spleens
& you hate chipmunks
so we’re sitting
dockside
watching the boats
sway
in the pale chill
of
twilight
gasoline rainbows
reflecting
crusted engine propellers
&
paint-chipped hulls
that have
seen
better decades
duct-taped &
yawning
their owners
long departed
for bars
in the city
or the casino
or to couches &
live-streams
while the shadows
gradually lengthen
in a kind of
reverie
awaiting
the first migratory
night birds
to touch
down
& start squawking
like the type
of kids
who brag about
throwing
rocks
through
the window
of an immigrant’s
gas station
& you like birds
but tonight
it’s oddly
quiet
not like it
used to be
you say
there’s no
moon
or
lightning bugs
just a wet black hush
& the
LED wash
of distant
billboards
LOVE IS A CHOICE!
EAT MORE PIZZA!
THE BEST MAKEUP IS NO MAKEUP!
you lean
forward
to touch
the silent throbbing
murk
like it’s a
document
you’ve been compelled
to sign
while I trace
the valley
between your
shoulder
blades
wandering across
the
bones
of years
to those ancient
nights
when everything
was sprouting
when we’d let the weirdness
of it all
take our bodies
to the edge
feeling young
& mystical
like 16th-century
narwhals
whose tusk-like
sensory organs
were confused
for unicorn parts
absentmindedly humming
the same ringtones
& misremembering
the contents
of our CD wallets
& somewhere a
heron finally
croaks
distant
but loud
snapping me back
& you’re looking
up
smiling
that same
crooked
smile
that hasn’t
lost
its charm
it’s enough to
make me
forget
the specters
trudging
on the periphery
hands in
pockets
eyes on
pavement
thoughts
self-immolated
&
unspeakable
feral-eyed
dog-walkers shedding
scratch-offs
& Ozempic sweat
podcasters braising
rabbits
behind the
Waffle House
an officer’s
fingertips vibing
in
silence
lifted
gone
the meditation
continues
your eyes sink
back
into their own
waters
this must be
the cure
for something
Chris Vola is the author of 11 books, including the micro-poetry collection You’re Going to Hate the New Apartment (Alien Buddha, 2022). His recent work appears in Maudlin House, scaffold, and San Antonio Review. He lives in New York.
Jeffrey Heath
River Walk
The Mississippi speaks
in the same old rhythm.
Light skirting across water
like a heron unsure
where to land,
late afternoon thunderclouds
dusking the horizon.
The trees let go their leaves
in calm manner,
falling like browned letters.
Nothing begs to remain.
I walk by riverfront shop windows,
my reflection layered
with brand-name clothes
I’ll never purchase,
mannequins waiting patiently.
I, too, am learning to stand
without being chosen.
The world continues to present itself:
riverlight, leafsound,
a sparrow lifting its chest
for a quick breath.
That small animal joy
proof the heart bruises
but stays open,
like water,
like a mouth
brave enough
to speak again.
Jeffrey Heath formerly lived as a cat stalking the shores of South Florida. His work has appeared online and in print in Eunoia Review, Sky Island Journal, Third Wednesday Magazine, Pictura Journal, wildscape. Literary Journal, among others; He is the founding editor of January House Literary Journal.
Ethan Mershon
the best case scenario
the ember of his cigarette pulsating in the darkness
was the only sign he was there, besides the smell
of beer on his breath. it was the night with no Moon,
only scarce stars and scattered satellites dancing
with each other across a ballroom comprised of lightyears—
distance is a matter of perspective, a matter of the heart.
he burped like a cannon, then told me: the best case
scenario is in five years you haven’t seen each other
in five years. you pass on the street and nod, thankful
for everything the other taught, saying nothing, not
wishing to go back. fuck you. beer brought out
many versions of me, but it always turned him into
either a wild bronco racing through the city
like freedom was a choice, or into a skateboarding sage
telling me something i wouldn’t forget no matter how drunk
i was when he said his piece. the few stars there were
got blitzed by clouds turned orange by light pollution.
we listened to the Chicago River flow dark and coughing
before us. he stood to his feet and said: alright baby,
it’s time to party. fuck you. you know me so well.
i stood up beside him. we each lit a cigarette for our walk
to the apartment where our friends were already talking over
loud music and shotgunning beers. he put his hand on my shoulder.
i mustered a grin. we walked back into the realm of streetlights
and brick apartments. smoke was pouring from my mouth like
a wish for three more wishes.
Ethan Mershon is a poet living in Wichita, Kansas. His work has appeared in: Meridian, Fourth River, The Paris-American, and other journals.
Alison Lubar
if i could choose the way i’m small, i would be
the illusion of an owl eye
on a moth’s wing
an allusion to the anti-hero
in your favorite writer’s forgotten epic
the last heart drawn
on the ten of hearts
the stem of a four leaf clover
left after it’s been picked
the snow dusting your gloves
when you come home
the golden meniscus
of a thimbleful of mead
a thread of starlight right before
it reaches your eyes
the final raindrop
of the summer
the heat between
our shoulders as we
wait for the last train
the vanishing point
of any horizon
before nightfall
a singular translucent
grain of sand, waiting
to become the pearl
Alison Lubar is a queer Nikkei poet & educator, and author of The Other Tree, winner of Harbor Editions’ 2023 Laureate Prize, METAMOURPHOSIS (fifth wheel press, 2024), four chapbooks, and a forthcoming microchap, American Kintsugi (Bull City Press, 2026). Find out more at http://www.alisonlubar.com/.