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.

Anodyne

By Michelle Levy Schulz

᠅

23rd Street’s Crow
is majestic even in repose.
Larger than a chicken
bent over in the dumpster
with ebony feathers fluffed.

Hallucination of what the crow could tell me.
Other thoughts are like confetti or
fake food flying into the audience
the shingle at the back of their tongues
finding damage in the plastic artifice.

I’ve seen him before
over the awning of a taco store.
When I stopped then
in admiration
a cocked eye clocked me looking.

᠅

Michelle Levy Schulz is a poet and a writer living in a tall tower in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn. She likes to make eye contact with hawks if they swoop by when she is at her desk looking out the window. Her work has appeared in BlazeVox, EOAGH, Poets for Living Waters, Reflections on Little Eagle Creek, and SRPR Spoon River Poetry Review. Some of her poems are published under Myl Schulz because naming and identity are complicated.

Passover Redux

By Kyle Hunter

᠅

At bible study, the kids are deciding
which of them would die
if there was another passover,
and whether step-siblings count,
and how they might pray
that someone else’s puppy
was the first in the litter, and how
the only way not to die
would be to kill,
and whether that is the way of God
or of the whole world, and how hard
they think it would be
to get that kind of blood
off their hands and clothes,
and whether the shingle at the back
of their tongues tastes like knowledge
and pride, and whether that
knowledge and pride are the type
that condemn or redeem.

᠅

Kyle Hunter is a poet and managing editor of the literary journal the 50. His poems have appeared in Main Street Rag, DASH, So It Goes, Rockvale Review, New Verse News, Rat's Ass Review, and elsewhere. His poem "Peach Tree on Winfield" was nominated for the Best of the Net prize by Flying Island.

Whatever is Below the Roof

By Caleb Helfrick

᠅

At dawn is when the monsters decide to climb out of my ceiling
The tiny crevices between the tops and the walls are no match for their slither
These snakes fly from the sky and enter my room with ease
Watching me bite the apple that tastes like knowledge and pride
This is the thin line you see in-between heaven and hell
The texture of fruit is not so important in this type of moment
But as I finish my snack I look back up at the sky
Just to see nothing but snake skins stretched by a popcorn ceilings

᠅

Caleb Helfrick is an actor based in Longview, TX that has in interest in writing. He has been filling up his “Notes” app and journals with poetry since 2019. This year he has decided to submit poems for publishing. His first and only published poem titled, “The Tooth Fairy Grins” can be found on Navy Pen’s website. Follow Caleb on Instagram @calebhelfrick.

I lay on the grass and worry

By Dmitriy Kogan

᠅

I lay on the grass and worry
as the stars stare down at their second lives
I think about every global event
not so important
in the grand scheme of things
as the only thing I feel is
my head on the grass
and the chill of the wind
on my feet

᠅

Dmitriy Kogan is a short story writer and poet from Staten Island, New York. His work is forthcoming in Straylight Magazine, BULL, Close to the Bone, and Some Words. Read his other stuff at dmitriykogan.net and follow him on X at dmitriykogan.

The Stars Have Second Lives

By Shailendra Ahangama

᠅

The stars stare down at their second lives
From the grand, velvet firmament.
Their glowing forms are imitated in
A great oblong lake in the countryside.
Far above us in unfathomable heights
Born from the marriages of gases and dust,
Sentries born to burn till their demise,
How they inspire great awe and wonder!
But these complexities of space
Are easily reflected in a body of water
Surrounded by paddy fields and cat-tail reeds.
The stars wish to descend from
Their cold, insular celestial throne
And be a part of this bucolic communion.
The lake wishes to ascend from its simple rural refuge
To become an astral body worthy of adulation.
These are passions that stir conflict and contention,
Yet they are all extinguished gradually
As the minutes approach the dawn.

᠅

Shailendra Ahangama is an aspiring writer from Sri Lanka, who also loves music, nature and film. He has published a poetry anthology, titled 'The Beauty Of Becoming' in 2019. His work has also been published on The Piker Press, The Worlds Within and Small World City. Find him on IG @shailo17_ah.