List in my back pocket

By Alex Stolis

᠅

She wants an aquarium.
Can’t explain why.
Something about waves.
Some vision she had.
Her first kiss.
Billy, three years older.
He was 18, had a mustache.
It didn’t tickle.
She always felt landlocked.
Not quite pretty enough to be picked at the dance.
Not ugly enough to attract bullies.
Wore baggy clothes, covered herself like a bruise.
Failing math in 12th grade.
Almost missed graduation.
Stuffed a quarter ounce in her bra when Billy took her to see Van Halen.
Billy so stoned he forgot where he was.
I took her home.
Didn’t even try to hold her hand.
Said she looked like Chrissie Hynde.
I think she liked the comparison.
Gave me her number and a peck on the cheek.
Billy never called her again.
Someone said he joined the Navy.
Someone else said he moved to LA.
I’m afraid of water, barely learned how to swim.
She wants an aquarium.
Wants to quit smoking.
Wants to sit for hours in a movie theater.
Wants me to write her a poem.
To stop being the answer to her questions.
I tell her I’ll carry her in my back pocket.
Wrapped in cellophane.
I tell her she looks like Kim Addonizio.
I think she likes the comparison.

᠅

Alex Stolis has had poems published in numerous journals. His chapbook, Postcards from the Knife-Thrower's Wife, was released by Louisiana Literature Press in 2024, RIP Winston Smith from Alien Buddha Press 2024, and The Hum of Geometry; The Music of Spheres, 2024 by Bottlecap Press. He lives in Hudson Valley New York with his partner, poet Catherine Arra.

The Smile

 By Lynn White

᠅

The picture fell.
Unharmed
she still smiled back.

The glass had broken
but uncut
she still smiled back.

I replaced her back
in the frame
that buckles precariously now,

making her smile is a little lop-sided,
but then,
so is the Mona Lisa’s.

I think she likes the comparison
as unabashed
she still smiles back.

᠅

Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. She has been nominated for Pushcarts, Best of the Net and a Rhysling Award. lynnwhitepoetry.blogspot.com and facebook.com/Lynn-White-Poetry-1603675983213077/

Alternate Endings

By Mara Lovelock

᠅

Everyone has that point–

a moment when their branch

went one way

not the other

Perhaps a decade

pain averted

seven scars

and countless procedures

erased

burden to a family not yet known

undone

I don’t need

an alternate ending

to know

what didn’t kill me

didn’t make me stronger

it broke me apart

First a blow

like an axe

to a log

then

a carving knife

whittled away

until

I was a toothpick–

the frame

that buckles precariously

under this messy and glorious

lean-to of life–

the only possible one

᠅

Mara Lovelock (she/her) is an emerging poet whose work explores trauma, illness, bisexuality, nature, and motherhood. She facilitates a community mindfulness and meditation group and is at work on a memoir-in-poems manuscript. Her work has appeared in Gnashing Teeth Publishing’s Poem of the Day and is forthcoming in Stanchion’s Elegant Variations and Third Moon Press's anthology The Museum of Human Hearts. Originally from East Tennessee, she lives in Santa Clara, CA with her husband and 4-year-old son. IG: @maralovelockpoetry

Here where we still exist

By Allie Olvera

᠅

In the basement of my mother’s house
lives a generation of baby teeth.
Sets that once grew in her body, too,
back when we were hers.

The old bits of us live jumbled inside an Altoids tin;
bleeding molars we twisted out before they were ready,
then tucked sweetly under pillows.
I don’t know where my sisters end and I begin.

Waves tear at the sandcastle.
Relationships sour,
memories tarnish,
but our enamel sits unchanged.

These teeth will go must go somewhere
when she dies and the house is sold.
Time turned me into a
burden for a family not yet known.

᠅

Allie Olvera is a writer and educator living in Oaxaca, Mexico. Her writing has appeared in Trash Cat Lit and other publications. Find more at allieolvera.com. @allie.olvera

grey for flowers

 By Erin Shields

᠅

in my dream i was a
scholarship girl wearing
a perfume of tulip smoke
and pale glories and heart.
i drank boiling coffee
and thick grace and
liquid inspiration from a
thermos of moroccan pink.

out in the garden was a
circle of tea lights and a comb.
why a comb? i kept thinking this.

time turned me into a
house of hydrangea wearing
a heather hued honour ribbon
and velvet confetti and a bird —
a pulse that i could touch.
i soon lost interest in the comb
and in questions and, for the first
time, i dreamt without wanting.

᠅

Erin Shields is a poet on the mountain. She is pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at West Virginia University, where she also teaches first-year composition. Her poetry lives in The Hemlock Journal, Tough Poets Review, The Michigan City Review of Books, and others. @erinlshields

Soot Years

By India Moore

᠅

There’s nobody around for miles
except the red mud writhing out back,

the live oak where the sparrow once sang
and my love pressed into my side body

Holding me with practiced tenderness
snaggletoothed charmer, angel reading

three books in one sitting
I want to tell her of the years before,

the long, dense ones that were blue
as the sea and tasted of soot

the years spent hoping for what I wanted
and getting nothing in return

when loneliness was not an ache
but a pulse that I could touch

because it lived between my bones.

If you want it, you have to ask for it she says

And it’s true, so I tell her what I want

and she gives it back to me achingly

for hours, for miles
there is no one but us

᠅

India Moore is a lesbian poet, fiction writer, and fibre arts enthusiast from the South. She writes stories of Black girlhood, family, grief and love. India lives in Chicago and calls North Carolina home. @india.anyai

Welcome Home

By Meagan Cumbie

᠅

So you’re a hitchhiker on the side of the road asking for help,
So you climb into the first truck that stops and slam the door.
So there’s a man and his wife,
And she’s beautiful,
And he’s not special but he’s telling all the jokes,
Asking where you want to go.
And you keep looking in the mirror,
And you know you shouldn’t want it but you want him to look too,
Because you don’t feel very beautiful and you think it would help,
So you pull into a rest stop and the sun goes down.
So she’s snoring and you can’t sleep,
So you walk into the bathroom and there’s nobody around for miles,
And you sit down but nothing comes out,
So you unlock the door and turn around.
and he’s in the bathroom too.
So you’re bent over in the dumpster waiting for the next moment,
When his hands are on you and it doesn’t feel good,
Doesn’t feel the way you thought it would.
So you run outside and keep running,
Until the sun comes back out,
And you put your hand back up.