SPARK / Allison Creighton
You speak words no one hears.
Strangers stare past you,
your sunken eyes searching.
You’ve driven love away with arrows.
You are gray from years of hiding
too much time alone
in the spiraling of seasons.
Seasons of bronze and shadow.
Seasons of frozen sky.
You are frightened
of the beating of your own heart,
the thick undergrowth of memory
stirring beneath your skin.
In the porchlight outside your window,
something moves. A red-tinged bird
lands on the sill. You listen for a song
that once belonged to you.
SUNSPOTS / Ian Doumit
Something so fragile
built in a bottle
Protect it with your body
Watch it grow
In a war against years
you only can lose
Lean against him
Count this battle a win
Her face a pool
of water so clear
you see to the bottom
find yourself there
Brownstone to ranch style
with home in between
Home a weary beard
Home a toothless yawn
Home a U Haul traile
r down in the parking lot
Home a Subaru hatchback
In a few fast years you’ll be mid-forties
He’ll be gone and she’ll cross the stage
Her eyes will search for you in the crowd
so proud, teeth so white, mouthing words
you hear echo in your womb
You find them like fireflies
capture them in jam jars
store them for the winter dark
She’ll have no memory
of New York City
or why you left
but she’ll remember Denver
She’ll remember the peaks
the aspen leaves, magpies
the playground hours with her dad
before he gets sick
She’ll tell herself it’s home
She’ll build herself a ship
in the glass of her body
You’ll be so fragile
but she’ll protect you
so that you can together
watch it cast off
sails full
until it’s a sunspot
and you’re a memory
once called home
Shiplap & Shandygraff / RJ Ingram
Are lovers who make quite the odd couple on their borrowed bottled pirate ship / One a beanpole of a neurotic tics & the other a sloshy scallywag of an indiscernible age whose second childhood seems to run-on forever / Batman & Robin have it too the complementary yin & yang one always slicing bananas for his cereal while the other sips orange juice straight from the carton sharing a rent controlled apartment above puppets playing baseball on one of the alphabet streets / Who’s on first? Shiplap asks from their elevated stanchion circled fairy ring & the laugh track kicks in bc the audience can kind of see where this is going / Shandygraff commits to the bit that will ripple in & out of the collected consciousness for another fourteen generations / We laugh at the imbalanced comedic duo as one thumbs around failing to pull a single rabbit out of the hat / Meanwhile whichever of the pair has the bananas with breakfast / Which in this case is Squidward I mean Shiplap / That’s when the clueless Shandygraff triggers a fifth act Ding Dong I mean Deus Ex Machina & unbelievable magic cues the curtain’s fall / Codependency is hilarious in twenty three minute segments / After the caped crusaders or malevolent politicians have had time to cool off the witless sidekicks ask the age old question / But what are we gonna do when we dock this time, Shiplap? / The same thing we do every time, Shandygraff / Try to plunder every book.
Burn the boat’s six dozen scrolls before the Emperor finds them | Turn to page 14
Take the stolen scrolls straight to the Empress | Turn to page 15
Sundays / Dara Laine
I wish I had asked you
if you were afraid—
not of dying,
but of being forgotten.
Of your coffee going cold
on the counter,
your new show
half-finished,
left for Mom to finish alone.
I wish I had asked
what you wanted me
to remember most.
Instead, I keep collecting
fragments—
how you sang along
to your favorite songs,
said you hated musicals
despite starring in them,
the way you ate peanut butter
and jelly right from the jars,
going through spoons faster
than any other utensil,
saving the last bite
of everything
for later.
Sundays now, I find myself
opening the bottle of your cologne—
bright aqua, dark sea blue—
still on the counter
in your and Mom’s bathroom.
I always said you wore too much,
but it wore off by afternoon.
It’s been four months of Sundays.
I wish people would stop telling me
you’re still here,
still watching.
I don’t want a ghost,
an angel—
I want your hands
making all of us fly like Superman.
I want your voice
calling me your darling daughter,
telling me how excited you are
for the new Marvel movie—
the one that came out
the month after you died.
I wish they’d stop saying
you’re doing great,
or right on track—
like your absence
is a race I’m running,
something with a finish line,
something
I could ever
finish.
Nothingness Wakes to Abundance / Heather McClelland
Cleanliness is next to loneliness
Creaminess next to generous
Bitchiness independence
Excellence nuzzles loveless
Loveliness sleeps with scrupulous
Catchiness wrestles fishiness
Pretentiousness caresses oiliness
Creepiness sidles stone benchiness
Secretness imprisons garrulous
Nestiness squawks birdiness
Rosiness pricks prickliness
Annoyance rolls with frilliness
Girliness paints over boyishness
Manliness huddles with wombness
Cloudless means blueyness
New mooniness tricksterness
Newy-ness means emptiness
Wondrous flies with testiness
Sleepiness fucks joyousness
Sleeplessness comes to ghostliness
Satan’s serpent seeks the curious This is why she woke up like this
Haibun on waiting & dust / Lottë Mitchell Reford
Your nose bleeds and street dogs sleep all day. The waiting is a rhythm that contains held
breath. Everything draws itself inwards, limbs tucked as if injured, and when I wash my
hands the water runs grey. Dust does strange things to the sky, scattering light. On the street,
the voice of the tamales guy cracks mid-call. Dust is always dust, and every little piece has its
own shape. I want to love them, but they’re between my teeth. The scattered light gives the
sky this sheen, this glimmer – like a fish on ice, like synapsis speaking. It’s electrons being
disturbed. Everything smells of it (dust), the skin of your back, the cat’s fur, the inside of my
own mouth and nose. Still, I try to begin to learn to love it. I think I could one day miss that
strange all-day grey. It makes the blue buildings more blue. And then the first drop falls, and
the jacarandas bloom like they were always ready to hold up the blanket of sky, and I forget
all my lessons in dust and endurance as I open my mouth and open my arms and become a
little hungry lake. The seasons are hard to love
when there is the rain
and the first place it lands.
The New York City Festival on Governors Island / Edytta Wojnar
On the grounds of
a military outpost\
& army headquarters
underneath a canopy of
ancient hickory
oak & chestnut trees
colorful helicopters
like dragonflies spinning
above the five stages
where poets
fill space
with words
I learn how to become
friends
with a sex worker
how boys
are best at taking
how to know
when to leave
a country
relationship
memory
