By: Hope Fischbach after Andy Warhol’s “Love is a Pink Cake” Pittsburgh, PA It is the first day of autumn, September breathing into his skin and my prism fingers curled in denim and disquiet. Twilight snakes through steel frames, our hollow bones; I want to lean into him, stiffened spine to the cold grey lines, the rust, the factory noise. Gaze at the cross-armed sky as she holds forth a downpour sure to come; fluorescent office windows, eye

By: Shou Jie Eng Lay like whale over a course of salt wear coats of oil, lay warm latitudes raise gardens of ice where posterior and up lie uneasy. Unwind over deck coats of oil, worn latitudes belaying triple strands, laid hemp ends unwinding over deck. Lie uneasily in quarters, pitching, fingers unstranding where laid hemp took their triple ends knowing that, far from home, the body lies in quarters, pitching, slowly unstranding the line between body, body, and water knowin

By: Durell Carter You look down at the cockroach from your bar stool That isn't afraid to acknowledge you Because it knows there's a hole That will hide them/ hide us From the light of their trespassing gods' eyes And you wonder how they/how we are going to survive a world That will require them to learn how to fly further than their/ than our limitations While you inhale cigarette ash And listen to the music played in iconic 80s movies with zero dance montages Vibrating

By: Mary Paulson Some small black bird with a yellow beak like a toothpick knife jabs restlessly in the grass. He stops, glares at me and I’m struck with the thought that I should know his name. You would have known it and all about the green shimmer of his top feathers, about the song he sings, the females he likes, the carry of his wings on air. I remember you at our kitchen table with your bird books. Mary, you would say, pointing at the large bay window, see the Tit Mouse

By: Lori Starling I shouldn’t be Someone You could take or leave—I know I’m Cracked, Chipped, Broken in All of the Places— Normally thrown out pottery— You know, I was ART once! So, take the Time to pick up My Pieces, and mend Me with gold like I’m fucking royal! Loving me is Wanting to put it all together, And embrace My broken, beautiful, and boundless flaws, And cheer for me when they shine. Lori Starling is an author, academic, and poet. They have their MFA in Creative Wr

By: A. Pikovsky \/ it’s a disruption of peace, wilting in the whirl now, i’m ironing in the settle, no. i’m settling in the web of (f)ears i did not \/ could not weave. it’s a collection of repentance collapsing into the purpose you painted for me, to serve for the living where thoughts summon the monster i can’t shake off me— looming in the stale air of hurt spaces calling it whatever it is not no. it’s a separation of scent i am dusted & \/

By: George Burns Driving into the low morning sun, I cannot see, so drive slow and on hope. Like the sun, the traffic on Sunset, Temescal, PCH and the 10 is just beginning and it’s easy to go with the flow and, in the garage, I have my choice of parking places and even have time to finish listening to the podcast, there is a great ambiguity at the end of the world, which I’m mis-r emembering, but not in a huge way. It’s close to 8 o’clock and the approaching hour is drawing m

By: Donald Guadagni The mirror that is life and that which is myself, I quietly reflect as to the truth and meaning of my heart. This is not passion nor aberration that passes silently as I touch the mirrored surface of my soul. Even the mirage of existence that shimmers upon us all cannot touch the true meaning of that which is the soul. The vision of the true heart seeks only that that provides balance and serenity. Quintessential and sublime being becomes elusive as rip

By: Terry Jude Miller darkness approaches the eye retreats to back seats of the theater the world obscures leaves wind song and the ghost of blooming night flowers in its wake people who know better or nothing—sleep—while the broken wait out the night in half-dream and opaque images try to memorize the words sung by the wind Terry Jude Miller is a Pushcart Prize nominated poet from Houston. He received the 2018 Catherine Case Lubbe Manuscript Prize for his book, The Drawn C

By: Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas I wanted to write you a letter filling you in on all that’s gone on over the years, but according to your sister, who emailed me last week, you’re dead. I’ve been searching for you so long with no word back, I wasn’t surprised, yet I have to say I began to imagine in a hopeful way that you might be alive somewhere, lying on a sandy beach sipping margaritas, too high on alcohol to answer back. I’ve been wanting to tell you how much I miss our o

By: Will Neuenfeldt God hums white when sinners sleep as not one shadow repents inside his parking pews. Pothole holy water remains blessed and full until he lets strays have a sip. Between tinier cracks grow crabgrass and dandelions before his followers spray what they call weeds away, but tonight God rains and Jesus takes his break to shower out back while his post glows brighter without a set of headlights in sight. Will Neuenfeldt studied English at Gustavus Adolphus Coll

By: Ken Kent He walks gravely upon gravel To a skin-colored skyscraper In which dusty Lisa Will whirl and warble For him once more In an inflatable wheelchair In a neat Apartment on the topmost floor. Ken Kent lives in Sweden. He has a de Chirico perspective on all things considered.

By: Kelly Vance In defiance of better judgment In memory of too many condolences In nightgowns and ball gowns On the terry cloth edge of apathy’s bathrobe On the wagon on a well-beaten path to anywhere else On the eve of future regrets Like a thirsty supplicant succulent empty of stores Like a whale, bloated and drying on the beach Like hummingbirds from the red death trough When the sky grows close and vocal When the grass screams blades-up below the mower When you aren’t he

By: Hunter Hazelton Does he blame the orange for its unpeeling? There’s no scream as he thumbs the thing. The orange receives what’s not asked for like a good victim. It perspires—sweaty & citric, spilling its guts upon my lover’s lips. Devoured. Then there’s me, voyeur, transfixed by his: cocked head— open the great throat of Cronus. Almost pornographic. Common violence. His nails impale skin, unwelcoming as daybreak. He leaves the carcass atop the duvet. What a banal death,

By: Darren C. Demaree sometimes the wound cannot fathom that you must press the number one when you dial out from the free phone & god dammit what if my hands are evil hands & if i dial the number another man another wrong man might show up & end all beauty & burn the house of heaven in her throat & pour more concrete in her eyes so the knife so the cool sharp knife instead of the ringing & a clean exit where once light was swallowed Darren C. Demaree is the author of eightee

By: Hannah Cole an octopus climbs like a ladder, while angelfish flutter in the seaplants. Above your body, coral towers cast shadows. Fish wheel in a cloud. Nearer to the shore, an underwater insect navigates the stony floor on stick-like legs. A squid is piling his head with rocks. That’s because I’m here. A quilt drifts down through the seaweed forest, tracing an x axis while I swim the y. You threw it there yourself, making sure it caught the wind, then put clothes on ove

By: Jason Gabbert It makes me sad, what you’ve become. You stained thick the outside of your irises. You bent over broken feathers on the side of the street. That’s the first time I stop seeing you. A boy playing in gutter rapids near 15th and Brazee: He makes the handheld space pod fly. I seem more concerned than his mother: On her phone. He’s back inside now. Someone said they didn’t have many friends. We read an article about life rife with loneliness, like smoking fifteen