June - Poem 19

We Are / Kristina Byas

Kin,
skin.
Eyes wide, full
of wonder
to wander.
Silver,
our native tongue,
fluency in us.

Late Declaration / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson

I want women in power in business in STEM. in the military in trades in

suits in high heels in film in aviation in bikinis in congress in music

in marketing in sports in hotpants in lace in uniform in finance. in glasses

in ERs in TV in gaming in kitchens. in art in law enforcement

in real estate in leggings in publishing in landscaping in radio

in bakeries in childcare in courtrooms in boardrooms in factories

in nursing in sweaters in architecture in fashion in fitness

in mining in nighties in pulpits in daydreams. in space in makeup

in hindsight in pink I want women— like, want them want them—

lips to lips eye to eye hip to hip sternum to sternum

Twister (1996): Did You See My Cows Out Front?  / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason

I have seen Twister over 600 times.
I babysat myself each summer,
dumping the VHS into the VCR,
CRT TV squaring out the pixels, I rode
along with the storm chasers, those hodge-podge
collection of friend-family, found-family, 
soda-cans-improvised-into-propeller family.
I sang along with four different stereos
playing four different songs along synapses
of the CB radio of my brain, the undiagnosed
CPTSD canyon between the lobes of my brain.
I ate along, each lunch, each day, at Aunt Meg’s,
served up steak and eggs, wondering
about lightning,
about what it feels like to be hit.
Asking whether it’d be better to be hit
than screamed at, better to be hit
than windslide around the house in socks
avoiding notice, better to be hit
than be told I’d never be the thing
that’d get off the ground, better
to be hit, than told I was wacko, I was crazy.
I looked at Aunt Meg’s table,
with her steak and eggs and homemade lemonade,
I look still
and long. Each time, I ask 
to be lightning struck
over 600 times,
than remember fake silence
of not being struck.

Angel Sonnet 3  / Shane Moran

A black face underlined in pearl—a one of a kind.
Beryl’s best friend’s mother looks like a Huxtable,
and takes the boys to a white stripmall church 
on Wednesdays nights. In the field just beyond 

the parking lot, Beryl and his best friend play smear the queer 
with their youth pastor’s husband and all the other tween
boys, who like to prove their strength in tackling the bodies 
of other boys. Beryl likes to throw the ball, but he doesn’t 

like the feeling of grass on his bare skin. Pastor Bob
compares Beryl to Colin Kaepernick—pussy.
His best friend tells him to man up, show these white boys.
Beryl conjures his father’s famous courage and smears.

──────────────────

3. mourn
more
  of your
learning

The Bear / Jingyu Li

All month long I waited for a bear to appear
though I spent much of that time in bed and in other places
where a bear would not appear. It will be Father’s Day soon
so I remember the colored letters I once printed and hung 
above the dining room table spelling ‘H A P P Y    F A T H E R ’ S    D A Y !’
and it was my joy to do that, my gift to celebrate. Today 
my arms are stained in paint and I am painting a picture
for a friend. The bear still has not appeared in my window 
and I do not know how to begin searching for it. I wait
for a miracle appearance. Ba, how much I want to paint you a picture
but can’t. A picture must come from the heart. I cannot paint you a picture nor 
can I send you a #1 Dad mug or apron. I am sad because I don’t mean 
to make you sad with my withholding. Every father
wants to believe their child believes they are #1. Breaking 
the illusion is like telling a child Santa is not real and never
has been. But a gift does not owe the world any truth except intention. Maybe once 
you were the #1 Dad, because I believed it. But it’s hard to believe now,
even for just a day. This poem would hurt you I think, by acknowledging what  
you know, but this poem also sends its regrets, yours mostly, and mine

On Remembering   / Stefanie Zito

I go to the trees
to remember how 
to be here and now.

June - Poem 18

If the Day is Kind / Kristina Byas

I’ll set my thoughts down,
leave them waiting for tomorrow,
to consume me then.

When My Therapist Says “You Matter” / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson

your words—
little sticks of dynamite
thrown directly into my heart

Hvaldød  / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason

There is no whale worth this cliff –
the sun sporing itself through the clouds
objects, looking down on the whales,
the cliffs, us, skvulpet on this roll
slid sideways, the pink and indigo of its eye
fryder in our jig towards the jags
of the crags, the zig and zags of trials
from these spiked slabs our bow
aims toward, despite our arms at the wheel.
The sun will watch us break on the whale –
the whale break on us –
the cliff breaks all grønn on its brun.
All oil of something will slide out
from someone’s fat and svaier on the storm
woken waves, tipped pink our noses, ears, fingertips
before breath squeezes out, then iceberg-bones us.
Senke oss ned i våre graver så dypt –
wake us, sun, wake us whale
warm us, steer us, uncliff us.
Hør oss if just once before the sun sits behind
our rudder, our clouds, our lives.
Å senke livene våre dypt inn i det neste –
deep, død, deep.

Above him is the heavy fatherhood of his father,
as it was not uncommon for Beryl’s father to remind
him of the boy’s privilege of having a father at all.
Beryl’s pities his father for the drum set 

in the Galleria window he never got that his father
promised. At 12—it is good to be humbled, 
yet there is a sting of feeling that comes with feeling
lucky to be a rock amongst rocks. It is natural,

that Beryl is searching on Ebay for a drum set
that matches the description his father gave him?
Midnight blue metallic shells with silver hoops and
a black face underlined in pearl—a one of a kind.

──────────────────

2. build
     the pal
‍ ‍ace
the sky

Pythagorean / Jingyu Li

Calendula  / Stefanie Zito

Cheer up they tell me
With their perky blooms and chunky stalks
Calendula know how to keep on the sunny side
Ornamental, edible, medicinal, cosmetic, prolific
Well, I too am rising and have much to offer, but
Even calendula tighten spent petals over time
Tucking themselves in
Curling, hardening
A spiky pod of colorless crustaceans
Dive into soil below
Stashing themselves for future unveiling
A jackpot boasting future blooms,
Merry and golden.

June - Poem 17

Birthright / Kristina Byas

Privilege (noun):

a family heirloom inherited at birth,
a tradition with unquestioned origins, used by individuals as a means of self-preservation.

Hoodoo / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson

I dreamt of fish.
I bought a man shoes, and he walked
out the door.

A bird flew into my window
when I was sleeping
and now my grandmother’s dead.

I left the light on in the house
to welcome the spirits.
I broke a mirror and buried
the shards. 

Goodbye My Children  / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason

Our ship burns on purpose,
on whale oil. Its meal scrapes our teeth
preparing sinewy arms for the storm
– taller than the fjell, culling
more than the fjord we sail
– to rip the ropes from our callus-full hands,
to tear luaen from our red-eared heads,
to bat our ship like a bird from the air,
to cat-play with mice to the terrible end.
The water chums brown behind us,
trollene diving, stirring silt of safety.
But the deep of kokingen holds no power
of saving us – only that of redeeming finality
downing out that deluge of snow unhindering
from the mountains onto our kroppene,
onto our unblessed hands unceasing 
in hauling for whales in this ice,
hauling for fire in this water,
hauling for our lives, and whistling:
å utsette tiden –
stalling our time.

Angel Sonnet 1 / Shane Moran

Beryl wakes and follows his father to the bathroom.
They brush their teeth together. He undresses 
his five-year-old body and folds his pajamas, leaving
them on the toilet as the father takes off his beard. 

The smell of aftershave is a man. His father turns 
on the shower. Beryl enters in a hop like double
dutch—a little afraid of the water. His father
joins him and washes him, quickly—no words.

With soap on every part of his body, Beryl leans against
his father’s hairy chest until he is completely rinsed.
Then he sits and pushes his blue duck adrift in the suds.
Above him is the heavy fatherhood of his father.

————

1. grow up with 
earth-
          eyes
closed

Hansel and Gretel’s Tale / Jingyu Li

and then we abandoned our parents, left
them far behind, no crumbs to trace us by, we let
their rough hands go, held each others’ hands.
They’ll say we are lost, or eaten by a witch,
only the stars will wink, only the stars will know
what brilliance is a brother, what brilliance a sister’s
word. Up ahead farther, up ahead some more,
the forest is not dark after all, we spun around 
and it was day. A sip from a river and all our toes 
are health, a twirl in the clearing and time rewinds
itself. Sometimes we dream of walls, sometimes
they move like teeth. Out here in the woods
hummingbirds come to rest. Once we were told
a story, but sister, it is easy not to be lost. 

City Deer  / Stefanie Zito

I want to learn how to be chill like the city deer– 

who despite their anxious disposition, have quickly grasped how to anguish less than their survival instincts mapped onto them. Though they get really turned around in their wandering about, and though I’ve seen them clomping down sidewalks in the strangest locations, city deer seem to be fairly used to us humans. Sometimes I’m more afraid of us than they are. Maybe I should be more like the deer– mind my own business. Steer clear when I can. Steal from the wealthy gardens. Snacks for the road. Meanwhile the cemetery is the city’s second zoo. So much life amidst such death. It’s literally wild. The deer frolic without giving mind to the bodies and memories on which they stomp. They stretch and leap gracefully over the graves– the way faith taught me I would do in time. They don’t plan or keep time, yet have everything they need in looking out for each other. 

I want to learn how to be chill like the city deer.

June - Poem 16

In Progress / Kristina Byas

I am the girl I used to be,
I am the woman I have become,
I am the stranger I’ve yet to meet.

I am.

Spiritual Practice / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson

The first time she masturbates she does it with her hands,
the finger she dips in oil to make the cross on her forehead
now curled up inside her motioning, come here, come here.

The pastor told what it is to for a woman to be blessed:
year after year, a little angel nursing at her breasts, a man’s
arms, muscular and sweaty, wrapped around her body.

The bible says it is better to marry than to burn. Get down
on your knees and pray for your bridegroom, the pastor spat
from the pulpit, waving his hands in the air, and she will but

now she lies on her side, head bowed, knees drawn up to her chest
like a baby, born again and again and again and again and again.

Drukningsdøden  / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason

As you tremble, trundled up,
it’s the glacial spray that tastes you
first, the green of water before the blue,
the salt in the air before the cold,
the beat of boat beneath your feet
before the wind inside your fingers –
glovesless because you’ve forgotten them,
hatless as your hair wisps ‘round your ears.
All of you awfully cowled by the glaciers, seven
shimmering and white, monstrous angels,
quelling to quiet all the moments
between heartbeats, even thudless
on the hull, only ice groaning
Se og vær redd for meg
in seven voices echoing in dissonant choruses,
drilling holes into the green, the blue,
the salt, the wind, and the boat. Taste
that drowning coming for you and whisper:
Tusen takk.
Jeg elsker deg.

PENIS / Shane Moran

I’ve mulled over how I treated your body, 
an ignition and my body, a pacifier.

I should have been more quiet in the dark 
and felt your skin for what it was: a shore 

of silent-hills and raised hairs. I thought watering 
your Spanish needles and placing ice in your orchids

were comfort enough — I didn’t know what to do
with your body sick or grieving or out of its mind.

I submit. I’m capable of blindness. A dickhead.
There were better ways to love than devouring

your body until our faces were unrecognizable 
without a squint and the right light.

 Untitled / Jingyu Li

by Bei Dao, trans. Jingyu Li

Reach out 
your hand to me:
don’t let 
the world that’s blocked 
by my shoulder disturb you.
Imagine love 
is not forgetting and suffering 
is not memory. 
Nothing really 
ends. Even if only 
the last poplar is standing
like an empty tombstone 
at the end of the road.
Don’t you know?
Falling leaves can still speak,
fading as they flutter, turn pale
come to a stop
yet still supporting 
our heavy footsteps. It’s true,
no one knows tomorrow, 
tomorrow begins 
in another morning,
at that time, 
we will have fallen
into a deep sleep.

Soft Summer  / Stefanie Zito

The time is ripe to step 
into a new season, 
so let’s slip in
to something more comfortable
trade the too tight
drawstrings of busy bygones
retire the attire of rigid demands
declaring them outdated, passé.
I’m here for a silky spell
of smooth and simple scenes
the luxury of unfastened time
loosen the slack 
drop the to-dos.
let’s drape ourselves 
in the softest summer.

June - Poem 15

Semantics / Kristina Byas

Carefree, not careless.

Taught by consequence,
not choice.

My tongue has learned
the difference.

And the burden of knowing
stole something from me
and left room for neither.

Mary Considers Abortion After Gabriel’s Visit / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson

17 Blessed? she thought. 18 And Mary went to the garden behind the house and fell to her knees. She loosened her hair, tore at her clothes and almost cried out to God. 19 But she shut her mouth and got up. And she went out into the field in search of the yellow flower, and she plucked it. 20 Then she went to the stone and ground the heart-shaped pods into dust and took that dust and placed it in a cup. 21 She was trembling just thinking about what might be said. And could she be sure the one who had visited her was an angel? 22 She looked down at her breasts, which had never been touched, and she pictured a suckling mouth gorging. The thought of this made her weep so that she poured the dust into a pot, and the water took on a muddy color. 23 Then, just as water was seething, she felt the presence of the Lord come upon her, and the baby moved in her belly. 24 Wherefore she cried out, “Why me, God?” and waited for an answer.  

Consumption  / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason

hunt this young poem

awake, struggling, eat the words

quick, slurp it all down

SHOULDER / Shane Moran

Soft hands on my sunburnt shoulders became claws during new sex.
Hurt like a hot shower, it was a hot shower. I search for
Originality in our beery breath, in the single syllable of my name.
Ultimate test of self-control—a body that enjoys making
Love without having fallen. An unneeded
Drowning, isn’t always unnecessary. Learning how wide her
Eyes open was an education, how often does someone
Remain attentive—how often do I attend through a stinging?

 Untitled / Jingyu Li

by Bei Dao, trans. Jingyu Li

Trumpet like a sharp plow,
we plant seeds 
through the night: how long
until the sunlight breaks through 
soil

How long 
until the one listening 
turns, notices us

How long, until we are
through toil, 
glory

Before our grain is stored,
these thoughts 
belong to no one. What is today 
or the next life?
A chasm: large waves crashing 
the shore. We 
in youth’s name
listen to the wild heartbeats

In a vaster place,
our sleep will be full of straw

Hidden Hope  / Stefanie Zito

Compost on spent dirt
Seeds planted, fresh and hopeful
Hidden potential

June - Poem 14

Bag Lady, Reconsidered / Kristina Byas

Three receipts,
one for gas,
one for matcha,
one for a version of myself
I no longer recognize.

A tube of lip balm,
worn down to the shape
of unsaid words.

A pen
that only works
a few letters at a time,
stifling me.

Two hair ties,
one broken.

A wallet,
with too little money
to buy me the happiness
people say it can’t.

Hopes spilled at the bottom
with loose ibuprofen
and breath mints.

Fear jammed in the zipper pocket
so it doesn’t find its way out
without my permission.

And resilience,

in case it does.

In All My Dreams My House is the One I Grew Up In IV / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson

In All My Dreams My House is the One I Grew Up In IV
In one dream, my father punched a hole in the wall
In one dream, I cried on the phone to my friend
In one dream, the cat was trapped in the chimney
In one dream, we sat on the porch while it rained
In one dream, the neighbor threw a rock through the back window
In one dream, the belt jolted me awake
In one dream, my brother accidentally drank bleach
In one dream, the house moaned like it was haunted
In one dream, my mother said she was leaving
In one dream, my brother’s friend kissed me on the lips
In one dream, a mouse ran over my foot
In one dream, I licked all the stamps for the bills
In one dream, the ghost said to get dressed for bed
In one dream, I died and came back as a bird
In one dream, the clock fell off the nightstand
In one dream, it lightninged but there was no thunder
In one dream, we fought and broke the front window
In one dream, I dreamt it was all just was a dream

 the capybara in the hot spring that is the center of the black hole  / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason

this is a provable fact, so perhaps
if we sink it into that hot spring
space, bulleted with the holes of stars,
place a little tangerine on our head,
like that celestial capybara,

citrus scents permeating
the unknown matter of space –
tangerine rinds falling
over our anxious selves,
nebulae of exploded stars ballooning out
or condensing, miraculously down, 
to make new stars, to set on our brow,

and rest,

we could be as content, as wondrous,
in a moment that a black hole can stretch out forever
with our small souls and this being beyond
all space and all time – simple and complex
as a tangerine, as a hot spring,
as a sleepy capybara –

the universe cooling and ever-expanding.

PENIS / Shane Moran

I can’t imagine a more useless skill 
than making love without the recklessness 
of oversharing in the mutual delight of stressed 

blood grunting out foreheads and the pumping 
of bulging veins in and out a hug from the inside. 
This is how a legacy is born, the spoons 

of just showered bodies against a sink—
eyes squeezing and widening to the same pulse 
of our breathing, and the rhythm of our thrusts.

Aphrodite’s song was the moonlight dashing 
across my lover’s lips in the dark, cold tile bathroom 
of our old Hartsdale apartment. The shower window 

half open, we could hear the rain, the flick and hiss 
of a passing smoker’s light, a neighbor's first goodbye 
after a first date—the tumbling upon her umbrella.

God! This was the only kind of drama I wanted to watch—
even if I knew the ending: My hand grabs her shoulder, 
after I pull out from the risk, and I hold a kiss that becomes 

a shout that becomes a kiss against her cheek. I love you. 
She tells me, I cum like a woman. My Shaking. My thanking. 
And this is the greatest compliment: to be compared to a woman. 

Her tiny nails tapping my forehead as I kneel 
to catch my breath. My cheek against her gold tan calf. 
She doesn’t have to ask—we go again.

 Inference / Jingyu Li

for my grandmother

If the trees go on for as far as the eye can see
then they must go on forever. When a thrush flies
into the distance into the infinite trees I assume
they return a different thrush, changed by what 
I cannot see, changed by the infinite trees and 
the light from a different sun. Dearest granddaughter,
you are across the planet from me, maybe you are
on a planet I cannot see. When the wind blows
southwest, it will not be blowing the same speed
or angle across your face. Maybe it is perfectly
still where you stand. Maybe you have never heard 
of wind. I laugh at the ones who say we are looking 
at the same moon. It is a certain way here, but you 
are not here, so how can it be? It is a lie people tell 
themselves to remain fixed to their loved ones
but love moves, dearest.

Still Climbing  / Stefanie Zito

Before I acclimated 
to acceptable social cues 
and appropriate inquiries, 
and much to my mother’s mild mortification, 
I’d enter any home I’d find myself in 
with one specific request– 
most often met with surprise, 
or a tinge of embarrassment, 
regarding my simple 
yet presumptuous appeal: 
I would readily ask 
to journey upstairs.
Curiosity called me to climb
beyond the barrier of stairs
to ascend upward in discovery
past the presentable ground level
and with the accompanying trust
to venture into the mundane, yet 
private and intimate spaces.
I wanted to see how people lived
the cozy and relational ways
intimate spaces were inhabited
to look beneath by going above  
indulging in the hidden 
geography of home.
I still retain lofty aspirations
to visit unkempt places
and feel right at home.

June - Poem 13

Limbo / Kristina Byas

It’s the holding on to things that have already let us go that almost kills us,
and
hope is enough to let it.

The People Manual / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson

On first read, I got bogged down
on Chapter 2, Eye Contact: When peopling,
do not avert your eyes. Do not stare
at your hands. Do not sigh and look
longingly at the floor. I wanted to be
a good person, but gazes were too much
—admiring gazes, hateful gazes, sly gazes,
gazes I couldn’t quite make out.
Gazes made me want to crawl inside myself
and build a nest. Gazes made me question
myself, made me want to hide. I wanted eyes
that worked. The manual said eyes
are how you make friends, how you connect
with others, how you show confidence.
I wanted to do it right, but I was peopling
all wrong. I turned to the chapter on
troubleshooting: What to do if you can’t people
the way other people people? There were no
directions to reboot. No way to start over.
Just a list of possible people to blame: mother,
father, third-grade teacher, brother, sister,
ex-boyfriend. See Appendix iv for more direction:
If all else fails, you can blame yourself,
which is all really you want anyway.

musique concrète of grief  / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason

Loop 1

Bryan Adams’s “Summer of ‘69” off the radio
looped back & forth, rewind & repeat
I hear the ghost of you –

James Bond movies recorded from TBS, here
your face merges in all incarnations looking nothing,
yet everything, like them –

Beatles vinyls, sun-warped, rivering half voices
too fast, too slow, whiskering the needle across
grooves, recycling the grays of your face –

Eared in all these books, barked
in all the doggedness, like your stubborn
sidehauling arms pushing everything off the shelf –

In this one lonely Betamax
all the fuck alone in my basement
with no idea how I got it.

Loop 2
off the radio
looped back &
I hear

movies recorded
in all incarnations
like them

riveting half
too slow
grays of your face

in all these
your stubborn
arms pushing

this one
alone in
idea

Loop 3
off
&
hear

recorded
incarnations
like

riveting
slow
grays

all
your
pushing

one
alone

Loop 4
hear

recorded

slow

all

alone

SHOULDER  / Shane Moran

Sangria out of a four-liter jug with a friend (I knew was crushing on me)
Had become a choice of lessons : how to let a dear one down easy,
Or why not give      what their mouth asked for—I had
Understood men to take sex despite degrees of desire.   Was I not
Lucky to be chosen      to’ve earned by existing?      I fucked her,
Distractedly.  Matching my stroke to the streetlight's flicker, my mind was
Elsewhere.   I soon went soft.  Embarrassed, I rallied and rushed. 
Rough, too rough, she told a friend, who told me         I’d lost my friend.

Post-War / 战后/ Jingyu Li

          By Bei Dao, trans. Jingyu Li

Images distilled from dreams
drop their flags at the sky’s edge

The pond has become bright,
the laughter of those missing
makes clear: pain
is a lotus flower’s shout

Our silence 
turns into wood pulp turns
into paper, the winter that healed 
our writing wounds

TBR/RIP / Stefanie Zito

Sometimes I think about death too much
Maybe it’s a good thing to ponder
To note one's impermanent 
And fleeting nature
And how I’m among the “this” 
Which too shall pass.
Well, I’ve decided how I’d like to go:
Under the crushing weight of 
My ever growing stacks of books.
After all, as it turns out
Curiosity is a chronic condition
And mine seems particularly terminal.
I don’t know which will drain first
My bank account or my days for reading.
Hopefully the former
And hopefully not for a while.
But instead of pulling the plug on me
Please note, my preference: 
A solid smothering of my TBR tower.

June - Poem 12

A Study in Perception / Kristina Byas

I wonder
what lives in the shadows between
your light and dark,
beyond the halo you wear with pride,
atop the horns you hide.

One-sided Portrait of My Father / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson

Dad always smelled strongly of cologne. He wore horn-rimmed glasses and a thick mustache. His legs were thick. On Fridays when Ma worked late, Dad would take our orders and come back with what we wanted from McDonald’s. He liked to lay around in scoop neck t-shirts and tighty whities. On the arm of his chair, the remote control was permanently perched like a stuffed a bird. Dad always complained if asked for money, but he gladly bought those expensive sneakers when I was on the basketball team. Dad would start water fights in the summer, turning the hose from the car to us kids without warning. He’d chase us around the yard and even spray Ma if she stuck her head out the backdoor. Dad named himself the “Ribologist,” called all his friends, “Doc” and me “Sweet Pea.” In the middle of dinner, he would stop everything to tell a joke. Usually, he was funny. Dad packed us into the van in the early hours of the morning to take us on vacations. He drove us to the White House, Disney World and New Orleans before the levees broke. Dad read to us every Christmas Eve. He had a tape recorder, and he’d gather us together to sing. There’s a picture of me in a pink taffeta dress sitting on Dad’s lap and crying. In the photo he’s got his arms wrapped around me, and if I didn't know better I'd say he's cooing, “There, there. It'll be alright."   

poem with section titles from Control (2019)  / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason

PUSH THE FINGERS THROUGH THE SURFACE OF THE WET

     ● I rise into the air with a hook

     ● A chain gentles through my sternum

     ● The wing fells into the porched arch of my lower back

     ● The chant of heaven emerges from my mouth

     ● A rain curves around my form like a magnet

– one arm curves into my fascia of song

WE STAND AROUND YOU WHILE YOU DREAM

     ● Such blood of sleep seeps down on my brain

     ● My tumor of a dream pulses red light

     ● My longing for all these hands too cool

     ● It’s hunger ices its anger, its oil

     ● On water, I want to wake and arch

– one leg curves against this fascia in song

THE WORD THAT DESCRIBES THIS IS REDACTED

     ● We grasp like simple objects in ordinary diners

     ● We long to sleep at the Oceanview motel’s liminal space

     ● In the door with the Triangle, we’re missing keys and search for them

     ● Hissing keeps me awake at night like the mouth of Heaven

     ● We can’t pinpoint resonance outside each door while we try to wake

– one finger curves into my fascia against the song

WE BUILD YOU TILL NOTHING REMAINS

     ● I can’t lower from the sky anymore

     ● & I’m not afraid of the red of my blood

     ● & I’m embracing the blue of my blood

     ● & I’m excited by the white of my teeth

     ● & I’m excited by the groundlessness beneath me

– one tongue curves into my fascia song

THE HOLE IN YOUR ROOM IS A HOLE IN YOU

     ● I refuse to hear anyone else’s “I love you”s

     ● I refuse to leave myself & mine

     ● Room in me, I use your pull

     ● Hand me down from the issue height

     ● Unused, I love my throat, my might, my ecstasy

– my body curves with fascia in my song

SHOULDER  / Shane Moran

Say you could change anything about living—I
Hope it wouldn’t be to go back to the
Old world. I don’t know      why       this obsession.
Uteruses are rarely on my mind. And when they are, bringing
Life into the world is not my concern.   You agree,
Delegating your release of all that unwanted you carry
Everywhere, to the womb of a stranger is a
Retreating.   I’ve been more into High Speed Rail.

Grief Umbrella / Stefanie Zito

It’s cumbrous and awkward, and
I don’t always have a place for it.
After all, I’m holding too much. 
My arms are sore and
I miss you in them. 
I wasn’t ready to receive
this weight passed my way
but now it sticks with me 
wherever I go, so
I wrap the folds neatly 
when I can, binding and 
minding myself
velcroing them closed.
I grip it, clutching memories
taking a brave, weary step
leaning on the steadfast echos of you 
through this landscape of loss.
Grief expands and hovers 
on its own terms.
It used to be you going with me,
a trusty companion
a canopy to shield.
Now the wind catches
my unwieldy woes. 
What good is an umbrella 
when soaked in my own tears?

June - Poem 11

Scream Queen / Kristina Byas

I don’t audition anymore;
typecasting has its perks.

Whimpers to blood curdling,
slow chases to Leti Lewis.

I know these scripts by heart,
yet each a work of art.

Raw talent, I claim,
but I’ve been classically trained
to survive
to stay alive.

Here you have your
final girl.

/əˈbjuːs/ (n.) / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson

In my family, we called it Tuesday … dinnertime … discipline … consequences … Christmas … kinda … maybe … our fault … Friday … punishment … correction … biblical … protection … strength … concern … Sunday … nothing … training … order … education …for our own good …love, love. 

Haunted House Heart  / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason

sometimes these things are just supposed to be known
when the green shutters smash themselves
in the aching yellow morning

sometimes these things are just supposed to be
as I rise and shake winter eyelashes
left as gifts on my pillows

sometimes these things are just supposed to
roll down like skulls and carrots in my garden
mixed together in my dinner stew

sometimes these things are just supposed
partially assumed when children trick
or treat my house with toilet paper

sometimes these things are just
and I don’t burn without|
hatred to guide me

sometimes these things are
the way I left them when I come home
ghosts occupied elsewhere

sometimes these things
decide to be a person knocking
on the porch in slanted sun

sometimes these
remains get slung up
and I’m left alone

sometimes
I’m
not

SHOULDER  / Shane Moran

Shall I play 2K or COD for ten
Hours or apply to 100 more jobs?
Only spent 100 dollars on my MyPlayer—
Useless, if I let it go to waste. I’ve been thinking, and
LeBron is a man not worth being jealous of.
Divine gifts     are not a matter of human
Economics    don’t count      how much I’d pay to
Rewatch game 1 of the 2018 NBA finals.

A House in Other Words / Jingyu Li

The Tutelage of Trees / Stefanie Zito

Standing in the surround sound of green
hues, beholding the spectrum 
of late spring, nearly summer shades
spanning from gold to blue 
lustrous in the freshly finished drizzle. 
Thick air hovering 
a slow drip of renewal gently
caressing my tender tiredness.
Birds sing me back to life, masking the city 
sounds now in the distance, beckoning 
me deeper along the path.

These trees share their breath 
and raise their branches 
gesticulating their wisdom
to live slow is to live well.
I’m still learning how
to sink into the earth 
to reach towards the light
to embrace the rain 
to relish the sun
to honor dormant days 
to savor flourishing ones
to not resist decay
to not rush growth
to trust the big magic of deep time.

Beads of rain leap frog from leaf \
to leaf, descending through the canopy
finding each other like a game of sardines 
until their collective weight gives way, 
splashing me in surprise.
Startled. Delighted. Refreshed.
I’m still learning 
how to let go.

June - Poem 10

Eldest Daughter / Kristina Byas

And now that you’re at ease,
I can finally breathe.

But
only after I’ve tired
only after I’ve cried
only after I’ve bled out,

cut so deeply,
yet completely
unnoticed.

And by then,
I’ve made room for all that has
settled inside the wound.

People call it strength,
mistaking this scar tissue
for skin,

for me.

After Our Father / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson

After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven,

Hallowed be thy name.

10  Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

11  Give us this day our daily bread.

12  And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

13  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is

the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

to our elders  / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason

I had to explain to a room full of doctors, some of whom had seen the ghosts in 1981, that AIDS was first known as GRID – one looked at me dead in the eyes & I gave him back my dead eyes as he said, that’s not something I’ve heard of – Gay Related Immunodeficiency. I could have made them more uncomfortable & told them that it was also known as the 4H disease – Homosexuals, Haitians, Heroin addicts, Hemophiliacs – left the room full of cakes & cokes a lot less polite. I could have been a complete bitch & let them know it was called the gay plague – what would a room of doctors born after 1998 have done with that? I could have told then I was in kindergarten when Ryan White died of AIDS & the kindergarten teacher tried at soft & tender about boy, who looked a lot like our older brothers, explain how & why he died, then our parents still whispered fag beneath their breaths. I could’ve told them the song they compliment coming from my office – The Stone Quilt – is the same quilt laid out on the National Mall the last time it was all of it – each piece was the size of a grave – the stones for the ghosts – the mass grave of combusted futures. I could have told them that my mom, so sensitive she worries she isn’t watering her plants on time, said, No, we didn’t lose a whole generation, just look around & I’d find my elders & she showed me lesbians & men long closeted & ghosts. I could’ve sung The Beauty & the Beast like a dirge – lyrics birthed from Howard Ashman, dying of AIDS, but living through art – pushing to see a final rough of his work in his hospital bed – not yet his deathbed – hearing his voice arise from the clicking ether of a film roll, knowing he still had work to do on Aladdin, which he’d never finish. I could’ve thrown up on that projector the jacket IF I DIE OF AIDS - FORGET BURIAL - JUST DROP MY BODY ON THE STEPS OF THE F.D.A. I could’ve slammed my See You In Hell Ronald Reagan jacket, beaded with fire, over the cake & waited for questions. I could’ve cited statistics – doctor’s love statistics – approximate death tolls between 1990 & 1995: 30K to over 60K – 1990 & 1991: Infection rates 80K each year – but all this is approximation when numbers become more than can be seen in a gymnasium. I could’ve screamed about less poetry, less guttural laughs, less arthouse horror, less parents, less glass-smashing trans women raging for rights, less children. To them it’s a scary story to tell in the dark. I was just old enough to see my hometown’s gay bar torched in the deep dark of the night as there were no patrons to protect it. I was drowned in precognitive grief & only felt gossamer slips. Yes, I’m a coward because instead I showed them clips of kids learning about Howard Ashman. I didn’t force them to learn about these dead unionized through the way they died & not how they faced it. I could’ve told them AIDS’ data collection’s only 45 years old, but AIDS is older, the other disease is worse & older still.

SHOULDER  / Shane Moran

Sold! The agent slaps the red words on her own face, and I can’t
Help but smile at her on such a beautiful day    when my 
Only pleasure is walking and criticizing the designs and
Unbelievable waste of the houses on this block.
Looking too long will make me pull out my phone begin
Discussing a ten-year plan with a chatbot on how to
Either to win a house or convince someone to leave me one—
Reiterating that dinking might be the only way I can buy one before 30.

Marbles / Jingyu Li

Time after time I dreamt of marbles, 
first the clinking of them 
in their transparent bag, then their scattering
and my mother’s voice to keep them close,
lest one roll under the coffee table. 
Back then my sadness was unmoored,
back then instruction meant someone 
else knew better and that I was safe.
Mother was good at flicking one marble into 
another, drawing a thin line 
with her pinky. Losing was an art
in staying small. I was bad at marbles and 
checkers and chess and that’s how I could sleep 
at night. Then I began winning, then all
the marbles gathered in my palm.
Then I was good as dead 
and had to let all of them go.

Air plant / Stefanie Zito

I’m like the air plant
hanging in the balance
of the looking glass
seeing everything from
an encased perspective 
determined arms, twisting
reaching toward the light 
curves punctuated by 
spikes pointing every direction
wanting to follow them all.
Fitting right in with a 
versatile vibe
low maintenance ways
adaptable and hardy
contained 
constrained
exposed.
Soil depth is what I’m after
commitment to place
a tap root to sink
beyond all this yearning.
I’m coming in for a landing.

June - Poem 9

What Makes Him Human / Kristina Byas

His eyes holding hope
His lips learning to smile
His brows full of uncertainty
His lost hands searching
His voice catching on the truth
His heart bruised but open
His feet settling into unleveled ground,
still finding his balance

In All My Dream My House is the One I Grew Up In III  / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson

Sometimes I wake myself up
when I scream in my sleep.
(I’m pretty sure we never lived
in the living room.)
I wake up and try to remember
my dreams
—cottonmouth vipers
that slither away.

rankings  / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason

I realized that my top 3 smells are all
transitive/short/unlasting

3. hot asphalt right after the rain starts in summer
it’s not petrichor –
what a dank soil smell –
roil here in man made, radiant, 
sloughing smell, ripped with gasoline
like us fucking sloppy
2. low tide
I hope it sinks out and in forever
like the sea will salt and stink the earth
in our memories of home, our primal
columbine caverns we’ll return to
1. lilac blossoms blowing in the humid night on a breeze
they surprise, better than sex
I swear, guttural, consumptive,
bloodily violet in its violence
upon my soul. There is nothing else
surrounding. Some stars heating, slowly dying
in universe we’re bound for

Yet – my top three animals
endure/permeate/calcify too long

3. crab

how it sideways steps out of your goddamn
inquisition of its nature, of its purpose
its only use is to be crab, to dance and sift
away and fro, sewing a click and snap

2. crab

eyes stalking out, churched up
faces made for consuming
steadily the matters of earth –
eventually the black matter in this galaxy –
sifting the dark, smashing prey
opening suns, all grains down their gullet.

1. crab

we shall all carcinisify, in hope
of a simple dance, a simple
feast as the universe spaghettifies out,
hopefully I will have mismatched claws
like twin stars orbiting,
bouncing gravity
across each other
rending us apart
in what adoration

SHOULDER  / Shane Moran

Snuffing out the bad guys isn’t easy, when they look like 
Heroes or foggy mirrors of our fellow struggles
Online.   I know women like a clean look, but few things are so
Unalike: take the manosphere, the barbershop, the insides of a
Late twenty-something.  Russo cuts my hair and divulges 
Drama with his babymama, clicking off the clippers to say
Exactly my point with his face, his eyes ballooning, his gloved hands 
Resting on his belly.  Rarely does anyone try to tell him.  Know to tell him.

In the Cabin, on Prozac / Jingyu Li

Rain thrum and mosquito bites
late noon on the twin bed—
Which is scarier? an empty
mind or a full one? Did I take 
the good way out? Listening 
to these easy rhythms, thinking 
of nothing, these trees not reminding 
me of anywhere 
my father’s been. Alone
next to the shadow and not thinking
of death. Here across 
the bare furniture of my mind, writing
poems, afraid of music
becoming something less 
than necessary.

Construction Season / Stefanie Zito

I mostly don’t remember life before 
kiddos and construction
machinery, loud and heavy
and accompanying toy miniatures
rolled in around the same time
each churning their upheaval.
Diggers and backhoes and debris oh my.
Postpartum, lactation, and sleepless nights.
Kicking up dust and ample delays, I’m
stripped down to scaffolding 
my infrastructure outdated
unearthing detritus of days gone by.
Gridlocked and circling the block 
of this slow moving scene 
yielding to detours of my own.
Diverging and dodging 
bottlenecked to a halt 
yet creeping along as I
try to not bulldoze my way. 
I build, I change, I repair
I use my life to pave a path
and labor for the long haul.

June - Poem 8

In Good Company / Kristina Byas

We found each other
by accident
by chance
by luck
then stayed on purpose.

No shared blood,
but shared
faults and burdens
laughter and cries
in the space between strangers and kin.

Where home became not only a place I go
but the people who chose me back.

A Shepherd's Prayer  / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson

Will nothing quell the bleating of the sheep?
A man is just a man, that I know well;
don’t let those be the memories they keep.

I carelessly led my tender flock deep
into the untamed fields—a violent dell.
Will nothing quell the bleating of the sheep?

I broke their legs simply to see them weep
and watched them quiver in the place they fell;
don’t let those be the memories they keep.

I cannot look at them, I cannot sleep
without seeing their eyes which seem to yell,
“Nothing will quell the bleating of the sheep!”

Those times when I would take my rod and sweep
through the lea like I was under some spell,
don’t let those be the memories they keep.

Lord, I know that what I’ve sown I will reap
until the day I die and go to hell.
Will nothing quell the bleating of the sheep?
Don’t let those be the memories they keep.

On the Restoration of Wells College’s Statue of Minerva’s Head to Her Body  / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason

for 156 years of Wells College Alumnae

The Restorationist guilded your severance
with stony glue, aligned you,
with that soft precision as you deserved, rebar
drilled deep into your body and brain, reassuring
her. No one could sidle such love
to ground you headlessness
without alighting your scroll of wisdom.

Your daughters’ grief agonied
waved upon you in rainbow forms:
your rage of war, paradigm of strategy,
Kintsugi of hearts, frozen lake,
geese demanding in the 2 am hush.
Your daughters forever rush to your honor.

Your beheaders didn’t mean –
– they love you too – kissed
your face with fears, lips
raw with the blood of consequence.
Their bodies pushed stark to implications,
to lost jobs, lost paychecks,
a last tryst across your campus.
You forgave them, headless
as you were, but never heartless

You lead daughters in battle
whole, calm in your alcove
breathing in our feathered fears,
exhaling it as arrayed wisdom
we inhaled in return.
When we left your care we kissed
your feet, you deserved
our soft marble savior.

When we arrived to you, home
upon your armored breast, a liminal
space of devotion it was your sacred,
immovable hands that caressed 
our scared hearts, forcing our chins up
– look at that world
it is yours

THROAT  / Shane Moran

I fear both will soon be with 
in heaven: my two Gods. 

I hold straw to your brown
bark lips. Your tongue is bar 

of dry soap, creeping out, 
begging. I say to you

how well you hold bottle 
resting in my left hand—

you grab 
and ungrab, 

take 
and untake, 

grasp and swat 
at everything. 

When I was boychild
looking to you, 

my Godwoman, you held 
my hand and clicked your fingernails 

together, telling me, 
I love you—infinity.

I believed in infinity then, 
when your limbs were in

your control, when you’d spend 
your days warning me

about tattoos, and piercings, 
extramarital pornography and condomless sex.

Godwoman, Grandmother, first Lord—
I wish I could repent at your bedside 

for whatever sadness 
I ever brought you.

Still, if Second Lord, whom you spoke into
omnipotence, commands, I must let you die 

beside me. And let myself weep 
like Mary at Jesus’s ankles,

crying, Lord is dead— but who would want 
to speak of that. Lord does not speak at all.

In Lieu of a Love Poem / Jingyu Li

I tried to write a love poem but I painted
a picture instead, and you were ugly and the cat
was beautiful and I wished I had more talent
but it’ll take some time. I tried to write a love poem but 
thought it was too cheesy, afraid our friend would crinkle
her nose and say ew! or a classmate would say your poems 
would be better if you were heartbroken, so I focused on
the picture, I focused on painting your hairline
not too high, not too low, and whispering don’t worry
you’re not going to go bald, and I don’t know why you’re 
so worried about it anyway, you ask me to shave your head 
everytime you need a haircut and don’t want 
to go to the barber. I could get used to you bald or with 
long hair or fur everywhere like an otter. But right now 
I still can’t get your face right even though I’ve studied 
it from so many angles and times and places, how you bend 
the shape of your eyes to make each distinguishable 
expression, how you hold the cat just right, the way 
she lets you, I can see it through the frame.

Knots / Stefanie Zito

A core memory of mine 
seated on the floor
toying with the tangled 
cords of a phone line
quietly tracing the loop of tension
slowly unfurling the willful cable 
until it fell in line.

I’ve been told how patient I am
praised for it in fact
it’s expected of me anymore
as women have been trained
since girlhood. I’ve stayed tidy–
in my lane, straight and narrow.
Watch me silently sit
with deft and diligent hands 
skillfully coaxing the jumbled 
snarls given me, luring
them in an orderly queue
like the one I’ve been cued into.

I’ve held my patience
my place in line so long
gripping this cloak of 
composure even as the edges 
of my fortitude fray. 
I sometimes shudder to consider
who I may be were 
I to lose it altogether.

It has me in knots
but I’m harnessing the courage of
my own disentanglement, slipping 
free from the cordage of control
and securing myself from within.

June - Poem 7

Re-routing / Kristina Byas

Perhaps
I’ll take the
scenic route
back to me.

Conversation Starters to Connect with Your Father / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson

1.     Tell me the best memory from your childhood.
2.     If you could be an animal, what kind would you be?
3.     Don’t worry, I know you love me.
4.     There was one time I thought you would punch me in the face.
5.     I can’t forget you called me a whore.
6.     When I was a child, I wished you dead.
7.     The hair you ripped out grew back thicker.
8.     I used to pretend I was asleep so you’d pick me up and tuck me into bed.
9.     Yes, you were a good provider.
10.  I’m sorry someone hurt you.
11.  We were too scared to even ask you to play outside.
12.  You’re the person I talk about the most in therapy.
13.  Of course, I’ll always love you, but—
14.  Grownup me feels guilty I wished you were dead.
15.  I’ve always known you love me, but—
16.  What are you scared of?
17.  Tell me two truths and a lie. 

The Pigeon Poem  / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason

I promised my roommate I’d write a poem about pigeons
about a tiny pigeon cobbler 
making little pigeon shoes
for the hot summer days in the red bricks of Boston

about tiny nurse pigeons
caring for tiny wounded pigeons
from out in the war against the raptors

about tiny prosthetists pigeons
making tiny pigeon prosthetics
replacing missing toes and amputated feet

about tiny lawyer pigeons
suing the MBTA
train moving too fast for Dr. P. Columba

about tiny undergrad pigeons
bobbling from class to class
their tiny bird brains crammed in books

about tiny street vendor pigeons
in their tiny food trucks
slapping down food with a foot, taking money with a wing

about tiny pigeon children 
flip-flapping to tiny pigeon schools
looking back at pigeon parents heading to pigeon jobs

but not about the ICE agent pigeons

they don’t want to be pigeons anymore
they’re not pigeons anymore
they can’t be tiny, don’t want
the contentment of walking
on cobbled streets, on rock
sure communities –
time to be the fattest pigeon, instead 
of a famished pigeon, the pigeon king

my roommate didn’t want me to write about 
scary pigeons who are hard
to see amongst the others
their gray and white feathers blending in
that’s until they molt and they’re proud
the skin they’ve pinked

I don’t want to write a poem about pigeons
but they sit next to me when I wait
for the T, plus I know how
to coo in harmony

SHOULDER  / Shane Moran

Suppose, your wife will never love you again     say,
Happy marriages can range any length of time, really, how will you
Own that? Imagine, it is not ordering a Cybertruck     Figure not,
Using some twenty-two year old body to touch on your sad chest
Looking over at your friends     the same way you once did at
Duke. Admit it       (that)      won’t bring you peace.  Daresay,
Earmarking what she was always right about
Rarely worked.  Oh, friend.  Pretend yoga won’t kill ya.

Feeling / Jingyu Li

where art lost me
hands for something swept
where tears lost me
topspun and already 
seen

where sleep left me, torched
in purple hands 
, and stupor dreamt me
a kiss and something
blue

where a sore of 
cornflowers hung unevenly 
in terrible corners

and nobody startled
the chickens

Understory / Stefanie Zito
The speed of the day sends 
me rushing to the woods.
My disquieted shoulders drop
as I reach the edge of the forest.
A curtain of trees parts 
to reveal the woven path
of saplings and shrubs and 
all her genius bugs, 
the ecological engineers
dutifully tending the terrain.
Leaf litter and humus become
my sensual sanctuary.
I lay myself down 
on the forest bed,
I tuck myself into 
the layers of understory 
within this hidden haven.
I listen to the silent wisdom of
my surrounding sisters,
root myself in their fresh care
and blanket myself in breath.

June - Poem 6

Balancing the Ledger / Kristina Byas

It wasn’t waiting,
not for all little girls,
not for us.

So we became women who
refused
demanded
imagined
endured and
claimed
what we owe
our daughters
when they come.

In All My Dreams My House is the One I Grew Up In II / Shavahn

Because I can’t forget the spiral staircase.
Because the knotty gray carpet, the clawfoot tub.
Because this is the room where we ate dinner.
Because that’s the room where I wanted to die.
Because this is the empty lot we used to play ball in.
Because my husband says I scream in my sleep.
Because the siding was yellow, the shutters brown.
Because my dentist says I need a night guard to keep from grinding my teeth.
Because I don’t remember it being so small.
Because we carved our names in the windowsill.
Because when I hit my son I cried and promised him never to hurt him again.
Because, somehow, I love my father still.

overflow  / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason

I pull the dust bunnies
from out under my bed
by hand

I tell you
I love you by hearting
your texts twenty 
first century apologies

maybe my smiles always flirt
with the pharmacist who doesn’t
confirm date of birth last name
when I need these refills
on endless pills I’m here
too much

I find eighteen socks
beneath the bathroom sink
none of them
are yours some of them
aren’t mine

out of the attic 
I toss down worn flannels
homed with moths spoon
feed on plaid and all
the softer for it

books nestle by height
in drawers as you can’t 
reach shelves like I do
right hand slack

you holler about coffee grabbing 
the scoop wrong ruins
your morning 
half-caff in the afternoon
at midnight you cry in wakefulness

I holler at you
about doing PT every
time I see you, then
every week
then only when I remember

I stop texting you
anything
your number becomes
assigned to someone else

In winter the rotary phone
in your office rings before|I can answer
you sto

I leave your webs
I’ve killed too
many brethren
when I was small now
I sloop you up in my forever
hands and wander you
out the door

SHOULDER  / Shane Moran

—for Henry Hart

Siken calmly utters he shouldn’t be alive. If I’m
Honest, does any epiphany come unlike this one, hearing
One mouth moving at a time? (Would like to take a walk with you.)
Unlike Calvoceressi      the man I miss is not dead. I’d
Like to believe that Hart is old and done listening to poets
Discussing loss in ballrooms. It has been a while. I know I should
Email, at least a small note of thanks to the first man to

Read Dickinson with me in his softest of voices.

Prisoner's Dilemma: in two parts / Jingyu Li

Prisoner's Dilemma: mother and father, idealized

Prisoner's Dilemma: patriarchy

Cosmos / Stefanie Zito

From summer into fall 
I can count on the steady 
splendor of your flames.
You bounce in the breeze.
Brightly you rise
and rest on limber stems
enticing the bees 
with your sweet nectar.
I watch the choreography of
your stalks, long and slender
You teach me to tango. 
I follow your lead, 
learning to dance where
I’m rooted for the season.
The bright glow of cosmos– 
sun’s clustered echoes
held in a single flower–
a universe unto yourself.

June - Poem 5

Jhene, About What You Said… / Kristina Byas

You mentioned being born tired,
and I felt that in my bones.

I’m still wondering when the ease will come,
when the cycle will break.

I’m sure we’re more than the weight we inherited,
but that doesn’t mean it’s not heavy,
sometimes,
often,
nearly always.

Still,
maybe it’s not destined to remain. 
I’ve known many weary hearts
still learn to dance in the rain.

All Fathers Smell a Little Bit Like My Father / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson

momento mori - MRI  / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason

PENIS (2)  / Shane Moran

To be gone down on? I’ll call an Uber!

After dinner and the rain, 
I’m delighted to wrap
my bomber jacket around 

your shoulders. It’s cold. 
I like watching you smoke 
your spliff, hot tip     smoking 

heat     peaceful oblation to feel 
time pass.  I like your gentle 
thumb holding it steady    your new 

fires stop the canoeing. 
And I like      how you protect—
the cherry.  Your mouth 

glazed in Addict 
lip glow, I cherish your
wet art opening for a high—

this is Paris, after all. 
This is our one     almost 
riskless     way to let it all go

before we lock together 
our hazy eyes and       taste 
our sooty breath, 

before my flat     and the warmth 
of your right hand around it and 
the shine off your dotted nails—before     

the Uber says to put it out.

Father Nightmare / Jingyu Li

Once I was impressionable: a man could be made 
by stacking spheres, pebbles for eyes. 

My mother said he could be unmade 
with warmth for hands, only the buttons 

would keep. Last night a snowman 
walked my dreams, I screamed 

when he melted because he was everywhere: 
my shoes, my chair, even my face 

was touched with him. I keep returning 
to how quickly it happened 

how fatherlike he was and how 
starkly different now. 

Sometimes I think it’s not even about him.

Canticle for Questions / Stefanie Zito

I’m stretching the strings of what's been unraveled 
plucking an altered processional.
gathering the echoes of inherited insistence  
drumming to the cadence of crumbled certitude. 
I’m writing a hymn for relinquished ritual
humming the elegy of an unfurled grip.
drafting a eulogy of forsaken assurance–
what once was firm has fallen.

I’m composing a canticle for questions,
a requiem for scattered sureness.

Lamentation lives inside my loss of certainty
I set up camp amidst this hazy mystery.
Questions are the quest themselves 
so I make my dwelling here
I lift my voice and my life with it–
give glory to wonderment herself.
I sing an anthem to ambiguity and
lift wavering hands of exasperated awe
at the riddle in which we all reside.

I release the interrogation of my own existence
And rejoice in having my life for the living.

June - Poem 4

Rituals / Kristina Byas

They hold me,
keep me barely alive
until survival becomes
living without asking for permission.

Things My Brothers Said / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson

One brother said if I peeled back the bark of a stick and ate it, it would taste just like chicken. Another said I can’t play because I’m a girl. One brother said lightning is more likely to strike me if I hide under the covers during a thunderstorm. One brother said cat food was tasty and pretended to eat it, tricking me into giving it try. One brother said I’m much too quiet. One brother said I’m much too loud. One brother said I was whiny, one said I was weak. Another said bossy, another a bitch. One brother said guys prefer girls with big titties. One brother said I was too fat to live. One said I was stupid, one said a nerd. Another said that he wished I would die. One brother said you’re just like our mother. Another said you’re going to wind up like Dad. One brother said one day my husband is going to love how flexible I am. One brother said he never thinks about me. One said I’m stuck up, one said I’m mean. One said he hates me, one said I’m ugly. Another said things I cannot repeat. One brother held my hand when I was crying, and if he said anything, I didn’t hear. One brother said he never did like me. One brother said we’re practically twins. One brother said he’d love me forever, but after I never saw him again.

Impact  / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason

Hydrangeas flourish on my walk to the hospital
and bloom too early in the spring, like fireworks
of copper chloride, burning in loud, hot crackles.
When the loosest petals sail in autumn’s regalia 
and spread over the potholed streets, I gasp.
What a beautiful coat cast over the city, grander than I
could feel. The blossoms are spring lights for one
soul, summer breath another, and one heart
stuck inside that hospital, respirator clicking
awake – asleep – awake –
those cascading hydrangeas peak
as the curve of a lover’s cheek
and kiss again and again
to speak, criss-crossed over their eyes, 
of a world they held, they could hold 
again, as they raise their hand 
at the glass, prescribed mercy
though it never lasts.

SHOULDER / Shane Moran

Shower-wet and laying in bed     her body in a towel, 
Her hair is wrapped, as she watches her Reels
On full blast — each claiming, loving a man is cruel and
Unusual punishment, always costing the woman.
Like a first boyfriend — I lay with my back turned away  (hard).
Don’t know how we got like this, but — as
Ever, I’m afraid     all I hold will crack.  One video jokes: if he likes to circle
Round his finger and lick     he is an above-average monster.

Woman Reading / Jingyu Li

       — after painting by Eastman Johnson

This is no time for poetry she said 
in a time of urgency, it is no time 
to sit in a room and feel. 
The woman reading is looking both
at the page and through it.
As she looks at herself, she 
steps out from her closeness. The sea 
disappears behind her, the boat floats 
on nothing. She is writing herself 
into the poem: this is no time
she reads, shadows
like sails over her eyes.
To lift herself from her landscape 
is a great work of fiction. There is no 
good time to feel, the woman is writing
or she is reading. In the distance,
the shadows do not hold.
Clothes loose as feathers
are her chosen garments. Yes, 
even dreams must bind to 
something.

Golden Hour / Stefanie Zito

After the run of the day the sun takes a dip– 
a charming show off she is with 
her slow motion plunge toward the rocky rim.
As she bows down, her beams 
scatter through the fields where 
we drench ourselves in her glow,
hosing off what the day has glomed on. 
She shapes and softens our shadows 
stretching them longer, drawing us 
deeper into her amber spell. 
Our silhouettes briefly extend 
into eons under her ambient illusion.
Her liminal luminance entertains 
our delighted deception that 
this moment will never end.
When suddenly she slips from sight. 
the afterglow of lingering light 
spans fleetingly and swiftly fades,
yielding to the mystery of night.

June - Poem 3

Growth Spurt / Kristina Byas

I grew out of the body
I never grew into,
for years, calling it home.
An unfamiliar voice answering to my name,
skin stretched thin over bones that ached and muscles close to atrophy.
Every mirror held this stranger,
someone longing to belong,
searching for proof of herself
in the absence,
wandering for as long as she could,
refusing to say she’s lost.

in all my dreams my house is the one i grew up in / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson

i’m not twelve anymore
but sometimes i’m still scared
of the dark
—the way the light
shines in through the windows
makes shadows on the ceiling
ghosts on the floor
i’ve tried not being
haunted but there’s something
about the paint color
something about the fist-
sized hole in the door
my room is still the room
with the butterfly wallpaper
my room is still the room
at the top of stairs
in some dreams
i’m the mother
in others the daughter
in some dreams i’m the monster
living under the bed

rain on hot asphalt  / Jess Tønseth LeeGleason

It’s the plight of thunder released
after the fiend of lightning slaps the sky,
after the silver bellies of the leaves flay the storm.
after the wind cools the sweet skin stuck between our bodies.
after we’ve come down with each other’s fever.
fervorous to devour each hour, wrap onto each other,
to rough across this sky of bones we’ve rooted.
We move into electric lives of atomic infinity between our skin
and that thunder clap ricochet, the hollow in our hands 
morph with the silver sides of leaves better than the storm can
rocket our bodies. These temporary bodies rock again 
with the span of short rains our frames, storm 
and roll as we pass into other countries,
bodies, leaves, and sky – all forgetting where we bared.

In Quiet Times / Jingyu Li

Then rain began like applause,
my nightmares denting the pastures
Even the sea ends somewhere—
Once a mother taught us to begin 
at the bounds of things, the puzzle’s 
edge, the waking hours. We measure 
each other by asking what if.
And what if it ends? Yes, even that, 
even fear. How it rises, mounds 
of freshly shucked oyster shells grasping 
the blue sky. If we stay here long enough 
we become the landscape, if we stay longer
the landscape changes. 

PENIS / Shane Moran

It desires power, but it rarely comes easy.
Power is the most intoxicating feeling to come to 
Understand. Power says this is your kingdom come, 
Your body, your will be done. Power’s the ideal stroke. 
It takes you, and grateful for you—it grows. 
Orderly home. Well-trained dog. Success. 
Sex. No Surprise—a door opening, a practical 
Stranger welcomes, using Mr. then your name.

Respair / Stefanie Zito

The fresh hope 
of rebounding from dark days,
The sudden return 
to a better state.
The crisp anticipation 
and spry suspense
of pristine expectancy. 
The delectable foretaste 
of a favorable forecast. 
A brisk burst of serene repose.
The pure excitement
and invigorated longing 
for what’s here and what more will be.

To breathe again.

In a word, respair. 

Hello to this little known, obsolete 16th-century word.
Why did only its counterpart, 
despair, persist in our parlance? 
Let not the limitations of our acknowledged text 
set the stage or direct the path for us.
Words hold such curious power.
So wield the tool of your tongue and 
speak it into existence with me:
RESPAIR.
I’m newly learning it
and longing to live it.
Tired of trends.
Fatigued with fads.
Let’s start a full blown craze. 
Will you join the movement?
Respair for the destitution of today!
Respair for the penury of our plight!
Seems as life-sustaining as respiration itself.
Let’s err on the side of it:
restoration, healing, restedness.
Inhalation. Exhalation. Aspiration! Exultation!
All together now!

June - Poem 2

For the Ones We Outgrew / Kristina Byas

I’m sure they’ll haunt us.

Not to be redeemed
or resurrected,

but
mourned,
honored
for having survived what shaped us.

Ode to DoorDash / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson

Making love is like making dinner. 
I can’t stand the prep— 
all the measuring and chopping,
getting my hands dirty. 

Maybe there’s kneading, maybe 
while I preheat the stove someone 
boils water for something. 
The chicken, moist and pink, 

turns brown in the pan,
and the air is perfumed 
with butter and spices. 
Yes, there’s pleasure in that, but 

there’s pleasure, too, in picking up 
the phone and scrolling through pictures 
of food already made, already plated.
Convenience, like a clean kitchen, 

is also kind of sexy. Something hot, 
delicious and dropped at the door. 

severance - a cento  /  Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason

lines from Much Ado About Nothing and Star Wars: Clone Wars

I learned from watching you
now I have a future.
There’s nothing you have that I could want.

These are strange times
that only tells a lie and swears it. I cannot be a man
I learned from watching you.

Don’t insult me.
I love you with so much of my heart that
there’s nothing you have that I could want.

But I’m not that person anymore.
I want that back.
I learned from watching you.

I love you with so much of my heart that
once I was just like you.
There’s nothing you have that I could want.

You’re wrong. I was terrified.
It seems to be what you do best.
There’s nothing you have that I could want.
I learned from watching you.

SHOULDER / Shane Moran

striking a match across my front teeth to dance with you—
how many times did i hold you in the air?
our jelly fish tongues like cleaning a seashell—are most
useful for this.  sleeping with you was   
like a half-dollar rattling the floor til’ flat.  hand-holding and
disappearing in the morning.       you, with a life so like mine,
explain what i could be for you: not hot coals, not the cold smoke
rising off dry ice.  —   serious   —  we’re mute ash.

Conversation with Metaphysical Dog / Jingyu Li

MD: Was it difficult to birth me?

I: Not rushed landscapes nor a waiting stork, you came natural as pebbles.

MD: It was a coincidence then? 

I: No I must have willed it, but then it was unexpected all the same. 

MD: Sometimes I get hungry and it is tricky since we share a mouth and a bark.

I: My mouth is your mouth but your mouth is somewhere outside my mouth.

MD: I am chewing right now.

I: —And I am not.

MD: I’ve been chewing for quite some time, you must tell me to stop.

I: There.

MD: Thank you, my mouth has stopped moving.

I: I did not do a thing.

MD: Tell me then, when do we move together?

I: When you will it or I will it.

MD: So we’ll fly then. I say we’ll fly.

I: See, this is what I mean. You can will things in me I cannot do otherwise.

MD: You are optimistic.

I: I like to believe in better things than we have.

MD: We have this world and that other. 

Load-bearing / Stefanie Zito

My bedroom chair bears witness
to the loads of life we’re living
the many layers of any given week.
Some gathered, washed, and waiting
Some tossed by the wayside of morning’s mayhem.
Find your sleeve or pantleg. Give a sturdy tug.
Be swift as a magician with his tablecloth trick
lest you risk the deluge of scads for the sorting.
A quixotic rendering of myself 
has a real knack for tidy folded stacks. 
But lately life is in a routine of hampering my capacity.
So I gather, wash, then jettison. Rinse and repeat. 
As I iron out my course, the clothing can wait.
For now, I’ll push the limits of fiber sculpture.
Cumbersome. Monotonous. Impressive in scale.
My well-intended friends offer 
instructions for care, beckoning 
I lower the heat
opt for a gentle setting
a free and clear moment to pause.
But to find my seat I first have to fold.

June - Poem 1

Matriarch / Kristina Byas

We trampled on cracks
too many times to count.
No backs broken,
they had already become contortionists,
perfected their shucks,
taught us jives
so when we were next in line
only our spirits would fracture,
but no wince to betray the smiles.

Nothing & Everything / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson

the evening sky—pink and blue like Easter
—is a frosted cake
I want to drag my finger across it
and lick


it hangs
above my head like a thought
bubble
I did not come out
here for this


I wanted to walk clear my mind
wanted breath and sweat
muscles and sinew
to make sense of everything
but nothing
makes sense: why


one cloud looks like a mushroom
another a castle one cloud a stuffed
bear another a dagger
a turtle a hook a dinosaur
without legs


one’s a weeping
ballerina another a genie
coming
out of its bottle


before I grew up
I saw clouds
and thought
cotton candy


but now that I know
their names—these are
cumulonimbus


—all I think about is the coming storm

a month after she was born, I hold my niece for the first time /  Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason

for her mother, Johannah

Her weight floats lighter than I imagined,
but oh how heavy her curve
over my chest, tiny feet ready to kick
the ribs over my heart, weak from a car crash.
Gossamer as the hollow between my arms,
I refused to move in case she slipped, unanchored
between safety and the floor, in infinity’s terror
before magic’s made unreal and the floor is realized
in rubbery bones. There should be more time for hurt
to raise out of weeds and alight her body with fireflies.
My eyes flicked from the milia bourne down her nose
to my sister, hazel-loved eyes, milk-smeered, open,
and I Cassandra’d out so many futures: broken
bodies laid out from semi-trucks, glioblastomas, AR-15s, 
and the open casket that’s my heart couldn’t close,
her chubby hand grabbed 
between the ledge and the lip, welding open whatever
steeltrap car crash once passed for my heart.
okay, that’s enough
I passed the biggest soul
back to her mother.

Untitled / Jingyu Li

SHOULDER / Shane Moran

Scotts, skirl for my grandmother!
Hydrangeas, become a sea for my grandmother!
Organs, song for my grandmother!
Uniformed men, fire for my grandmother!
Love of God, lay upon my grandmother!
Doves, flutter for my grandmother!
Engines, roar for my grandmother!
Reader, know all the love I have for my grandmother!

A Stone for Holding / Stefanie Zito

She cast pebbles of wisdom 
rippled over waters of my heart
rocking my world.
Hungry for depth, I collected them all. 
Her insight, rich in minerals 
nourished my capacity to grow
between rocks and hard places.
Her gems of discernment scattered
spontaneous as star showers.
I later shared the load of her sickness. 
Shortly before death called my grounded friend
as its own buried treasure,
she gave me a stone for holding 
fibers down in the dye pot.
Submerged in the tint of my own tears 
I’m still gripping– absorbing the reality of loss.
You would think the absence
of such a hefty spirit would grow lighter.
Grief is an onerous boulder.
I’m crushed, drenched, holding still.

May - Poem 31

parnassus and its wild dogs, a cento / Sonya Wohletz

Lines taken from Meredith Ann Avera, Desirae Chacon, Heather Frankland, John Hanright III, Jillian Humphrey, Shane Moran, Christina Vaagenius, and Sonya Wohletz.

i dreamed the dogs again—
a fever dream
as big brown eyes, marked with stars.
follow them wet, alive—

like an old friend:
the fog-licked lake,
every patch of green with wildflowers—
one peak to the next:
purple, pink, light red.

music of life
plays in their ears.
weight of an unsaid stay
heavy on my tongue.

pale light whispers
into the doorway
holding the sleeping puppies
by the nape of the neck.

years folded over years,
the scent of holiness,
the wonder of
your singing,

calling—come to me, come
borrow my ears.

what should we name
such an act of return—
of calling
beauty to the ruin?

specter of responsibility—your face
wobbling on my shoulder.
snuggle, little beast.

i fed you all you wanted
and then you were gone.

i’m trying to remember—

since birth i have been
my own witness—
the body—a costume.
now that it’s gone

wild back here
you, dear friend, soul-pet
you must survive
on the edge of the realm
of life &
the eternal.

i wanted.
i wreaked of willingness.
anything to hold you again—
the animal in my body.

why insist
on the incarnation of a dream?

loyal and intentional of
devotions—the world
become the vicious creature—
seeks out a home.

i will always be your dog.

waiting

waiting

waiting

and your eyes
were all lamb-bright.

Empowering Voices  / Heather Frankland

for Erin

How is it that the dandelion
grows in the cracks of concrete
its lion roar small, but mighty
its voice still practicing being a voice
but it grows despite concrete
and poor soil and neglect and disregard
its bright head blooms and thrives;
its voice carries on to other yards.