July - Poem 31

I Used the Internet to Write This Poem/And Still Call It a Sonnet   / MeraBaid Kuar

with lines by Clayre Benzadon, RJ Equality Ingram, MeraBaid Kaur, Dallas (Amber) Outlaw, Azmia Ricchuito, Tammy Smith, Kes Maro, Daphne Stanford

The city cracks its wrists 
before a moth could fly toward flambé

the pace was an ancient animal 
you’ve already stepped here

risky in stupor
the same clowns are pointing & grinning

because the laughter had witnesses 
Pepperidge Farm remembers

a pomegranate is an apple’s honest
somewhat untouched

carousel
jealous of each spoonful

resistance is your favorite game 
but my defiance is whimsical 

wear me like rain
until your body surrenders or sunrise comes. fall asleep

to who I was: less
a map of my wounds

just enough bite to be aftertaste
the world is an unblemished apple

where the doors are doors of paper
because pain is a poor/ Historian

I told the trees and crows
there is no chemical solution to a spiritual problem

consider how quietly the foxcat leaves
we swallow without knowledge, we only slightly pause

as we go the unknown ways
the lesson was already in the clay

July - Poem 30

The Nature of Things  / Clayre Benzadon

 After the 8 am log in,
three tabs open to three
different emails,

after the settling in—
you forget how to think.
Papers piled up on your desk,

which you can’t keep track
of, so instead you come to
the digital page. How to say

“gray day” a better way,
you type, wonder. You
conjure ballets and ash-

trays in your head, then
start to understand the nature
of things a bit more, how

one object shouldn’t relate
to the other so casually,
because life is random like

that: After ballet, the women
leans upon the ashtray atop
her nightstand, another kind

of Pirouette. A draft. Just
a draft entering the kitchen.
You shake a little

before reading this
more constructed
poem aloud.

More Less Than We Could Handle / RJ Ingram

Giovanni was the first to set his foxkitten free / Not to be one upped by their older brother Brock & Misty also set their foxkittens free: Brock let his go when the train stopped in the mountains then Misty sent her’s ashore as the train dove into the endless sea / The Lieutenant taught his foxkitten how to restart a car by rubbing up against it & when Erica’s learned to chirp like blades of grass whistling the other children yearned to learn what other tricks the foxkittens knew / But they always set them free / Sabrina’s foxkitten turned mauve in the morning twilight but Janine’s foxkitten’s divine immunity to every kind of poison was the most remarkable / Although not quite as useful as baby Blain’s kit’s ability to survive being set on fire / Mother watched her children grow up from her chapel in the caboose / They gave away their birthday presents like they were donations of stuffed animals for the needy / Mother was easily disappointed but this went beyond disappointment it was betrayal / To her it was eight ungrateful children unable to see power to be controlled / They had failed the test of the foxkitten / All of them / And they needed to be replaced / So Mother grabbed her deck from the Iron-Ivory box on the black altar & drew a card to find places to abandon them while she looked for their replacements. 

New Growth  / MeraBaid Kuar

To grow watermelon soak the wood-grain seeds for half a day– 
set a poem free to flap its wings and gums, 
if it returns commit it to the page 
and whisper its magic into pockets of air your plant inhales– 
choose an earthy non-soil to press your arthritic fingers into 
and place your seeds upright– 
allow a little tip to peek through 
long enough to wiggle in its blanket and take in the warmth, 
as it shifts and yawns and says grace tuck it in completely. 
The hard part is keeping it moist and warm in cool weather, 
but soon the sun will wear its summer crown 
and you’ll bring it out for open air playdates with your other plants. 
It will become a large slumber party that lasts all day, everyday. 
Try to keep it damp and fed, but the sun will do the rest. 
Sometimes you’ll forget to respond as it begs for another sip of water, 
there is so much noise, but usually it will sprout green shoots, 
then its pinnate loaved leaves will devour the feed you give it 
and compete for readiness to enter soil. 
When you pinch it from its temporary cell, cradle it in your veiny hands, 
mosquitos will sneak sips of your blood and you’ll anchor on the ground, 
knobby knees spitting riddles as you attempt their puzzle, 
wiggling and angled until they hum a lullaby, 
which will become the deposit you send your watermelon off with, 
as it enters the world of work, forgoing its cradled existence. 
Now your melon will take off, according to the soil beneath it, 
the neighbors around it, the weather it inherits. 
You’ll stay close enough to see it, pour bits of help into it most days, 
but you let it fruit, 
walk away when it encounters conflict, 
your intermittent neglect in infancy prepared it 
to strengthen, sweeten and form its own flavor. 
Wait to see what song it sings when it's ready to perform 
and say a prayer when you finally taste its flesh. 
Even if all you can eat is a next time. The next poem will water itself. 

broken pantoum portrait of T / Kes Maro

graying wolf will not let himself

sleep, though he cannot stand.

he cannot sleep though he can
not stand. he cannot sleep though

he will not stand. graying will let him
sleep. graying will not let him.     can

     sleep     not stand. sleep cannot
stand.      graying will     .     though

     wolf,     he will not let himself.
wolfing will not stand.     he cannot

     .     will not     .     gray     .

Stigma Sticks  / Tammy Smith

Everything changed after Dad died
from bladder cancer. No, that’s not true,
but bad news sends me spiraling.
Crisis speaks in absolutes:
Always. Never. Everything. Nothing.
What mental health professionals
call black-and-white thinking.

Wait—I’m the therapist now.
Why can’t my own training save me?
Never mind. My psychiatric history
is longer than a child’s list to Santa.

No one knows unless I tell them
I spent years behind locked doors,
where doctors, nurses,
and social workers hurled words
that stuck like Krazy Glue:

Borderline. Bipolar. Narcissistic. Histrionic.

Labels scrape like sharp nails
across a chalkboard. A wolf howl
rises from the dark cave within,
a shadow so frightening
Plato might rip out his eyes
rather than face its glare.

Even Thoreau’s quiet desperation
can’t compete with this dread.
Kierkegaard comes closest
with his dizziness of freedom:
standing at the cliff’s edge,
staring into the inconsolable abyss
of what if—
and what comes next.

In Your Rebel Dream / Daphne Stanford

“Rebel Rebel” blaring from speakers in the back seat of your Datsun wagon & you’re driving the foothills of your hometown, Pacific on the horizon thick with mist. Still time before first period for swim practice, pre-dawn—short drive down to the swimming pool, where steam rises from lanes splashed by warm-up flip turns at each end. Lanes churning, flippers kicking. Soon it will be time for Moon to set & Sun to rise, fully. Until then, you keep swimming.

July - Poem 29

Within the Margins  / Clayre Benzadon

I think about skiing at the end of July, how I could use a slap of winter on the face and even brace myself for the claustrophobia inside gondolas. I’m trying to write squarely this time, within the margins of a page, but I can’t ever successfully come up with what to write next; I’m having a difficult time breathing within the space-lack. In a more “normal” poem, words appear based on the measurement of a line. Back to skiing: I put on my goggles, stomp my

boots into skis, and glide my body against whatever form of snow is existent in my fantasy (powder, most likely).

I fancy fries and a Mountain Dew after, or at the top of the hill, for lunch. I visualize in double time.

When I reach the bottom, I’m back to reality. I read my email: I’ve received a rejection letter. I settle for Starbucks instead of a local coffee shop. I burn my tongue on the bitter water that is supposed to be a bold brew.    

    I think about it, this life, what we have and what we miss.

I did not use the internet to write this poem / RJ Ingram

I am honest about my background in necromancy I don’t feel like it’s a stain on my resume or my reputation / I’ve stitched years back together with the libraries of the deceased & the clothes they leave behind oh! The clothes they leave behind / Brands our parents could never afford & mountains of neglected toys / On bad days I remind myself we are doing the labor for Moonracer the guardian lion of the Island of Misfit Toys / We bring people back to life too / We give them a place to go & slip secrets in their pockets when shaking them out looking for loose change / Shoes walk again because of us & that’s the magic that’s the necromancy the church doesn’t talk about / The magic that could run them out of business / I met a necromancer once a strawberry blonde with a gold tooth who reminded me of annihilation / He braided his own hair I thought that was so cool / He could find a real coin in a barrel full of fakes in thirty seconds / He only stayed in town for the summer / But I swear I’ve seen him standing out in the field on the other side of the horizon / If you make it there check the scarecrow for a golden tooth.

Please Stop the Noise / MeraBaid Kuar

Let us all choose a side
as quickly as the road degrades

as carefully as our state spends
the tax dollars to fix them

as loudly as the teachers yell
at our kindergarteners

as openly as a combat veteran
shares the colors of his war scenes

as heavily as his eyes water
when the stories clack and collide

as easily as we separate the truth
from the albumen, collect it in its shell

pour it into the bowl of dry ingredients
whisk it into something new, cook 

and eat until we believe this is the only
way a side should ever taste. Pass on

any other version of this cooled dish. 
Don’t think too hard, don’t step on a crack.

Portrait of My Grandmother and I With Wallpaper / Kes Maro

The angels of the raspberry wallpaper lived
in the paste in Nana’s kitchen for thirty years    
          They were a mess of bramble & macerated

berries          Their songs took tongues from orioles
& the hum of cars down Montauk highway
          Once     I sat at the counter & begged to eat jam

with a spoon          I felt that everything we ate was plain
cereals     oatmeal          The angels shut their mouths
& turned their eyes from me          She said I would make myself

sick & later it was a gentle I told you so     but she smoothed
her palm over my back & the angels chattered again
On my tenth birthday I wore a navy blue unicorn

sweatshirt that shed glitter all over the couch          She gifted me
a necklace with the Virgin Mary’s portrait & told me
she had been gifted that same necklace on her same birthday

          The chain broke immediately          We got on our knees
& never found it          I feel where she rested between
my collar bones     a hot shame          I find

a photo of us on the beach     I am in a bright blue bathing suit
& her hair is tied up          She is so young
         The sand bleached     photo ink almost melting off the paper

          Nana renovates her kitchen          She redoes the floors
     the counters     tears down the wallpaper          She paints most
of it blues     covers the dark stained wood     & gets rid

of the green furniture          She hangs paintings
long lines of morning beach light          The angels
get loose & move out to the yard          They grow

roots from their spined wings & become
everything     blooming bleeding heart     a row
of pine trees     rabbits burrowed
under the aging porch

What Strength Questions  / Tammy Smith

Whether you think you need strength

or fear you don’t have enough

hardly matters when you’re stargazing,

searching the sky for a lost love.

Don’t be fooled by fullness—

even the moon goes through phases:

a sliver of light grows, then shrinks,

before the naked eye

blinks shut.

If only strength
could be lassoed
the way George Bailey promised Mary
the moon,
or pocketed like the flower petals
he saved for Zuzu.
If only strength
were all you needed
to outrun darkness or desire.

I prefer Mary Oliver’s question:
“What will you do
with your one wild and precious life?”

Strength is the soft animal
of your body’s answer.

After-Elegy / Daphne Stanford

About the first David
The one I was born to

After whose death I went

Numb, then couldn’t
Sleep, then drove to the
City of my undergraduate

Years to reclaim pieces of
Myself I believed I must 
Have left behind in some

Green canyon, forested 
Park, or basement library
Stacks. Always relegated

To basements, I was—& 
Am. Easier to dig toward
Middle Earth, further down

I’ll reach the sky eventually, 
Right? When I get there, 
I hope I’ll hear you singing.

July - Poem 28

Anatomy of an Antonym  / Clayre Benzadon

Inside the antonym,
schnapps, is an opposite lie.

Confessions are like fireworks
waiting inside its plastic bag,

heavy and combustible
at any moment.

I breathed grief and got
gummy. I wound synonyms


all over my shoulders: apple brandy.
Today, absence tasted like orange


juice, and I spilled it over
me in public, at the park,


tried inserting a straw
at its base; it splashed


in my face instead,
gesture of silent laughter.


Translate the myth
of loneliness. Say


the park is just
a stage: back,


private, an exposure,
confessional lie.

I don’t think you know this about me / RJ Ingram

My grandfather forgot my name after he asked you if you were a boy or a girl / I like cute things so there are always little bunnies & rodents & pigeons & foxkittens in my parties I’m a predictable son of a gun / Seriously / My dad was a gun / Sorry is a gun / He’s still alive today & locked in a safe with my adoption papers / I prefer blue what can I say? / Who doesn’t love a cute squirrel turtle / I don’t think you know this about me but I’m actually a nice guy / I used to get along with everyone / And you killed my rat on a boat just before it sank / And they blamed all of it on me / So no I will not let you follow me all the way to the top/ Game over.

The Context Between Waking Up & Falling Asleep / MeraBaid Kuar

Dinner in bed, lunch in bed, breakfast in passing
Baby in bed, kindergartener in bed, husband in passing
Drool in bed, sweat in bed, piss in bed, dream in passion
Isosceles triangle, perfect spiral, fingers angled, que paso?
Cramped hips, arthritic hands, eyes weighted, embattled
Wall shadows, sun strips, familiar dimension, uninvited
Kitten meows, baby babbling, household appliance
squirrel fashion, overgrown garden, gunshots?
the moans of sleep, water, cars, sirens?

surveillance / Kes Maro

i have only ever seen
a wolf in a zoo. she

was smaller than i thought
she would be, more like coyote

who yells at night
in the spongey yard. little

happens in this white lead
paint town, but there are cameras

everywhere. i keep painting
these wolves with big blank eyes

and calling them a container.
i trace shadow shapes

across every person’s face.
i start seeing the wolf’s shadow

in old vines and within an underpass
outside tydavnet, a town with one church,

one bar, a few cow fields. and in the edges
of the wetlands of a land more recently extracted,

with a few churches, a few cow fields,
a franchised coffee shop where i cannot go

outside as myself. i paint the wolf biting
off her own tongue, suspended

between leaping and getting away and lying
unnaturally, dying, with her eyes big and blank. 

It started with a phone / Azmia Ricchuito

Something that should be
a lifeline;

but what happens when
the people who are
supposed to protect you

are tired from carrying
their own grievances

and you are
just a burden?

A phone call
and suddenly
a strange man
snatches you
from your home

and you live in a box
with the other
misfit toys;

discarded like yesterday’s
news

but you will always remember it

just like it was yesterday

for all your todays and tomorrows

your brain remembers,
it plays your worst hits
on repeat in your head
and your body keeps
the score;

You: 0.
Emptiness: 1.

and you sit in the shower
crying and repeating
I’ll. 
never.
go.
back.

You will wonder
if the emptiness
won because

atoms make up
everything;

empty space —
absence is
your only
companion.

You will understand
the evolution of
Edward Nashton;

how easy it is to
mistake vengeance
for rescue;

how heroes
live long enough
to become villains

one betrayal
at a time.

someday you’ll be
the lifeline on the
other end of
the phone.

Competitive Natures  / Tammy Smith

Ignore the temptation to compete
with writers who win awards,
who have—or don’t have—
kids, kittens, corporate jobs,
fully stocked eat-in kitchens,
who dabble in iambic pentameter,
schooled in the poetics
of finer forms.

Ignore those folks, particularly writers
well-versed in politics, who can pontificate
about the perils of pollution,
fixate poetically
on domestic and foreign policy.

Someone more deeply rooted
in cleverness has already exposed
how the branches of government
entangle human nature.

Believe me,
it only gets worse.

The more you compete,
the fiercer your inner child
will fist-fight
other people’s flexes.

First-place medals adorn the chests
of those who held their breath
and puffed themselves up
long enough to stand proudest,
if not tallest,
in a long row of fledglings.

Second Monday / Daphne Stanford

Tiwesdæg is an origin word for 
The day of the week that inspired
A band fronted by Aimee Mann
In the eighties, when everyone
Sprayed Aqua Net in their hair &
Wore head to toe spandex & fish-
Nets & leg warmers & The Bangles
Were on MTV & wouldn’t it be 
Nice if it were still the eighties &
They still interviewed rock stars 
With those foam microphone
Windscreens? But it’s not the 
Eighties & Flashdance isn’t on
VHS, Beta, or cable TV tonight
So, absent a blank cassette tape,
I guess I’ll make myself a playlist 
With sides A & B because I can.

July - Poem 27

Heaven, Either Way  / Clayre Benzadon

1. I’m afraid of heaven turning backwards.

2. I’m scared of elevators without the emergency call button, ones that shake more than usual, all you can see is metal around you. Like being stuck inside solitary confinement, only more steely, with even less space. What if heaven were a small space?

3. I fear for my own life (does that make sense?)

4. The freeway looks either extremely empty or too crowded for miles. My brain can’t comprehend it, it starts to go on overdrive and panic, internal prefrontal cortex control panel has lost power and now I’m hyperventilating but I need to keep going because there’s nothing else I can do while in the middle of the road. In the middle of clouds. 

5. The anxiety before the medical professional comes in with that tray (you know the one): the slotted white plastic one, with the rubber band and the needle inside the tube, and then they tell you to relax as they suffocate, squeeze your arm to death with the light green band around your arm. 

6. I wake up with a green band around my arm, as if it were the day after a concert and I were too drunk to take it off, or I wanted to keep it on, on purpose, to show everyone I’d gone to up to the gates, they let me in, and all the angels were playing heavy metal. 

7. I existed in limbo. 

More Less Than We Could Handle / RJ Ingram

14 We teased at an extinction & flames cut our music lessons short.
13 We lied about making bright little macarons & making good on our rent & mixing earl grey into the shortbread.
12 We bought an oil rig & named her Grenadine we killed so many little frogs. Mostly by accident.
11 We were not very good to our parents. Locked them up.
10 Didn’t we?
9 We were devoid of humility bc at that point the human in us jumped from broken escalators.
8 We burned off all the grammar too not just the Oxford comma.
7 But we brought somethings back with magic.
6 We found it hard to satisfy extinction in a world after Jurassic Park.
5 We built a train & a series of stops. We put our menagerie in the boxcars. We thought we were playing a game.
4 We wasted no labor in our journey to get here.
3 We simply wanted to arrive at the end & came.
2 We didn’t expect so many more children at the end of the world.
1 We are so glad we came!

Tate & Liza rate the end of the world ︎︎︎︎

Koala / MeraBaid Kuar

Kaleidoscopal world of dreams, the scents of others don’t reach 
ornate design of this compact package wears its own perfume
perfectly comfortable, so much so that they sleep through 
every noise, change of atmosphere, they call it the itis 
the sleep that draws a heavy curtain over consciousness
just when the belly gets the time-released contents
is it the poison requiring all the body’s energy 
or the nutrients finding their travel route and final destination
we are all stuffed animals, after our favorite meal

shale / Kes Maro

i split a piece of shale
between my fingers, easy,
and it feathers in three.
the same as cooked fish.
the same delicate shape
fans out in tones
on the ocean’s surface, mirroring
light and uneven seabed.
the flesh, the rock, the sea,
meet the way each fiber
in the kittihawk’s feather layers
over the others and how each
feather layers over the others
and how the wings fit against
the body and how they split
the air when flying. the shape of
pressure is the shape of surviving
it. i split open my flesh flaking
like the fish’s, the seabed’s every
fiber layered over the others
and over the others again.

Foreign Body: Unidentified Foreign Object (UFO) / Azmia Ricchuito

My first home
was a strange
landscape
in which I lived
as a foreigner—
a parasite;

I was evicted
by a scalpel
and this was
supposed to be
freedom.

It was a trap,
and maybe that’s
why hearts grow
behind prisons
of bone

as old as the cosmos.

I wandered,
never lost…

my grandfather
showed me the
North Star

but he never
told me

that it wasn’t
the only way
home;

that sometimes
the thing that
beams you up

doesn’t
carry you away.

It wraps its arms
around you;

tenderly
to welcome you
home

behind a fortress
where every heartbeat
echoes your name.

You are no longer
a traveler;

a space cadet.

You have found
your place among
the stars;

the place where
you belong.

My Humble and Sincere Regrets to Taylor Farms Iceberg Lettuce  / Tammy Smith

I can’t recall a time when you were this
contaminated—part of an outbreak
now reaching four more states:
Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania—
nine in all. I can’t escape
your tainted image all over the news,
shredded and chopped, reduced
to dates and codes to check before I eat you.
Even Walmart pulled you from its shelves.
Even Taco Bell is forgoing you altogether.

Before now, I never imagined
you could carry a parasite.
I picture wasps paralyzing
grasshoppers, laying eggs inside them,
then burying them. Who knew
I was so susceptible, so dependent
on prewashed greens stuffed
inside zip-top bags? Too busy
to prepare broccoli or cauliflower,
cut up carrots, mushrooms, peppers
collard greens, a head of lettuce,
or rinse everything under running water?

I should be ashamed I don’t cook,
embarrassed I buy my produce
at the nearest convenience store.

But I digress. The warnings keep spreading.
Forgive me, but I don’t want to spoil

my summer weekend, my twilight
gin and tonic, my Sunday morning coffee and book
by ending up tethered to the toilet.

It’s Too Early to Cry / Daphne Stanford

Today & the sky is a thick haze 
Of wildfire in the foothills.. 
Sun a red orb in a smoke-grey
Sky. All the gulls are hiding in
Trees or staying low, closer 
to water for oxygen. Cluster 
behind my right eye leveling me
To my bedroom, grey curtains 
To grant me the illusion of peace, 
Safety, comfort—despite my not
Having seen you for more than a
Week, now. Epson salt baths help
As do kittens, as does shutting my
Eyes & allowing myself to escape
This waking life for two brief hours.

July - Poem 26

Roadside Litany  / Clayre Benzadon

Along the road-
side, wildflowers
   for miles. 

Butterfly weeds,
Jack-in-the-pulpit,
Pink Evening Prime-

rose. I take a yellow rain-
coat out of my glove 
compartment, pull over. 

If I walk too close
to edge, I’ll slip in these
shoes. I was hoping

to find bees and butter-
flies in the middle
of rain. Feist’s “I Feel

it All” plays in my head,
and now, I feel even 
younger than usual. 

Tomorrow, I’ll go out
in my wrinkly raincoat 
again, but this time bring

along a magnifying glass.
I’ll find surprise, perhaps
a caterpillar or beetle chewing

through the leaves. I’ll find
comfort in the after-rain
space, feel lighter as I stumble

along the road-
  side, wild.

The Empty Stables Of Fuchsia City: 
Historical Landmark / RJ Ingram

Janine freed the caged animals of Fuchsia City / She put an end to leash laws & psychological cruelty / When it was Janine’s turn to pay the check she’d slam a dagger into a deck of cards & bet against the hearts / Janine turned the hunting & poaching facilities into a nature preserve / Welcomed every drippy case from inky salamanders to baby nurses who have lost the stones they care for in their kangaroo pockets / Janine covered her whole city in a swamp to drive the locals out & her gambit worked / She was all alone in her ninja jammies between cases of Pinkenberry & Pokerus with the rhinoceroses when a knock awoke her to Sabrina on the threshold / Carrying her lavender foxcat through the endless trials of Victory Road / Swamp weary but ready to talk Sabrina cut the chit chat as was her custom / The facts were Erica was killed & something was controlling her either from the other side / Or within her / A Schrodinger’s Sister / Either already cursed or about to be.

Founded 1996 years after the train last stopped here / See More?

Lineage / MeraBaid Kuar

You don’t need a reason to come over
the porch is damp, the ants are busy
I clip sweet potato greens and red clover
I give you the biggest cucumber easy
to do, but not simple, anxiety rivers 
around, I must measure up to whoever
gave you the best cucumber you've ever
you give me 3 tvs in one day, the water
pressure has improved but I’m still 
afraid to drink from the tap, there’s fever
going around, pain on the roof of my mouth
a new baby has joined the family, 
I don’t ask her name, they don’t need 
names yet, not until they come over
all the way, to the living and bring us
a little over to the river of the womb again.

invest in plastic futures now ! / Kes Maro

when there are no more
maple trees & wild

strawberries. no more
moose, black bear, deer. no

more wild flowers or
honey bees, and clean

water. it will be
us & mosquitoes

blood hungry. we will
sit in our limbless

plastic glory, sex-
-less & my lips will

not move but i will
say to you, darling,

its not the end of
the world, not yet.

RIP Kurt Cobain. You Would Hate 2026 / Azmia Ricchuito

Is anyone else
tired of dreading
tomorrow?

The guilt of American
gluttony
is all-consuming.

I have food,
clean water,
a roof over my head—

who am I to struggle
with so much sadness
when people would kill
for my life?

I understood Kurt Cobain
when he wrote,

“the sad little, sensitive,
unappreciative Pisces,
Jesus man. Why don’t
you just enjoy it?

I don’t know!”

Am I also just
an “erratic, moody baby”?

Or am I, too,
incapacitated
by a burning,
nauseous stomach?

There is so much
to be sickened by—

American dollars
committing genocide,

the obscene luxury
of looking away.

Misery loves company,
so why am I
so alone?

Tonight, I’ll do
what everyone
who hates tomorrow does:

I’ll try to sleep well,
but probably won’t.

I’ll ask God
for forgiveness

and try again
in the morning,

as if somehow
things will be different.

Mageirocophobia  / Tammy Smith

I never learned to cook.

My mother never taught me,
never prepared me
for ordinary living.

Growing up, my family’s meals arrived
in folded white cartons
with wire handles
or Styrofoam boxes.

Delis passed for diners.

Pizza Hut was our family’s village.

It took me years
to discover what foodies
already knew:

Mickie D’s and IHOP
hardly count
as eating out.

I still don’t know
how to peel vegetables
or cut fruit
so it looks pretty,
respectable—

dainty and delicious,
arranged on a platter
when company comes.

I rarely turn on the stove,
even less the oven.

I’m afraid I’ll start a fire,
burn everything
I’ve worked so hard to build—

another rock bottom.

Now I take Wegovy,
the highest dose,
to curb my appetite
for everything sinful
and forbidden.

Still, I crave
what my mother never gave me,
what she never taught me
to make for myself.

Who knew something
as simple as kitchen smells
could sharpen
into stomach pain?

It would be easier to lie,
to claim I have allergies,
than to admit
I am terrified to cook—

and even more terrified
I will gain back
everything I lost.

Letter from La Piscine / Daphne Stanford

In which Jane Birken seduces an older man without meaning to, or perhaps she did, who can say who is prey, predator, conquest, angel—what is an angel, anyway? A construct? Figment of the cosmos? Oh, aren’t we all cosmologists, now? Jellyfish, tentacle, poisonous even after death. Mortality only contains so much before smarting, after the venom grips quadriceps, hamstrings. Close your eyes, plug your nose. Hold your breath. Keep holding. Underwater, all is silence.

July - Poem 25

Good Ol’ Days / Clayre Benzadon

Today I dye my hair blue again—
haven’t worn that color, era, since 2020.
I’ve learned it’s ok to not be so well in the brain.
Whenever I visit Franklin, I come back to my child, plenty
good, full of god and fear. I miss the old band days
but don’t miss our fights. Taylor York, I love you to death
but we need to take a break. “Good Ol’ Days” says it all, in breaths.

Sabrina / RJ Ingram

I wrote this by candlelight if you can believe that.
Mother warned me not to do this too many times if you can believe that.

My memory’s running tepid was I the tall one or was I the fawn?
I can hardly remember my name anymore but I bet you can believe that.


The one who attacked me she was a mother too.
A groundhog wearing her own mother’s skull & believe that proven rumor I do.


Sabrina I know you to scoff at the word mother yourself.
But also I believe your loyalties are maternal by nature & I swear it to be true.


We buried her son & wrapped his crushed skull with terrycloth
She had every right to throw his bones at me you’ve gotta believe that to make it true.


But that poor lost Lieutenant converted the entire lighthouse
Into a morgue & I truly believe that


Something parasitic must have found its way into my hair as he carried me out around his shoulders.
I can’t believe that thing he buried within me exhumed itself say it isn’t true.


Sabrina please tell me my body’s not being controlled by a mushroom
Even though the fungi in the Undergloom tease in whispers that my nightmares ring true. Your Sister, Erica Goodbye

Unwritten Letter Between Handmaids / MeraBaid Kuar

What is a last name really
just a way to acknowledge a connection
I took for granted, the modern convention
to follow a name through history
because history sometimes hops through
time and hoops and loops around 
upending shapeless tradition like naming
patterns, and sometimes people in pockets
of humanity, defy the norms for their own 
reasons and I keep the names I’ve learned
from the old world, front of mind– doodled
paisleys all over my perception of each 
personality, so when you're called ofglen
I only conjure that retelling when necessary
when I see you, I remember all the Emilys
I knew before and that is how I know
the classy badass you are underneath 
the blood red cloak of oppressive times.

The Snake At The End of The World Says, “New York or Nowhere” / Kes Maro

I have walked the length of two
continents twice. I have slept

on a sandbar between two rivers.
There are always two rivers,

at the beginning and so there will be
at the end. Two rivers, two eyes, a two-sided

scale, when one dies, the other soon follows.
When I ingest the nuclear waste emptied

into these, the final pair of rivers, the end
of civilization, the path of my walking

will unfurl as a massive serpent and it will open
it’s jagged maw and chew.

You Changed Me for the Worst / Azmia Ricchuito

The nights that I spend
overthinking everything
I did and everything I said

knowing I couldn’t save you
but you’ll still accuse me of
leaving you for dead

even though God knows
that I lost pieces of me
I’ll never get back

I lay awake and
cry at night because
I know you’ll never change

And I miss the
version of me
who wasn’t used to
all this pain

I’ve never stayed
anywhere where
I’ve had to beg

and even though
we share blood

no, we’re not the same

I’m a writer but you
rewrite history

and your books
are all fake
and if I could,
I’d burn them all

Gave myself papercuts
and bled all over
your pages
trying to write
a happy ending

but I’m not like them
and I can’t pretend

that my heart’s not broken
and there’s no Band-Aids
you emptied
the medicine cabinet

like you always do.

The Etymology of Suffering  / Tammy Smith

It originates inside a wound,
shipwrecked before language—
or perhaps it goes back to the womb
wet and slippery, tangled in the dungeon-dark,
clinging to waste.

Every family in pain
resembles a Greek tragedy.
In Latin, to suffer means
to bear from beneath,
to carry what has been placed upon us.

Then comes parental Pig Latin,
rooted in bedroom-and-kitchen speak—
the vernacular of family diction,
where pain and suffering
become one sacrifice.

But who can disremember
the smoky smell of sacrifice
permeating a parent’s master bedroom,
where there is nowhere left
to hide from devils?

When Your Mother Is a Curandera / Daphne Stanford

And she doesn’t know it, her saying you need to eat more thyme feels like nervous system mapping. The way thyme leaves spring from the root, Bonsai-like, attempting to graft woody stems onto hair follicles as you brush wrist &  forearm against the green of its tiny. Before lowering your face into the thick of its sprouting to taste one sprig more, you open your mouth.

July - Poem 24

Telemachus’ Letter / Clayre Benzadon

-inspired by Louis Glück


Dear father,
your twenty-year

absence has taught me
how to discern blood

from beggar. Even then,
one should always give

to the needy. So I gave you
my bow and we killed all

the aggressors. Here’s
where the story turns:

I end up marrying Circe, whom
you have several children with.

Mother ends up marrying Circe’s
son, Telegonus, and Telegonus

kills you with a stingray-spined
spear. It’s all very incestuous,

as these types of stories go.
My name means “far off battle”

while Telegonus means “far off off-
spring”. It all makes sense, really.

I fought so he could live.
I lived so I could beat fate.

Lost & Found / RJ Ingram

, . / , . , . / . / . / , . / [ ] / & &  / . ,  /  / .  / , : , , . / , , & . / , & . / .

No reward
for completion

self portrait as childhood construction site / Kes Maro

i had a name like a pine branch bound
to the root of a berry bush. like a nail
through a tree. i grew around something
with a meaning between gift of god
and belief in the lord, neither of which
was under our roof. small houses
built from broken glass, lifted
grafts of moss and sticks in mud
in the shadow of a big house
broken into little dwellings.
i was convinced i was a changeling.
i collected acorn cap tables, stone
walk ways. in the unfinished basement,
on a pink plastic vanity, dirty
and color turning, offerings carefully
arranged. coins found in dirt
and my father’s dresser, yellow
cakes made from children’s book
recipes calling for at least twelve
eggs and honey, green glass with dull
edges. somewhere between playing
fairies and worshipping them. we picked
new names and i crawled out the window
and fell barefoot, level with the exposed
foundation. the sun rarely made it that far
so the dirt was always cold. or i just
remember it in April, still a little frozen
underneath that initial layer of mud.

Dark Matter / Azmia Ricchuito

When I was a 
little girl
you told me 
when I missed you
to look at the moon
because we'd both
be seeing 
the same one.
The only stars
you see now
are at the bottom
of a bottle
empty, a void ---
you drank its
dark matter
the orange bottle
full of little round
moons
is this what they 
meant when they
asked
if you've ever
danced with
the devil in 
the pale moonlight?
I needed you to
show me that 
it was possible
to escape
damnation
because you 
were Superman
to me
but if even you 
were swallowed
by the night
how am I supposed
to escape the darkness? 

Galley Kitchen Prayer  / Tammy Smith

What kind of God gives a girl
a mother who won't cook,
refuses to speak, won’t look
at her? God bless this family’s galley kitchen:
windowless, its narrow walls painted pearly
white like a bottom row of crooked
teeth no amount of brushing can straighten.

Ode to Circe / Daphne Stanford

Who can’t be blamed for the sins of Odysseus
Or, rather, his base, mortal impulses—same as 
Any man. Who could blame him, really? It turns
Out, most of polite society. Typical: blame the
Sirens for wrecking ships, for merely singing 
Aloud their ocean cantos, vibrato so powerful
They hypnotized men’s loins & brains & bodies
Armed with nothing but silver shields & armor—
Helmets covering skulls, breastplates shielding
Throats, chests, and lungs from spears, not
Knowing what lies beneath sand, this island.

July - Poem 23

Conjugating Rain / Clayre Benzadon

 -after Agha Shahid Ali

How many times can I ask for you, raining pain?
Too often, I’d preserve remnants true to raining pain.

It wasn’t acid, but every time it hit me, I knew I would get sick.
You brought me to bed, tucked me in, knew raining pain

was a spell that could kill me if I spent too long under it.
I ran over hills with my back to the world, blue, raining pain

inside my legs like needles stabbing me senseless. I yelped
like a dog, you massaged my calf, my phew after raining pain

stopped me from oxidizing my skin. Today I might finally die, I told
myself. Clayre, you’ll overcome this, even if you must shoo (away) raining pain.

Did you feed the girls? / RJ Ingram

To whom was I supposed to feed the girls? / There are no monsters under the bed no rotary phone screaming about check declensions / We fought an honorable man over treacherous moral failings / Tailpipe potatoes & the feet of a dozen rabbits drying on the clothesline getting ready to be swapped a trade shows for fresh pretzels covered in flakey salt / We don’t even use the bad man’s name in this house anymore / Can’t stop the screens from peeling or stop the sans serif fonts from taking off their patent leather pumps / What Garbage Pail kid are you? / I got the molten lava flourless chocolate cake again I’m so predictable! / She looked out the window & pointed & asked “what’s that?” / I had to basically explain the whole Star Forge to the woman who invented it / It’s like a kaleidoscope that collects the starlight from a thousand suns & bends the material we call Sky Armor / Catch a falling star & make it run a million laps / And the Star Forge can bend enough metal to dress an entire outfit / But metal bent in such corrupt ways curses the user which only deters those tied to humanity as a bevel.

5:45am / 5:45pm

Death is Humanity’s Plotting Sister / MeraBaid Kuar

with lines by: Ada Limon, Jericho Brown, Tracy K Smith, Joy Harjo, Natasha Trethewey, Evie Shockley

Didn’t that bare square ask to be played
After the birthing of bombs of forks and fear 
chorus of a whispery blues. She has decided to live another day.  
on our return, over the net of eternity thrown out for stars. 

And all but ferried to her lips, I could see
Trail markers for those coming behind us on
Like blind birds, palms empty
Always a question

Will poetry change the world, no one asks
her cold corpse down upon this little plot of earth.
How it smacked of all that had grown slack
someone will take your picture: 

high and fevered above us, winter coming to lay
by my spine afterward. So I sang and sang,

outline / Kes Maro

shriveled onions on the gas stove top.
cat litter collecting under the window
’s corner. three pieces of cardboard re-
-cycling with cat tooth punctures. mold
growing under the bathtub’s unsealed
caulk. a coat of dust on top of the metal
lamp. at least three centimeters between
the baseboard and the wood floors. a tube
of lipgloss wedged between said baseboard
and floors. blue, orange, red, and white
ceramic broken ashtray on the fire escape.
illegal grill on the roof. the cracked freezer
drawer. the impression of my body in the
graying white carpet. crime scene cat out-
-lines left in shed fur on the couch. rice
noodles stuck under the drain catch’s lip.
a white cast heat ring on the kitchen table.

The Forest Knows Your Name / Azmia Ricchuito

I keep looking out the window
at the trees, reaching for the sky,
their branches, scratchy and rough
touching Heaven,
whispering to God. 

I’ve looked for Heaven
in the depths of hell

and I’m still searching.

I want to tell the trees
and the crows

what you did.

The mycelium
spares no one.

There is a
buried language,
older than memory,
older than
inherited wounds
and fresh cuts,
that belongs to the trees,

and I long for their
giving embrace.

The way their branches
tenderly held me
as a child.

I am
no longer a child
but still carrying
the scar tissue
of loss.

When I’m surrounded by
a garden of stones

six feet under your feet

will I become part of this
wood-wide web?

I told the trees and the crows
what you did.

To My TBR Pile  / Tammy Smith

Stacked high on my nightstand
beside my queen-size bed,
spine against spine,
titles tingling
like lovers spooning
before the devouring.

I can’t wait to get my hands on you,
feel your softness in my lap
or resting against my chest,
like a cat purring.

So many novels,
poems, short stories
demand my attention.

Have you heard me
compare a bookstore
to a candy shoppe?

Rows of warm, gooey,
mouthwatering samples to taste.

All those quasi-complaints—

I really shouldn’t.
I don’t need them—

melt faster than milk chocolate
in the middle of July
when the girl behind the counter,
in a faded college t-shirt
and tortoiseshell glasses,
rings up my purchase.

“How much did you splurge this time?”

My teenage son rolls his eyes
whenever he catches me
hugging a book.

“Mom, why don’t you just
go on a date?”

In Your White Heaven Dream / Daphne Stanford

The walls of your bedroom are painted 
In a pale lavender shade of white called 
White Heaven. On the stereo, Japanese
Psych rock band White Heaven croons
About “The Look of Love,” and surely
That must be what this is: hazel eyes 
Watching mine as I come; the waiting
For it; the coy upturn at the corner of
Your mouth; the daylight fading, slow.

July - Poem 22

The Absurd Wardrobe  / Clayre Benzadon

I won’t lie; I wear food shirts, with sour-
dough engraved on a white tee, plums
packaged on the front, but current fashion hour
invites a little more absurdity: rubber gums
stuck onto the pockets to mimic messy,
animal print galore; the proportions are off-
putting: boxy jackets with skinny jeans, dressy
leopard paired with flower brooches, a Molotov
cocktail waiting to explode. We always come back
to the ‘90s, neon and preppy, hip-hop and grunge,
some days I wear my Lizzie McGuire T shirt to snack
on nostalgia again. Darker, Avril Lavigne has me plunge
into my emo self: netted gloves and deep eyeliner. Today,
I watch a man only wearing Yeezy slides dance. I yell Slay!

Blunder Policy  / RJ Ingram

If the holder misses a move this policy will sharply boost speed

Crab apples & neonanobots / Surprise inspection! / Tarragon & rampion shellfish shells prickly in paper wrappers / Dachshund weaned away from blue milk & stratosphere / Hooligans squash their toes in apple butter / Cowhide dundermuffin / Extrapolate pizza I double dog dare ya / Heinousburg population Rex Fowler from high school / Dug tunnels straight to the silo / Found eight or nine reasons to give up trying / Wish I was kidding / Wait that one doesn’t count / It just has to come true / Thought you knew that.

Sleepless / MeraBaid Kuar

A poem comes
in the night before dreams
children run through
the halls ignited
by a mythical fire
that may have tinged
my finger in sleepless
night in the kitchen
hungry for something sweet,
baby waiting in the room
for my scent to return
it's a charred aroma,
half-wild, half-bought
if the sauce, to you,
is as integral as the flesh.

watershed tanka / Kes Maro

this muffled thing, two
centuries of white paint, lead,
sundown, polluted
river—the drainless hills flood
again, spilling down the road.

Houston, We Have a Problem / Azmia Ricchuito

I woke up today
and the sun was
ablaze

sending light
that left home
long before I
was born

my inner space
resembles the cosmos
dark, cold;

there are so many
worlds inside me
some I am afraid to
explore because
they will suck the
oxygen from my
lungs

across the universes
inside me hangs
a no trespassing
sign

even though I’ve
been waiting
for first light
and signs of life

there are no suns
in my solar system

nothing that my life
revolves around

just galaxies
collapsing inward

until somewhere
in that darkness
your light

breached my
atmosphere

I learned the
name of gravity

the force that
holds me to earth

The Ghost of a Little House Called to Me / Tammy Smith

A cento inspired by Netflix’s 2026 adaptation of Little House on the Prairie

The ghost of a little house called to me.
To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee.
In this America, this wilderness,
the surface rolls and fluctuates to the eye—
the memory of near delights in all the longed-for town,
and my youth comes back to me.
The ghost of a little house called to me.
Ah, have you thought of the bravery,
remembering our fathers in their wreck:
sullen fires of sunset, fading,
the growing wheat, the growing weeds,
the toiling horses, the tired men.
Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud;
strange to me now are the forms I meet.
The ghost of a little house called to me.|
The soul selects her own society—
conquering, holding, daring, venturing.
As we go the unknown ways,
we take up the task eternal,
the burden and the lesson—
now I possess and am possessed.
Here I saw a city rise and say
to peoples round the world:
Listen, I am strong, I know what I want.
Happiness, not in another place—
but this place—not for another hour,
but this hour. Let it be the dream
it used to be. America, the plum blossoms
are falling. America, when will you be angelic?
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
seeking a home where he is free.
The little house can hold all things.

Cento from “The Little House” by Fay Inchfawn, “To Make a Prairie” and “The Soul Selects Her Own Society” by Emily Dickinson, “To the Western World” by Louis Simpson, “The Prairies” by William Cullen Bryant, “The Prairie” by Rudyard Kipling, “My Lost Youth” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The West Country” by Alice Cary, “Prairie Spring” by Willa Cather, “Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Pioneers! O Pioneers!” and “A Song for Occupations” by Walt Whitman, “Prairie” by Carl Sandburg, “Let America Be America Again” by Langston Hughes, “America” by Allen Ginsberg, & “The Little Home” by Edgar A. Guest.

Gatitos, Dos / Daphne Stanford

With white paws
golden eyes &
orange tabby fur
kitten siblings (two)
wriggle backsides & 
whip tails in pursuit
of feathers on a stick

July - Poem 21

A (Brief) History of Salt  / Clayre Benzadon

Salt is as precious
as currency,
 life-essential.

My dad has a habit
of putting salt on food
before even trying it.

My favorite type
of salt is the thick
Kosher coarse beads

that one puts on
soft pretzels (now
all I can think about

is a melt-in-the-mouth
savory tang of enhance-
ment—I throw salt over

my shoulder, draw salt circles
around me…). Biblically
speaking, Lot’s wife was turned

into a pillar of salt as punishment.
Covenant of salt. Salted offerings.
One of my favorite books of all

time is Monique Truong’s The Book
of Salt. My book is titled Moon
as Salted Lemon. I’m thinking

of all the ways salt
      metabolizes,
in our bodies, our lives.

Mother / RJ Ingram

We take shark week very seriously in this town there’s no doubt about that / The young ones pass right through the trials at the tower & then some there’s no doubt about that / Sabrina checks in on me now & then she knows how to see through walls you know / We play checkers between the headstones & the shadows on the walls can tell you everything you need to know about that / I’ve decided to marry the fair headed boy I fell in love with / I wanted to tell you myself & I’m being honest about that / He’s been playing army man with those gentle kids from down the lane / Time has got the better of all of them I guess that’s all I have to say about that / I know how you feel about his second sight / Everything disappoints you I already know all about that / But his kindness is as ferocious as the mice he trains & the floating magnets the Lieutenant uses to jump among the debris of the fallen cities / You already taught all of us all about that / voice you hear in the back of your throat when the cards start singing / My worlds my pantheon of convalescent overlapping vineyards & apple orchards all of that & more. You gave us that. -Erica

And if I am alive by the time you get this
Which I doubt
Please come to the wedding.

Another Chance to Say Goodbye / MeraBaid Kuar

Czechia is a place I can envision
because of your stories, I didn’t take 
the job to learn from my students
it was more to correct the confusion
of my teenage years and the loneliness
I abandoned my home, not because 
I carried your sense of bravery under my tongue
it was a coppery bloodthirst, some spilled
in my cousin’s death, some spilled at my birth
I was looking to bridge the two–but really
it was depression and forgiveness,
assumption and anxiety, it was need 
and an agreement between my parents
that I would switch from one home 
to the other, but I never believe the plot
point is that simple, there’s always more
to the story and I wanted to discover
yours, not at first, not before I met you,
but after I consoled you, dotted with tears
my language all pin-pricked with your
need, and yes, you deserved the hug
and understanding and love, you deserved
to be seen as the girl from Czechia, 
new to this country and state and city
and the home, you wanted to home
and lets not forget the horses, so you
switched homes, and switched homes
after switching homes in a foreign 
landscape, and all three of your brief
mothers took me back to my teenage
trauma, the way they pulled at the heart
on my sleeves and pock-marked it
but I pulled through until my body 
couldn’t thread itself through the needle
any longer, did I split into a thinning thread!
I unraveled for months, unable to recognize
my own children, or anything that life
is supposed to resemble, at least 
that’s what I thought of life, before I saw
how death and mortality masquerade 
in shadow and shushed utterances,
anyway, I left my body and you left 
my country, I had said no goodbyes
nor did I say good mornings to my children
or my husband, he switched roles everyday
as if I was dead. When life allowed my hands
to wrap around it again, I thought of you
wrapped in golden ribbons, not because
of a horse competition, or your return to 
the states to learn at Yale, but because 
you seized so many days, in different countries
and I’ve always stayed in my lane, no matter
how close I get to crossing a border 
I just look over, reach for a hand, but never
traverse to foreign terrain, your domain
becomes more here and there each time
your book is stamped and you skin absorbs 
my sorted sky I recite a poem into
because I never left this side of a goodbye.

The Housewarming Party / Azmia Ricchuito

I wanted to turn
a house
into a home,

tea on the stove
my mother’s recipes
in the oven.

The same stove
that as a child
I was warned
was hot

but I still had to
touch it myself

because it was
the only
way I’d learn;

I had to leave
my fingerprints
on the burner.

I took the trash out
last night
before the end
of the world began;

my demons
kept watch at
my bedside
ever vigilant

while the ghosts
of the past sat
at the foot of
the bed, telling me
bedtime stories
singing soft lullabies
asking me not to

do this to myself
again.

I search the horizon,
but there is no phoenix.

I look down
at my hands.

They are covered
in ashes.

The Unveiling / Tammy Smith

Two cemeteries, two funerals,
two days in a row. Poor Sheldon,
my stepmother sighs,
shrugging her bony shoulders
so high they touch her ears.

I hold her hand as she steps
out of the passenger side
of my rental car.

We’re on the way
to Dad’s unveiling,
but her thoughts
have drifted toward another friend’s
grief. Loss travels like a vagrant
bird.

I spot Dad’s burial plot
by the red flag the cemetery
staff placed there, the same shade
as a summer tanager.

Sheldon wanted to be here—

My stepmother stops
in the middle of her sentence,
staring past me, past the flag,
past a row of graves,
her pale, watery eyes
reflecting the yellow-gold
of the Douro River
she and Dad once cruised—

one of the last big trips
they took before he died
of bladder cancer.

Ah, the irony of a river
glowing at sunset
the color of urine.

That’s a pisser,
Dad would snort-hiss
if he were still here.

To lighten the mood,
he’d probably also joke
about my brother
peeing in our backyard pool
to warm the water
whenever I dipped in my toe
and gasped.

You were so gullible.

My stepmother takes another step,
holding my son’s hand now,
and asks if we would mind
helping her search for the graves
of her mother, sister,
and grandmother.

How many people do you know
buried here?

Only a kid could ask
a question like that,
but I’m dying
to hear her answer,
so I forgive
his bluntness.

Lughnassadh, Almost / Daphne Stanford

Nine days away. Lettuce shorn using
Kitchen shears, not a chef’s knife.

Renegade iron skillets must be 
Seasoned & scrubbed & wiped &

Purveyors of sweet potato latke
& quiche known the proverbial

World over. What does that even
Mean? I imagine it derives from 

The humble classroom globe.
Blue seas & oceans, golden 

Axis, sphere spinning. Not
Unlike a merry-go-round, old-

School style. Triple-dog-dare-
You style. Yukon Golds sauteed

Over a campfire in Seven Devils.
Come September, night air is

Brisk enough to whisk fire 
Into the atmosphere, away 

From the riverbank & tent,
Closer to the constellations.

July - Poem 20

Heartwood  / Clayre Benzadon

I want to go back
to who I was: less

sad and more serious.
Somewhat untouched

by illness. I sat near 
an oak and steadied

my ear near its heart-
wood. Inside of it,

I heart a splintered
drought. I braced

its branch-shoulder,
told it I had recovered,

but at a cost. In the treat-
ment center, I was lost.

At first, I couldn’t eat
or shower myself,

I couldn’t even speak.
Then I was racing 

with my thoughts,
running and rambling,

risky in stupor.
When I came back

to ground, I felt all
plants had crushed

beneath my feet. I 
apologized to the tree. 

Told it I needed
a year of sleep

before I could 
come back, not

to my old self,

but a more grown,
enhanced version.

14 Facts About The Nursery  / RJ Ingram

1 The train doesn’t stop here.
2 That would have defeated the whole purpose.
3 Mother’s Menagerie was still attached to the train.
4 But Sabrina managed to detached the nursery during her departure
5 It was an orphanage for the enchanted animals born in the menagerie.
6 Baby foxes asleep with their eyes closed & tapirs with rumps caked in mud & one or two haunted teacups there were quite a few ostrich eggs which have hatched since then too.
7 Sabrina saved them from living as mother’s slaves chained in the traveling menagerie.
8 But the mime was too dangerous to be left alone in a nursery according to mother.
9 Even without trying an untrained mime can conjure anything from nothing.
10 Even if the stuff the mime creates is invisible it still counts as chaos magic.
11 Even if the barriers fall down when the mime forgets they’re there.
12 Even if a mime wants to just pantomime doing something the mime’s power still makes nothing happen.
13 A Midas touch without having to touch anything.
14 Which is why Sabrina hired a babysitter dancing assassin to watch the mime junior.

The Importance of a Thumb / MeraBaid Kuar

I forget the pain until I move the wrong way, 
I keep falling asleep with my hair still wet
poems play merry-go-round in my mind
I pull my daughter away from the edge
she doesn’t fall from the bed, she whimpers
in her sleep, chills blanket her skin
I have something to say, the curtain
whispers in my ear and I can’t catch 
my thoughts are to take her back to her bed
but my thumb is asleep, it feels permanent

instructions for going to bed / Kes Maro

first pull out everything from underneath
your desk. spread it across the floor and pull
out all the trash. feel bad for thinking of it
as trash and swallow acid when you think
about moving it all under another roof again
eventually. put everything back on the shelves
this time in small bins that you bought to change
everything but really change nothing. wipe down
the window sill. kill a spider. it’s small and pretends
it is a speck of dust. you spray it with clementine
cleaning spray. feel spiders all over your skin. want
to cry. instead, rearrange the closet. finally pull that
cardboard box of shit that just had to go away
out and put it away. find a tub of paint you’ve been
looking for. put the cat in the other room. turn off
the big lights. walk through the kitchen without looking
at it so you don’t have to clean that too. trip on some
of the recycling. pace more. turn off all the lights. lock
the door and touch all the knobs on the stove in the dark.
clear small objects from the kitchen table. go into the bedroom.
sit down. look at the dirt on the carpet and remind
yourself that it is too late to vacuum. the task is too loud.
get up and go sit at the desk. move objects from one pile
to another on the desk. make it better. go back to the bedroom.
look at the contents of the bedside table. sunscreen should go back
to the bathroom. turn around and lock the door again.
your feet are itchy. so itchy. go brush your teeth and put in
your retainer because you paid too much to have just okay teeth
to make them worse by not wearing it. worry you’ve destroying
your gums by wearing it. go into the dark kitchen. fill the sink
and run the dishwasher. thats enough. go back to the bedroom
and sit down. lay in the dark and grip the edge of the bed
until your body surrenders or sunrise comes. fall asleep
when the light’s back, just for a while.

No One Filed a Missing Persons Report  / Azmia Ricchuito

I’m sorry that
the version of me
you know

is a person I never
imagined I’d be.

There was a time
when I had dreams;
now I sleep through
alarms

and remember nothing.

That’s why I didn’t hear
the smoke alarm
screaming
when the house
was burning down.

I hit snooze
and went back
to sleep,

inhaling embers,
breathing through
corrupted lungs
blackened with soot.

I don’t know
how much of me
survived the fire.

There was no one
to file a missing
persons report,

so sometimes
I search the ruins
for clues

to understand
what went wrong;

to find something,
anything,
that’s salvageable.

Some will say
what is lost
can never be
saved,

but I’m not
seeking salvation

I’m looking
for evidence
so I can remember

who I was before
the flames came.

I don’t know if
I’ll ever find out
why the earth
scorches beneath
my feet,

but I know that tomorrow,
when the alarm sounds,

I’ll try harder
to wake up.

Beneath the Surface: A Pantoum   / Tammy Smith

Summers by the town pool, my thoughts swim
like hammerhead sharks circling beneath the surface.
In chilly water, they sink so low they seem to disappear.
We’re both naturally shy, avoiding humans.

Like hammerhead sharks circling beneath the surface,
I crave the depth of solitude.
We’re both naturally shy, avoiding humans,
until the woman beside me says her daughter died.

I crave the depth of solitude.
Boisterous crowds at the pool’s shallow end annoy me
until the woman beside me says her daughter died
last summer, no one even knew she’d been sick.

Boisterous crowds at the pool’s shallow end annoy me.
In chilly water, they sink so low they seem to disappear.
Last summer, no one even knew she’d been sick.
Summers by the town pool, my thoughts swim.

Today’s Spread / Daphne Stanford

This morning’s soundtrack:
Bowie’s “Quicksand” & 
“Strangers When We Meet.” 

Aleister Crowley’s imagery:
First card out: The Sun. 
A dawning of the new.

Desert landscape quenched
By an Empress, crossing: 
Four queens in one; fertility

Crowned by the Two of Swords. 
Heel head over, but we’re strangers
When we meet. Rose & thorns.

Unconscious foundation: 
the King of Pentacles. 
Forget my name, but I’m over you.

In the recent past, the King 
of Wands. I'm in clover, but
We’re strangers when we meet.

In the near future, Temperance. 
I’m closer to the golden Dawn.
Me, now: Four of Cups. 

I’m sinking in the quicksand of 
My thoughts. Energy surrounding: 
Five of Swords. Stalemate. Fold.

Hopes & fears: Queen of Pentacles. 
Vines heavy with grapes, trees 
Bearing apricots, oranges, peaches.

Outcome: The World, clarified by 
the Ace of Swords. This is the 
End of the beginning: sword as

Sharp as the road she travels.
Unconscious: the Eight of 
Cups, clarified by the King of Cups.

Leaving for more fertile soil, away
From this desert landscape, holding a
Chalice out before him, waiting for rain.

July - Poem 19

Foreshadowing  / Clayre Benzadon

-after Sarah Green

Bins of shit 
strewn across 
my room.

Soccer match
gaining traction,
rivalry, political

battles. Stem
of a honeysuckle
knotted through

the back of my ear.
I hear sirens plow
through the neigh-

borhood, all the time. 
Time is an ice cream
truck whistling Bad

Bunny’s “Callaíta”
On the street, I sing
whims of beach,

try to get back
to where I 
 came from.

Calisthenics   / RJ Ingram

Pick up the pace she shouted & Erica reached out for him but couldn’t grab him & for that Erica lost her life / I don’t need you alive I just need your talent mother would warn us between stops at the gymnasiums / Pick up the pace she would shout again & another pair of hands would grasp at that little golden tapir / The pace was an anxious animal who could hypnotize anyone who looked at him which made him an excellent escape artist / Mother would notice his absence & draw a card & knew exactly where to look for him next / Pick up the pace she would yell as we approached / I got him I got him I got him! / We gave him a washer tied to a string to help him focus his talent but it only made him more unwieldy / The slippery sucker’s gone again but we’re going to circle back mother would shout from her alter in the caboose / The pace was back for a day or two before he would slip off the train wandering the countryside looking for his children / Erica loved him more than the plants that hung in her cabin / But she was so short / He’s on the right side this time pick up the pace! / Erica used to call him Hypno bc of his talent before she lost her arms reaching for him out her window / Now we don’t call him anything but grab him & quickly when mother tells us to pick him up.

Foreshadowing after Sarah Green / MeraBaid Kuar

I see Chaka Khan everywhere after
I dreamed of her the time I woke up
and said “this was not just a dream”

I sign up for open mics, and arts festivals
every week

the terrier from two doors over scurries
onto the porch, scaring my infant son

he’s always trying to slide out of my arms
to crawl on the ground and palm something
to his mouth

there is only 1 sunflower left in the garden
but it has 3 more blooms, while its first
head hangs lovingly in watch and waste

it’s full of heavy seeds, it is drying and dying
but meanwhile, it keeps birthing blossoms

this year my husband and I both work
in the garden while we process 
the ramifications of the months last year

when I was too sick to move from the bed

the children built a chaos garden all over
the backyard, in the closets, under beds

I forget that life kept moving
it felt like one long day 

I missed so much sunshine, watering
pest control, even trellising

my husband had luck with the tomatoes
but he lost most of my other seeds

the youngest children always leave me
when he wakes up

I keep finding blankets I forgot about under dirt
my favorite wooden furniture is rotten now

the older kids don’t ask for my advice

the tent is still out since the hurricane
the fire pit changes its occupation daily

the little trampoline turns the big trampoline
into a castle

just add beach pails and Legos

clean up takes more time than playing

I ask the kids why they don’t listen anymore
I forget I abandoned them for months

I was too busy dreaming and drying out
it felt like dying but it was more a hibernation

my brain told me I was alone
I didn’t see all the things growing around me

distance, contention, depression, clutter
now that I’m upright again, 

I’m armed, up early every morning
cutting it all back

If I keep it up it will bloom again 
the way it should

artichoke / Kes Maro

green thistle.
once i dreamt
us swallowed
by unpleasant
waters. it was
a relief then.
i woke up &
you were out-
-side yourself.
artichokes grow
furry spines
around their hearts.
they bloom as
purple arms. to eat
them, use the dull
edge of a spoon
to scoop out their
sharpness. steam
in a shallow bath
of lemon & water
i orbited you.
i don’t understand
meter, so i make
a sauce with fennel
seeds and tomato
to eat with white fish.
i scrape the buttered flesh
off the artichoke leaves
with my teeth. i eat
the heart. i feel like
an animal. i was out-
-side myself. i’m
nineteen again. i drink
orange vodka & tap
water. i am caught
in the rain with holes
in my shoes. i have
never searched
for your obituary
but soon i will try
to make myself
the dull edge
of a spoon. soon
i will try to be gentle. 

Google Maps Can Never Find Me Now  / Azmia Ricchuito

I gifted you
a map of my wounds;

but you crossed
every line —
even the ones
you drew.

We move past
each other, 

our histories creating
friction, grinding
salt into the wounds.

You run when
the earth shakes,
abandoning the safe house,

splitting the ground
between us.

But it’s me who
lives on the edge
of the middle you
destroyed.

Whose fault was it
when the San Andreas
tore through us,

opening an
all-consuming abyss
that swallowed us whole?

Where were you
when I was
mastering cartography,

alone in a dark room
with no sunrise for
a compass…

directionless?

I’ve learned the language
of wounds so well

I know the name
for everything that hurt you

while forgetting the words
for what you did to me.

I forgot the words,
but my body remembers
when the whole world
shattered. 

Triolet for The Weight We Carry    / Tammy Smith

Does despair weigh more than guilt?
Both are a burden to carry
across the bridge pain has built.
Does despair weigh more than guilt?
Suffering has become this quilt,
a patchwork of pain we marry.
Does despair weigh more than guilt?
Both are a burden to carry.

Letter to My Eight-Year-Old Self  / Daphne Stanford

You were fearless. You rode your red bicycle around the neighborhood without knowing which street to go down, but you didn’t care. It excited you, the not knowing: beachside air rippling shirt sleeves, sandy brown bangs. The way your toes dug into the damp waterline, how you scooped up sand crabs, felt them scurry from your grasp back beneath their saltwater mirror, sand bubbling its surface. Your yearning to become a seabird lifting off with its gull brethren, white wings flapping higher toward the sun till they’re soaring over sparkling ocean, out past the buoys, toward the next shore. I want to say, You can still join them. You can do anything you want to do, sweet Daphne. You don’t have to go it alone. 

July - Poem 18

Putx Punk   / Clayre Benzadon

-after Diane Seuss

In the heat of it,
In the heart of it all,
I found gawd. Lawd,

I felt fantastic, fanatic
in my love for the music.
Percolating heave of a growl

growing louder and more
intense, into the mic. Hair
in my face, eyes all raccooned.

My guitar. My Back Velvet Rose.
I yelled out Death! and the crowd
went wild. I jumped and the crowd

catched me. Us band members
 nicknamed each other putxs
to remind ourselves that us sluts

strut down the street with lust,
our butts bulging out of our jeans.
We run, and punk follows us.
We dance and the funk refuses

to end. In the heat of it,
our electric acoustics lit
on fire. In the heat of it all,
us putxs ran away and lived

up in a farm together, feeding
goats and nourishing each other
with awesome knowledge.

Backrooms House Arrest   / RJ Ingram

The mime was rescued from the backrooms accessed through Sabrina’s gymnasium / The florescent lights flickered against the peeling pale yellow wallpaper you know the place aisles upon aisles of empty & endless backrooms / Sabrina found the mime cowering in a corner helpless & alone / Only a toddler / The mime junior wore a muted expression for centuries after emerging from that horrendous prison / She tried bribing him with ice cream & cans of caviar & even pickled ginger with saltwater taffy pulled from the Earth’s last surviving oceanside boardwalk the poor black & white capped child / But an eternity spent in that labyrinthian yellow series of cells fatigues your imagination / The mental gymnastics it takes to starve off the madness those re occurring dead ends those cords dangling from nowhere all that furniture that looked like it was designed by AI / Sabrina had no idea how she heard the mime child he was by his nature completely silent even the creaks in the chairs beneath him quiet when he moves around picking at invisible grapes on an invisible tea tray Sabrina offered him & putting the grapes on his finger tips like a witch’s claw that only the mime dared to see / The pebbles she scried with were meant to show her sound waves & she was trying to see if they could hear the train / But there was a particular quietness coming from a far off corner that did not typically exist in her enchanted gymnasium / The spoons to practice kenisis hummed their usual hum / The carpet stifled even the most normal day to day sounds / But something was there her stones just couldn’t hear & she realized the great clock was opening a door to an eternal prison & whoever was inside must have uncanny abilities just like her & mother or more likely

Mother found him first
And sentenced him
To house arrest

My Infant Son Teaches Me About Myself / MeraBaid Kuar

He doesn’t know he can walk yet
each step he’s taken has been lost
in the kerfuffle of a contagious cry
in the music of my voice, not the words
in the half-need for nourishment at my breast
when I praise him, he praises me too
because I answered his call, removed him 
from the trenches of war with the mind
as it tries to move the body, not an inch
here and there, not a moment to moment
motion, but an isolation choreography
meant to convey the whole story, command 
of society’s level-up process, not just to climb
a ladder, to be prepared for the boss at the top.

If I had to define it / Kes Maro

We were a century
of cows, the end
of a composition.
We were a particle
or prefix implying
assent or compliance.
You were free
from all connection
to the outer world.
I was a weaver’s
shuttle. Our home
was a fence, an outer
wall. We were smokeless,
You were any young
animal. The world
was the clearness
of a pearl and our home
was a sort of key.
We were the same
as water, clarified
butter, a collection
of three cities.
We were anything stamped
with an impression. I was
the stalk of a lotus.
We were no different
than an egress from a house.
I was the slope, ridge, side,
flank of a mountain, a place
of cessation. I was causeless,
groundless, useless, needless,
unnecessary. We were
the payment of a debt.

As a Poet Participating in This 30/30 Project, I Admit I’m   / Tammy Smith

An Abecedarian

Adrenaline-driven, a word junkie
Buying books I’ll probably never read,
Charging multiple devices at once,
Distracting myself from finishing
Everything on today’s to-do list,
Faking that I’m fine when I can’t
Generate new poems from old prompts.
Heaven forbid I give myself grace
Instead of beating myself up—never.
Jeez, dear reader, can you relate, or am I only
Kidding—or kicking—myself for acting
Like an entitled brat? But I digress. Maybe it’s
More than grandiosity, this relentless
Need to write at such a sophisticated level that
Opportunities arrive and renowned indie
Presses begin soliciting my work. Imagine how
Quickly I’ll become famous,
Running spectacular poetry readings and facilitating
Stellar workshops, surrounded by other
Type A personalities who write even more than I do
Under circumstances more demanding than mine. What’s the point
Vying with poets half or twice my age if all I’m doing is
Worrying about who’s winning the submissions game,
Xeroxing copies of poems they claim they wrote
Yesterday, perpetuating the myth that it took them
Zero effort to survive this thirty-day project.

Ode to the Riffle Shuffle  / Daphne Stanford

The way you bridge-
curl cards into a 
Gumby Arch—

then merge both 
piles, card deck
riffling. Then a circling.

Then a crumbling away.

July - Poem 17

Panophile   / Clayre Benzadon

There is an omen
embedded in bread.

Salt on the tongue.
Unhatched belly.

Once I entered
the garage and jumped

from a sudden croaking.
It was a fog-frog, I learned

later, one that half-fades
in shade. When I tried

holding the little guy
in my hands, he slipped

through, like a haunting.
That loaf in my stomach

started to rise. I almost
threw up, until Mr. Faery-

Frog spoke; I almost
completely lost it: “Señor

Frog, how many bites
does it take to get to

the afterworld?”
I asked him.

Mr. Frog addressed
me as panophile.

I asked him what to
make of the focaccia

baking in the oven,
and he said the dead

always arrive warm,
trying to break through

crust. When I tore
off a piece,
the room croaked.

I have salted my
tongue to enhance

its flavor, bring out this
dough’s unearthly mark.

No Poem Today   / RJ Ingram

After Nancy Friedland

I’ve got no poem in me today / No alligator sulking beneath the swampy mirth of consciousness / No waterpark packed with images sliding down plastic chutes & metaphors pissing in the wave pool / The kitchen staff of my mind is clocked out for lunch & everyone’s either on the back patio smoking cigarettes they can’t afford or sneaking sips of schnapps in the walk in & frankly I don’t blame them / It’s hot out it’s July & everyday feels like the world is ending / Not today I told my little notebook & squashy armchair / Not today I bleated at the goats at the zoo who refused me a single greeting or polite chit-chat about the weather / Kim Stafford said his father hated the weight of a blank page / The looming buzz of the white noise radiating with untapped potential / But today I think I’ll keep my notebooks clean & replace the sheets on the bed with a fresh set in solidarity / I’ll roll a pencil on the desk for fourteen minutes instead of writing a sonnet / And still call it a sonnet / I’m not afraid of nothing / After all poetry makes nothing happen anyway.

On Being a Bad Mother, Citizen, Woman / MeraBaid Kuar

Failure is the best option today
I will away the pressure
to report in a timely manner
my manner is defiantly late
but my defiance is whimsical
bellydance, my hips wonder
if they should lie, walk 
a cemented line, ignore
the daily pain that charges 
in the stagnant energy 
if I should knead away the short
circuitry of womanhood 
or should I say motherhood
I wouldn't know, but I will say
I feel like a mother, in my hips
even when my mombrain
forgets my children's names. 

there's this shipwreck / Kes Maro

a short walk from the ferry. it’s peeled back undercarriage gives in
to the rocky shore in an unwanted embrace. rusty skeleton broken

open and warped. where there was once a crew and cargo, i see
a broken jaw, askew and hungry. the weeping metal has washed

the shore in orange dust and glass. billions of pin-sized snails live
in its shadow, drying at low tide. i don’t know

how to hold anything, but i’ve looked down at my own wreckage
and mistaken scattering the broken glass of my body over the shore

as creation. i too have misidentified the shadow of debris as a shield.
the wreck is a sighing beast. our breath caught and escaped at the same

time. how can you forget how to breathe when there is salt in the air?
from here i see a pair of jackdaws balanced on the bow and

a fern like newgrange rises from the caved in cabin roof and even though
the sea is crashing, it’s quiet and the sun is out and like,

it’s nothing

The Hospital Was Never Meant to Be Home / Tammy Smith

The nurses called us girls,
but we were women—
an awkward assortment
of shapes and sizes.

We weren’t supposed to talk
about bodies or weight in group.

I slept better knowing
Myra on night shift wore bright blue
scrubs and never complained
when she crushed my pink-and-white pills,
mixed them with applesauce.

I couldn’t sleep knowing
my roommate, Grace, watched,
jealous of each spoonful.
She complained about her allergies,
wiping her stuffy nose
until the ward ran out of tissues.

Twenty years later,
I still remember
the johnny coat Grace cried inside.
I wonder whether she remembers
the way time dragged
as we sat through group therapy
learning to take turns when we spoke.

Now, trained in trauma,
I shudder when I remember
how I measured myself
against the girl-women beside me—
their skinny arms
tattooed with daddy scars,
grief for dead mothers,
and whatever other wounds
they opened again

during the night shift.

Ode to a Beaver  / Daphne Stanford

On the bank of the Boise River Greenbelt 
in Garden City—upstream from river surfers &
winery patio goers, leashed dogs whimpering 
at kids & couples sauntering by—sat a giant 
beaver grooming his stomach in slow, Zen

scratches, down & across, wet fur gleaming
in afternoon light. He watched the river flow 
by him for a good, long while, taking it in—
oblivious to teenagers with phones flashing 
Snapchats or videos to share, for later. 

Beaver slowly lowered his front legs onto the
bank & pushed himself offshore. Underwater, 
his tail trailed, a flat paddle wide behind in
concentric half-circles spreading outward, 
head atop the surface for one moment 
before descending again, below.

July - Poem 16

Butch Baby   / Clayre Benzadon

Wear your carabiner
on your sleeve, err,
pant buckle. Wear 
me like rain.
I don't want to cling
onto you, but your
hard-drawn shoulders
makes it hard for me
to resist. Resistance
is your favorite game.
We play tug o' war
and you win every time,
pulling the rope until
I trip over from friction
and force. You tell me
you feel like a coconut,
 soft on the inside.
Butch baby, I call out
to you:
I don't
buy it.

One Thousand Eight Hundred & Fifty-Two   / RJ Ingram

This game is not for me but alas here I am playing it / This newspaper is not for me but alas here I am skimming it / This website this browser this laptop: again not for me / This room is not for me so I will walk out of it / This building is not for me so I might burn it / This parking lot is not for me so I will get in my car & drive & drive as far away as I can go / This car is not for me so I will abandon it on the freeway / This overpass is not for me so I will wander into the bushes & hope never to return / This field is not for me so I will close my eyes until I’ve left it / These eyes are not for me so I will open them & plant them in the field / This body is not for me so I will drop it next to my eyes / The spirits I pass as I float upwards are not for me so I speed on to the next half baked satellite / This planet I guess must not be for me either / Pshaw.

A Golden Shovel After Declaration by Tracy K. Smith / MeraBaid Kuar

Sleep whips around the world in
twisted detail, gold-plated every-
thing smudged with prints, we stage
our deaths in this way, pillows of 
satin and not-feathers, these
lies hold onto their oppressions
conflicted by the tossing of time, we
don’t remember what rights we have
until they turn to dust, petitioned
by those who re-call what we stand for.

catalog as erosion II / Kes Maro

it’s like this, thistles caught in deep tissue
without tearing. a house fearing it could be
made passage. it makes me unsure that i
belong to the limbs of my body. horsehair
plaster walls flaking, more delicate than just
the day before.        fearing it could be made
      . like i am a frog meant to be a body
of sense. horse hair              delicate        just
      before. a clown with an oil paint face
pressing monoprints to the sidewalk.
          meant to be a body       .       like      
thistles caught in deep tissue       tearing.
              an oil paint face              the sidewalk.
       makes me unsure that i               .              
could be        a      passage. a clown        paint
face                .                caught        without      
.       frog               body      .              paint
        ing        the sidewalk.              or              
.                            body               .                      
            passage.                                          
the day               .              unsure              
belong              s               .                            
t      o              .               thistles              
deep tissue    

A Tony Soprano Summer  / Azmia Ricchuito

Hot girl summer
was all the rage,

but I am
rage personified.

A Tony Soprano summer
in which I remind myself
that someday

the objects of my anger
will be dead anyway.

I got a guy, you know.

The Grim Reaper
spares no one,

and I, like
Kurt Cobain’s
meat-eating orchids,
forgive no one
yet.

My therapist
doesn’t think
we made any
progress.

She’s already
a voice inside
my head.

I’m lounging
in a bathrobe.

The absurdity
of life: it’s like
the regularness
of life is
too much
for me.

I repeat after
Christuhfaaa:

there is no
chemical solution
to a spiritual problem.

There’s no
long-term parking,
either.

E.T., phone home.

Plot twist:

I poisoned
the pond.

Even the ducks
know better
than to call this
home.

A Lesson About Mister Lincoln   / Tammy Smith

I’m surprised to discover
Mister Lincoln is a variety of rose
and not the bearded president.
A spry, silver-haired veteran
wants me to share his passion
for plants. He settles into my dark
crimson office chair, compares it to the deep
velvety petals of a Mister Lincoln,
chuckles about this tall, vigorous shrub
with such a strong presence—oops,
he meant to say fragrance,
but when he doesn’t correct 
his mistake, I let it go.
Six months into therapy, he’s taught me 
how to cultivate grace. I discover how
important a garden is when he asks me 
if I grow my own vegetables, and if I do,
do I know that tomatoes and peppers
bloom until the first frost,
that they’re simple to prune.
I ask him why he loves Mister Lincoln.
He tells me how this rose was bred in 1964
by Swim & Weeks, and he explains why
Mister Lincoln remains one of the finest—
thriving as a foundation
plant—framing the home’s base
and boosting curb appeal. Mister Lincoln 
does need strategic pruning.
Six weeks shy of his eightieth trip
around the sun, tough
enough to survive 
the threats of disease and pests,
brave enough to still bloom.

Summer Road Trip, 1989  / Daphne Stanford

Tucson, Arizona: turquoise pool 
In desert heat. Red clay formations

Shield us from sun on patio chaise
Lounge chairs, beach towels draped

Over them to catch dripping limbs
Hair smelling of chlorine, Sun-In.

It’s today’s Chevrolet on the television
Screen & Mom packed PB & J sand-

Wiches for lunch, along with apple 
slices & Capri-Sun. Sunny D & 

Milk for morning cereal in the 
Mini-fridge. Falling asleep to the

TV flashing, volume low, casting
Shadows onto the walls, our beds.

July - Poem 15

Closing Time Half-Sestina   / Clayre Benzadon

I hate Semisonic’s “Closing Time”,
didn’t realize there was a hidden metaphor
lurking in between the infinite homes.
I’ve never stayed up late enough to have experienced
this phenomenon: lights on, getting kicked out
of the bar, waiting to pick someone up at six

in the morning. I wake up sick as a six-
headed dog, kneeling on linoleum tile, time
to vomit once again. Now I let my dog out
and try to hold onto my soul, a metaphor
for almost-death. What I never experienced
was a new beginning from some other homes.

Today, I reach towards sobriety. Many homes
convince me that I don’t belong within its six-
story boundary, that I don’t know experienced
architects who can fix the clock of rum time
within my system. This is all just a metaphor
for enlightenment. Dear Semisonic, I’d like to take y’all out

(some time).

Enchanted Stone Acrostic   / RJ Ingram

Evolution blesses the luckiest among the foxkittens / Not every foxkitten gets to jump between the realms of dreams & into & out of every apocalyptic nightmare / Cat-eyes & whiskers whistling like blades of grass / Hermits used to breed the foxcats to guide them through the elements of chaos / Anthracite & its submetallic lustre of fur from pours dripping with molten rocks or bolts of lightning like honey like water weeping from the fountain like diamonds raining down like ice / Not every foxkitten grows up on a balance beam overlooking an arena full of paying customers waiting for an animal of any sort really stand up on its front paws in a handstand / Tonight folks you’ll get to see our main event our dancing family of foxkittens / Each & every one of them a trained performer a prodigy at the cascading lines between what’s real & what’s really there / Dusk is more than a time of day to them it’s the ringing of the faded light that activates the magic of the stones / Stories tell of heroes guided by the foxcats between the worlds like crossing between the pages of a book / Together we would accompany our grown up foxkittens from one part of our story into the next / Owed nothing for their help in the travels they cross over with us because they want to / Now for their next trick let’s see what the enchanted stones will unlock in the youngest / Evolution blesses the luckiest among the foxkittens.

Always Underwater / MeraBaid Kuar

There’s a princess-sized pressure
to perform when your name is known
when your reputation bubbles around
you, when you are put under protection
that heavy cloak of hidden dangers
feels like an itchy wool-blend, looks
like a collection of remixed trinkets
there are better days when life travels
a predictable path, but even then 
seashells litter the way, alerts
the resourceful, foreshadows
& sabotages what’s next, but I frame
this pain in song and shiny things
too busy finding the next to weigh
the price of silence-- the only true
thing of value I’ve ever owned
so I’ll be here, all smiles & naivete
but in my mind I am always home.

long island deer / Kes Maro

the blue jays in the yard are massive,
overgrown. we spot twin fawns
in the late morning. my grandmother
complains that they eat everything.
we remind her, not the roses. they don’t
like the thorns. the yard is so green.
the lawn is bright and muddy, but the deer
eat the hostas and some of them
have antlers and when you scream at them
to “get!” they freeze. the fawn’s mother
is big too, like the birds. its what happens
when there are no more natural predators
and no more natural habitat. just cars.
just green curtains between the houses
on the hill and strip malls below. there’s no
coyote out here or anything else that could take
game this size, but there is so much fertilizer.
so many gardens. too dense for hunting
bows or rifles. my grandmother wants
the squirrels off her deck. she wants
the cats gone too. she wants to know the grass
is being watered every day. she wants to see
the hostas from her window.  

My Love Language Is Illiteracy  / Azmia Ricchuito

They say the pen is
mightier than the sword;

my tongue is sharp
but my pen is sharper. 

I am fluent in fatality.

A trash can
full of dead trees

a crime scene
like something
out of a low-budget
slasher film.

There’s blood on your hands.
I’m hemorrhaging pages,
finger-painting
lethality.

My heart is the
worst kind of weapon—
fragile and unreliable,
a beating war drum
that has forgotten
how to sing.

When the war is over
and the writing
is on the wall,

two sentences
survived:

I love you.
Come back home.

It Was Not Sickness—Then   / Tammy Smith

A cento after Sylvia Plath, T. S. Eliot, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Charles Bukowski, Anne Sexton, Langston Hughes, Louise Glück, William Wordsworth, Wallace Stevens, Dylan Thomas, Robert Hayden, Robert Frost, Mary Oliver, Marie Howe, Walt Whitman, and Emily Dickinson

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead—
like a patient etherized upon the table,
like a ghost in marble of a girl you knew
who would take away my hours—

a cave of mirrors,
where the doors are doors of paper,
where you forget where you are.

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
the path sick sorrow took, the many paths—
men without eyes, men without faces
rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Then, with cracked hands that ached,
what did I know, what did I know—
the darkest evening of the year.

It knew no medicine.

Meanwhile, the world goes on—
and I have promises to keep.

I’ve been thinking: This is what the living do.

I celebrate myself, and sing myself.

Tomorrow, of course, I love you.
It was not sickness—then.

In Your Atrocity Exhibition Dream  / Daphne Stanford

Ian Curtis starts out singing & 
dancing maniacally on stage, yes, 
but then plateless SUVs swarm & 
masked agents push people to ground.
Gill Scott Heron singing The revolution 
will not be televised and it wasn’t & 
it isn’t but also it depends on which 
screens we’re watching. Now the 
multiverse is everything everywhere & suddenly rainbow wigs replace toupees & 
the same clowns are pointing & grinning
but nobody’s laughing. Smiles painted on.
Funny thing, performing. Funnier still, 
writing to conjure action from lines & sets 
& character names: as if it really is possible
to imagine worlds & speak words into being.

July - Poem 14

Staples / Clayre Benzadon

Potatoes and pickles
are both Jewish and queer

staples (think deformed
latkes, Passover, Kosher dills,
pickle juice in the Talmud.

I take out my recipe book:

“Peter’s Pickled Potato”:

-1 baked potato
-(vegan) mozzarella strips
-diced pickle cubes (as topping)

Three years ago, food
became my enemy, my worst
nightmare.

Nowadays, though, I crave
fries almost every other week,

and hold a spear in between
my teeth, pretending it were

a crunchy, tangy
       cigarette.

Don’t Tell My Parents   / RJ Ingram

Listen up nerds
Gather all your pogs & etch-a-sketch drawings
Unplug your lite brites
Roll up your parachute pants
And stand with me in the deep end
Of an empty pool
Because my parents are out of town
And I have exactly 48 hours
Before my neighbor checks on me
Let’s have a good-old-fashion local area network party
And steal music the hard way
By waiting for shady websites to load
In between videos of kids older than us
Doing tricks on skateboards
Chain smoking cheap cigarettes
And pranking each other
With a slap to the groin
How is that a prank? You ask?
It’s not but we’ll say it is
Listen up nerds
I’ve been waiting all night to tell you
There is nothing quite like watching ice cream melt
Next to the refrigerator
Because you left the carton out
And the door to the fridge open
Spoon in hand just waiting
And waiting
For someone to remind you
That you were getting everyone ice cream
But you know this about yourself:
The lack of focus that keeps you from buying the good stuff
And you can throw the tub away & try again next week
And you can set a million reminders on a million different apps
But it won’t help or at least won’t help forever
And one of these days your parents aren’t gonna come back
And it’s just going to be you
In the deep end of an empty pool
Looking over your shoulder saying
Listen up nerds
I think we forgot something

I Watch My Children and Recall How I Looped Through Childhood / MeraBaid Kuar

You know you can’t trust your eyes the way 
they invent movement in the dark-- dashes
tracing each other in the background
of an unanswered mind, thinking its way
to maturity, scaffolds form valleys 
in the neuroplasticity, you wrote this poem
before, in fact, it has been written an infinite
number of times and you remember this
not as a memory with a time or place
not as a tangible record written in lead
or ink but something deeper, a night of echo
that spreads it wings through the soul
ripples of rings visible in the invisible aura
look closer and you’ll see them in the irises

American Idol / Kes Maro

Taylor Swift (2017 & 2023), George W. Bush (2000 & 2004),

       The American Soldier (1950 & 2003), Barack Obama (2008 & 2012)

soldiers look at the camera
& hold guns in both
hands. always, green
light in the right eye.
gaze weighed
& serious shadow
radiating. clever blue
light, red absences.
hope is an excellent way to market 
war. he looks away.
he wears a gun on his back.
the message is whichever one
will make us let go
of our gag reflex.
whichever one will make
us swallow. the music

The Brothers Grimm  / Azmia Ricchuito

The stars remind us
that the past is real. 

By the time 
their light
reaches us, 
they’ve already shed 
their mortal coil. 
We teach our children
to wish on death. 

Jealousy Monsters   / Tammy Smith

My jealousy monster sinks
to the bottom of empty,
crushes me like ice
in a tall glass of Sprite.

Yours sticks to the fitted sheets
of a four-poster king-size bed, torn
from twisting and turning
through sweaty, sleepless nights.

We're supposed to share our stuff:
fast-food straws, even dirty forks, 
soft shirts smeared with strawberries, wine
ketchup or blood, pillows smelling of sex.

Jealousy monsters thrive
at jobs where bosses flirt,
in “Guess How Many Jelly Beans
Are in the Jar” contests,

at baseball games and poetry readings, 
where scores and high marks become stains,
above tight breast pockets
or below belt buckles

hugging the hip bone.
They learn to breathe
deep underwater,
howling inside grief,

spreading guilt like frosting
over triple-layer fudge cake,
licking wounds like raw 
cookie batter left in our chipped bowl.

The Art of the Artful Dodger  / Daphne Stanford

Is to get crafty with the moon. I mean
Really get crafty with it. Witchy, even?
Because even the lodgers take cover &
Like Bowie, cover their ears & move in 
Their mind to Berlin, or something—

This new moon has us all throwing our
Hands, yelling Bullocks—if I only knew 
About Jupiter in Gemini or some such
Rubbish, even as we’d all fancy a cup of
Tea, I gather the crowds won’t take to it

As the Mad Hatter would—Fancy another
Cup of tea?!? He always slurred so dreadfully
As if he was a bit tipsy the entire time—but
Of course he was. I mean, what was the 
Caterpillar doing atop that giant mushroom

Anyway? As I was saying, the art of the 
Artful dodger is just that—the artful dodge. 
A turning one’s head to redirect the eyes 
Elsewhere, to allow one’s train of thought to
Wander, then charge straight toward it like

A locomotive—

July - Poem 13

Goodnight, Flaming Moon / Clayre Benzadon

In the dark, every-
thing looks different.

I mistook a bird
for a small drone.

I mistook light
for neon hazardous slime

oozing at the outskirts
of my bedroom, a Goodnight

Moon flaming eeriness.
Null of uncontrollable

distortions: shadow-
making. A coconut 

rolls down a stair-
case. A dog sits

atop a mini moon
in the corner. Empty

slippers squish
berries, and my tooth

is a wound lapping
up the cloudriver.

Inside my violin
lives a moth, machine-

made. When I lie
in bed, I’m saturated

by the vivid magic,
its magic. This is 

fine, I tell myself,
this is   swell.

14 Facts About The SS Anne     / RJ Ingram

1 She sank just off the coast & just outta screen.
2 Gambling was illegal but popular & while accessible on shore it was inevitable aboard the SS Anne.
3 The chef rotated his menu according to the weather.
4 The day the ship sank the chef served rockfish & ghost coral.
5 A friendship was shattered hours before the storm.
6 Their lives diverted over a rat a mouse & a lightning bolt.
7 Everyone who remembers their first betrayal can understand.
8 Not to mention the man with purple hair who summoned a dragon.
9 If all we are is a reason for them to take back control I say let’s give it.
10 Clearly the animals have more right to the elements than we do.
11 But that boy’s rat didn’t have to die.
12 And the ship didn’t have to sink.
13 What happened to that miraculous orb?
14 Oh yeah that sank too. Hop on, we’re going down.

Daughter / MeraBaid Kuar

Fingers lifted, cramped, a hint
of lavender still spread under
the nails the rhythm, pace
choreography, joy flung 
around the porch beneath
her hopping feet, the gap
between her teeth house
little bubbles, full of echo
and locate, here always 
seeping out, multiplies 
enough times to have formed
exact replicas that infect
those of us, who bear witness
to her youth, as it dances
eyes closed, everything else
wide open.

how to live forever / Kes Maro

sticky with salt, press
against the sand & hear
how the sea howls
at the shore. become a piece
of fish breaking between
a giant’s tongue & the roof
of her mouth. taste like
butter & fennel underneath
all your salt. yesterday, you
were a fluke, sideways-eyed
traveling close to the shallow
ocean bed. the day before that,
you were the layer of rot
blanketing that same floor,
a fractured fish bone. eventually,
you might want to be
the jellyfish, moon-faced,
thoughtless & reborn over
& over, the same in changing
waters. instead you’ll be
a question of decay, a consistency
you’ll never touch.

13 Things I Hate About You  / Azmia Ricchuito

I hate that I have no home,
that I exist in a haunted house.
It’s not like the movies at all.

I hate that it’s been years
and I’ve never unpacked.

I hate that there’s no space for me,
not even as your savior,
and that I’m breaking bones
to fit inside garbage bags,
suitcases, closets.

I hate having to buy things I already own
because a car can only hold so much.

I hate feeling like I’m one bad night away
from the worst night of my life.

I hate the smell of alcohol.
I hate it when you breathe kerosene.

I hate guns—
that I have one hidden away for safety.
I’d like to throw it into the Atlantic,
but that’s bad for the environment.

I hate when the phone rings
because I always think
it’s going to be that call.

I hate waking up
and already wanting
to go back to sleep.
I’m fresh out of copium.

I hate that you’re not
who I wanted you to be.

I hate that I know
what you did that summer.

I hate that you chose drugs over me.

I hate that I still care.

Sickly Sweet   / Tammy Smith

Death, may I call you pretty,
or is that too gruesome
on the tip of my tongue—
pink and wet,
slick enough
to slide down my throat
like candy?

When I open my mouth,
you are sickly sweet music
my childhood memories pluck,
a toy violin
tucked beneath my chin.

My overgrown body plays
a medley of oh no,
it can’t be, and
when I think
no one is listening,
the rhapsody
of why me.

Two Tercets & Three Lines Missing from an Unfinished Villanelle  / Daphne Stanford

For clinking trinkets lost to first sun rays
At dawn, you searched the barely fallen snow
Before a moth could fly toward flambé

In restaurants that overlooked the bay 
Bakers of Puget Sound tossed high their dough
Dusty triangles shiny with gold lamé

July - Poem 12

Late Summer Instructions / Clayre Benzadon

 -after William Carlos Williams

Even now, the last peach
on the tree feels like an
incarnation of William

Carlos Williams reaching
out to warn the picker of
WCW’s excessive juiciness,

his ice box cold crystalline
core. Let the ice thaw in
summer, clingstone or free-

stone. Let the body of fruit
sway in slices. When WCW
plunked down onto the grass,

the leaves enveloped him
in a shiver of wind. The former
picker no longer holding 

such a role becomes fruity
bystander instead. He runs
over, grabs WCW, and holds

him in his hands, peach fuzz
tickling them. The peach speaks
to him: “So much depends…” 

“In summer, the song
sings itself.” “That which is
possible is inevitable”.

Games To Play Instead of Hangman    / RJ Ingram

1 Racquetball / Offer it but don’t mean it & don’t get upset if its selected / A good compromise if it comes down to it
2 Tic-Tac-Toe / Not a great game but if you’ve got the tools for Hangman you’ve got the stuff you need for this step in the wrong direction / Don’t recommend it but it’s definitely an option
3 Wet My Whistle / Each player takes a drink when they skip ahead retelling the plot on a agreed upon novel / Also known as the book club game & fun without alcohol but may still cause the hiccup
4 The gods don’t agree / You’re buying time for what? The red demon waved his hand / Hangman is perfectly appropriate under the circumstances
5 He plucked a live one from the river & hung the ghastly head from a hook dangling at the end of a chain /
6 The severed head sang out I’m thinking of a seven letter word for death & if you get it I can walk home free.

My Five Year Old After Learning of Javeayah Harris / MeraBaid Kuar

Is God a place, she asks and I recall the route I take paved with pain, desire and need, the culmination of connected dots, a picture pixelated and titled, gluten free, dairy free, the capsaicin giving my belly sparks, don’t know yet if it will bite, and so we take this gulp of security, collecting saliva to wash down the aftertaste, in this place I have a nostril blockaded, the other flooding with blood, and there are millions of ways for us to perish and be perishing, an apricot for anchored whimsy and an english embed, watermelon for waived utopia, tangerine for a strip of grounded sun, brown sugar for the swallowed idealizm, a bit of water just to push it through, cells drink up realism, like spirit gulps the sacred.

only four and five
mountain of pink balloons
out the car window

I've Earned My Morning Glory  / Azmia Ricchuito

Last night 
my bones were tired.
Not enough calcium;
weight-bearing exercises recommended.
Doesn't the doctor know
my restless bones
have carried the weight 
of multiple universes
across their lifetimes?
They remember death
hurtling through space
supernovas dying
detonating
volatile and mercurial.
My bones are not weak.
They have survived 
millennia
and landslides.

They are a
champagne supernova
in the sky.

Don’t Allow Your Fears To Destroy You    / Tammy Smith

Don’t allow your fears to destroy you,
no matter how quickly they spread—
rampant, windswept
across fertile fields—
remember how wild
their reach, how high
and endless their climb.
Watch them twist
through tangled roots.
Imagine their relentless pull,
their putrid stench—
Don’t let them block the sun.
Don’t let them flood your last patch
of black-eyed Susans.

After “The Death of a Moth,” I Write a Villanelle  / Daphne Stanford

Before a moth could fly toward flambé
In which its wings ignited bright but slow
Dusty triangles shiny with gold lamé

After Annie fished Lake Pend O’reille
She might have sailed the Puget on a bow
Before a moth could fly toward flambé

But timing’s always funny, in a way:
Cuckoo clock hands chime & shadows grow
Dusty triangles shiny with gold lamé

Before a moth could fly toward flambé
Bakers of Puget Sound would toss their dough
Dusty triangles shiny with gold lamé

Neither Crepes Suzette nor brandy want to stay
Aflame before knowledge of where to go,
Before a moth could fly toward flambé
Dusty triangles shiny with gold lamé

--