Letter to a Dead Boy: Nicholas Farrar Hughes / Joanna Grant

Son of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes; Dead by Suicide, 2009

Dear Nicholas, I, too, was born under a cold moon,
a naked tree, rooted in a pile of bones. Never mind
that you came in January, I in September. Never mind.
People like you and me, you see, this constellation we
share, the sign ruling all of our shadowy kind, it blinks
at chronology, at history. Groans the weight of its own
cosmology. The veil always billowing in its soundless
wind, its scrim ever-effacing. Through the sheeted
mirror I reach out to you, your mother, lover, sister,
friend. My outstretched hand to your cabin outside
Fairbanks where the sun hides itself away for months
feeling like years. I reach out to you there as you step
up onto the seat of the hardwood chair. I hold out
my hand. A gesture perhaps at intervention. Perhaps
at benediction. The veil, so thin, so lucent, then. As if
I might actually reach you in time, before the ligature
tightens. Perhaps before your last dance begins. My friend.

The seedy solipsist  /  Judit Hollos

Grief refuses to flow on a linear path,
but rather shimmies around in unruly circles,
it’s perched on a swing carousel frozen in rust,
or jumps from stage to stage, taming acres of time, 
it thumps through my veins in silver doses
like waterfall between black basalt pipes,
only to fumble around the intricate passages
of a caerdroia I carefully crafted to trap him.
It’s measured in the jingling of a coin
reaching to the bottom of a cavern, 
and in the pitying glances of the quiet mourners as
the ashes are scattered in the body of flowing water.
At times, I happen to catch him in the simulacrum
of cornflower eyes reflecting my deceased grandmother, 
in the flower wreaths we used to weave, recording memories
reel-to-reel tapes, spinning on for handful of eternities…

cough up your feelings / Zach Hauptman

come on that’s it
you can do it

you swallowed them
pebbles, twigs, moss
gulping mouth open
handmade sweaters folded tightly
scratching on the way down
paper receipts gone
through the shredder
white party confetti
birthday cards with only names
the long slow chug of loneliness
liquid, gel, filling
the length of a throat
heartburn following the
fire eater’s pneumonia

choke back up the words you’ve
bottled and gulped
hosting them in the
bonfire of your guts

come on, you can
reach a hand down
your esophagus to the wrist
twist until you can almost feel
slippery strands
and tug, heave them up
in slimy tendrils
left on the floor to step on
in the middle of the night

dog song (willka 1) / Brice Maiurro

after mary oliver

the big dogs
bark at us
on the trail
side-eyeing
your hot dog body
& chihuahua ears

the american breeds
racing through the slow oak trees
trying to be the high king
of turkey trot trail
eyes hiding behind oakleys
airpods playing some podcast
on the health benefits
of forest bathing

they bark
is that your guard dog
but we keep hiking
is that a dog or a cat
they bark laughing
but we keep climbing

i often wonder about
your ancestors–
were they out their scenting
chasing & burrowing
into the deep earth
of the black forest
seeking out badgers
beneath the trees
not so different
from the pines
we find ourselves among

i can see the shadow of them
in your pace–
always following your nose
the tip of your snout the point
of your compass

were my german kin
ever there beside you
in the hunt
teaching each other
the languages we’d learned
from the woods

you & i hold two worlds
dear willka

were we there together
your techichi kin before you
beside my aztec 
perhaps my mayan brethren

were the chihuahuas before you
swept away by the dark conquest
of my spanish blood

do you hold that big grief still
in your tiny heart

how is she going to hike
with those tiny legs
they bark

i could tell them
if they hadn’t already decided
not to listen
                     like this

you move across
big rocks like water

you navigate the trail
like the wind

& as we arrive
at the top of the mountain
i hold your tiny body
gloriously into the
summit sun

& we smile
as your shadow falls even bigger 
than the worlds you carried
to the top of the hill

Appalachian Omens: an index   / Kimberly O’Connor

Angel: if dimple + cheek, touched by
Apron: if man wipes hands on, marry (see [marriage], [wife])
Babies: if [dream], [death]; if [cats], breath in danger (see [cats], [death])
Beauty: if smoke follows, have (see [smoke], [apron])
Bear: if [dream], see [death] 
Bees: if major life event, tell; if [dream], luck
Cats: take babies’ breath (see [babies], [death]) 
Cemetery: if passing, hold breath (see [death]) 
Cucumber: if scent of, snakes [see snakes]
Death: foretold by [dream] of [babies], [bears], and [marriage] (see [cats], [cemetery]) 
Devil: if dimple + chin, shoe of; if [rain] + [sunshine], beating wife (see [wife])
Dream: if tell before breakfast = come true; if three times = come true; see [babies]; [bears]; [bees]; [teeth]
Marriage: see [apron]; [bees]; [wife] (avoid)
Smoke: if + followed by, see [beauty].
Sunshine: if + rain, see [devil]; [wife]
Snakes: if + wife, sin; if copperhead + held + not bit, blessed; if [dream], + enemy (see [cucumbers], [dreams] [thunder], [wife])
Teeth: if [dream] falling out, [death] 
Thunder: if first of spring, wakes snakes (see [snakes])
Wife: if [sunshine] + [rain], devil beating (see [devil], [apron], [beauty], [marriage], [smoke], [snakes])

I Am Cold  / Michael Schad

ospitals are chilly places.
This one is cold and unremarkable. 
The same room layout, the same dull schades,
the same blue vinyl seats with the faux wood, 
and it all seems a little bit too ironic
when you consider a cliche line forever stuck in the consciousness 
of pop culture when a character is dying on screen,
“I’m so cold”. Well, if you are dying in a hospital 
you are probably cold because they keep it at 55, 
just turn up the damn heat, or turn off the air conditioner, 
either way do not expect
people not to freeze before they expire. 
And expire they will, 
and in this instance,
Death is peering in now; 
it is close, it likes the cold. 
It likes the shivers, I sit in that vinyl blue seat, 
I watch my wife spooning my mother-in-law
both freezing, both shivering and breathing,
and creating heat.

Ghazal for a Reluctant God / Kashiana Singh

O Maker of mildew and marrow, who dreams of us late—
Why turn love to rust, then ask for faith at heaven’s gate?

You plant us in soil, in sorrow, in spinning bon
Then vanish mid-prayer, behind a silence innate.

We howl through your chambers, unbraided by grief—
Does omniscience shatter when doubt germinates?

We are alphabets burning, unlettered and raw,
Each syllable bent where your absence translates.

If souls are clay, then whose hands mold their return?
Why do we soften just to harden and wait?

No prophet has charted your tempests or calms—
Mary prays in virgin silence, veiled and crowned with gold.

Meera sings to stone, barefoot in broken halls—
Her voice, like ours, climbs a sky that won’t unfold.

O God, who listens when we no longer plead—
Can you still hear us, or is it far too late?

Paradise Lost  / Elizabeth Wolf

It only took a few hours to gather their stuff
and hit the road. Sad Girl hadn’t been to the farm
for almost a year but rural roads don’t change much
and the interstate seemed straight as a rail
when she had her own ride. Once they turned down
the long farm drive though, Sad Girl looked alarmed.

“Doesn’t feel right,” she said. “I can’t say what’s
different but something has changed.”

There were two new cars parked perfectly parallel
in the tidily swept dooryard. No chickens scratched about.
No kid bikes, no clothes on the line, no buckets
stacked by the gates. The farmhouse door opened
and a man in a white buttoned-down shirt stepped out.
“Can I help you?”

Sad Girl looked around. This was definitely the old farm
and also most definitely not. Everything was repainted
but the colors were wrong. It was too quiet. There was no
smell of baking or goats or beet pulp or grass.

“I used to help out the family that farmed here,” said Sad Girl.
What happened?”

“I’m sorry,” said the man. “They’re not here anymore.
Their son had an accident so they moved into town
for his care. They had to sell. I hear the guy works
at his father’s bank, something about investments?
His wife takes care of the kids. We get a lot of folks
stopping by. That’s really all that I know.”

Sad Girl stood there with tears in her eyes, afraid if she
opened her mouth a wail would come out and the chasm inside
could swallow her whole. Brody stepped up.

“Thanks, man,” he said. “This was a very special place.
As I’m sure you know. We’ll get out of your hair now.”
He led a quiet and limp Sad Girl to the passenger door
and backed down the drive.