Issue #53

Naomi Kim

Phototropism

Hae, like the sun. Hye, like Chihye,
              Like my Korean name. 지혜.
My grandfather chose the Chinese characters,
              Writing hye with the strokes for orchid.

Hae. Hye. 해. 혜. My mother asks,
              Can you hear the difference?
But I say hye, hae, my clumsy tongue
              Turning everything to the sun.

I am twelve when I bend before my doctor,
              My fingers dangling above the tiled floor
As he surveys the curve of my spine.
              This, he tells me, is called scoliosis.

Looking for the light, I grow crooked,
              Swerving from sun to sun.

Naomi Kim | 김지혜 is a Korean American writer whose work has previously appeared in Lunch Ticket, MoonPark Review, Unbroken Journal, and other publications. She is a first-year PhD student at Washington University in St. Louis. Find her on Twitter @thisis_naomikim.

Brett Bezio

Refinery

Brittle gold eroded by
the salt of soul, we’ll boil
it out of you by the hydrogen
furnaces of the angels,
hammer you by the meteors,
the moons, and loop you
around black holes,
dismal though they sound,
despite being the perfect
mergers of matter, demiurges
with their own rites, surrounded
by haloes, hallowed by the cosmos
who foxtrot in fear of their
choreographers, shadowed as they are
by the veil no one can tear.
Be gold no god would share.

As a bureaucrat and a writer, Brett Bezio is pushing paper in the American Southwest. Still ’emerging’ as a writer, Bezio can be found at the local bakery looking indecisively but longingly at pastries, as well as in Porridge, Terra Firma, and is forthcoming at Coffee Chat Zine.

Richard LeDue

Before I learned to read time,

the clock’s hands were empty,
and I believed they could never be
pointing at me, but now,
my palms are wrinkled
as an overused map,
giving directions to somewhere
beyond
the edge of the paper.

Richard LeDue (he/him) currently lives in Norway House, Manitoba. He is a Best of the Net nominee. His first chapbook was released in 2020, and a second chapbook in 2021. As well, his third chapbook, “The Kind of Noise Worth Writing Down,” is forthcoming in early 2022 from Kelsay Books.

Darrell Petska

Apologia to Coffee

                    Coffee shouts; tea whispers.
                    I drink coffee, but I remember tea.
                    Alberto Ríos, “CoffeeTea”

Take no offense, Monsieur Coffee:
each daytime hour still shouts
“Please, caffeine!” Yet Madame Tea
has my evenings, for she whispers
beguiling subtleties of mind as I
bask in her auras and drink
deep of tranquility—which you, dear Coffee,
do not provide. Pound your daily drum, but
don’t begrudge the swirls of reflection I
watch rise from versatile leaves. Remember
your role: I work with you. I dream with Tea.

Darrell Petska, a retired university editor from Madison, Wisconsin, writes poetry, fiction and nonfiction. View some of his past work in First Literary Review–East, Nixes Mate Review, 3rd Wednesday Magazine, Boston Literary Magazine, Loch Raven Review, and elsewhere.

Paul Lojeski

everyday Sci-Fi life

at work seated before the bright screen,
staring blankly straight ahead, hours
in the chair, without movement,
without thought, emptied of desire,

intent, robotic. at quitting time, hitting
jam-packed roads, stuck in stinking traffic,
motionless at the wheel, staring blankly
straight ahead, without thought, emptied

of desire, intent, robotic. later at home
sunk in the couch, staring blankly
at the bright screen, without movement,
without thought, emptied of desire,

intent, robotic. then in bed, dreaming
of a bright screen, disappearing into
the bright screen, crying out, pleading
for desire, till the alarm clock rings.

Paul Lojeski was born and raised in Lakewood, Ohio. His poetry has appeared in many journals including Barrow Street, That Literary Review, and Poetry Quarterly. He lives in Port Jefferson, NY.

James Miller

A Comic

she’s going to draw a comic
about all the dogs her family
killed
while her parents stared at the ceiling fan
or stirred forks in old dishwater
scummed with taco grease

in the second series
her mother edits a magazine
at Bittle College
shares an apartment
with late morning bathtub seizures

in the third series
it is 3:17 PM Wednesday
her mother glides
beside her first and only lover
in late March 1954 Caddo Parish lakewater
on the shore her cigarettes
wait in a brown case
with gleaming gold snap
legs smooth as hairline holiday

in the fourth series
her mother is still camped shoreside
frying sausages for herself
throughout the 70s and 80s
six meats a year
halved with her pocketknife
chew slow till the mush speaks like salt

in the fifth series
her mother is still eating
crouched now under starswipe
slaps of time across her ankles
pulls the photo out of her purse
and hands it over when her daughter shows up
I can’t remember those lips she says
though his tongue was worth it
and my legs were glorious
but we were posing for the camera
holding our arms still and supple
wanting to laugh or gurgle like frogs

and that day he proposed
on the sand
I knew it would be straight and short
though afterwards was a chore
decades free to read Belva Plain
backwards
the Women’s Room
Jackie Oh
something about septic tanks
and Galveston hurricanes
anyway we would never think
to let a dog drown
in our garden’s reflection pool
who would hold that ticket to the flame
and read the serial number aloud
slow enough the zeroes sound out porkfat
in Hungarian
anyway we never really got the garden off and running
let the deckchairs rot and the sauna grow slime
a tiny bat lived one summer in the blue-striped backporch umbrella
under a canvas fold
a tight bed better than most
from which he crept out at dusk
to work on our mosquitoes
you’ll notice
the biting’s not so memorable here
an hour you’ve sat beside me on the blanket
sharing my sausages
wondering how you’ll get back
to the main road out of state
you know I stopped smoking once I sat down
it was easy
I wanted to keep the pages of my crossword puzzle dictionary
free of nicotine
I wanted you to be able to smell my hair
when you arrived
held out your hand
and asked me to stand
again

James Miller won the Connecticut Poetry Award in 2020, and is published in the Best Small Fictions 2021 anthology from Sonder Press. Recent pieces have appeared in Scoundrel Time, Phoebe, Yemassee, Elsewhere, Sledgehammer Lit, and Daily Drunk Mag.