You Are Not Your Death

Sarah Dickenson Snyder


I wish someone had said when I dived
into that well of fear. Where were those
Buddhist monks when I didn’t use the blue sink
in the upstairs bathroom for years after
a thermometer shattered and left numberless
glass slivers and tiny balls of mercury—Death,
a clinging partner, making me walk downstairs
to brush my teeth & stay up all night sometimes
alone with the darkness.


Sarah Dickenson Snyder’s collections include The Human Contract (2017), Notes from a Nomad (nominated for the Massachusetts Book Awards 2018), With a Polaroid Camera (2019), and Now These Three Remain (2023). She’s had Best of Net and Pushcart Prize nominations. Recent work is in RattleLily Poetry Review, and RHINO. See more.

Summer Night / Desperation

Hana Damon-Tollenaere


I think it might be
Too hot to bake cookies but
Let’s try something else let’s
Try taking the night off or
Building a pillow fort or
Unraveling
Thread by thread
The ways our stories might
Have overlapped had
Things gone differently


Hana Damon-Tollenaere was shortlisted in the Briefly Write Poetry Prize 2023.

Intercostal

Thomas Mixon


There was nothing. On the walk
I unfolded both my arms, but
not a single leaf would touch
my greedy floating ribs. I knew
I carried needs they were against.
I carried needs. They were against
my greedy floating ribs I knew
not a single leaf would touch.
I unfolded both my arms, but
there was nothing on the walk.


Thomas Mixon has poems in miniskirt magazineRattleRadon Journal, and elsewhere. He’s a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee.

It’s

Devaki Devay


World bee day, it’s mother’s day,
It’s a blue moon, it’s boba day, it’s national turtle day, it’s a Friday, it’s our anniversary, it’s the day we met, it’s your birthday, it’s your birthday again, it’s twenty years ago
On this day, a picture
On your phone: You were celebrating – God knows what. But still,
Thank God you were.


Devaki Devay is a writer of poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction. Their work can be found in several literary magazines, including Barren Magazine and Peatsmoke Journal, and has been included in Best Small Fictions 2023. Their debut poetry chapbook, LOOKING IN LIGHT, is out with Bottlecap Press.

Spring

Alice Louise Lannon


Today I saw baby geese
and a body

face down on the street.
All the way home I thought

about being lonely. I said
hello to the old man in the lobby;

he told me my legs were lovely,
that my husband had better

watch out.


Alice Louise Lannon is Scottish poet and writer of creative non-fiction, currently living in Vancouver, Canada. She holds an MLitt in Creative Writing from The University of Glasgow. Her publication credits include: Wet GrainFrom Glasgow to Saturn, Querencia and Last Stanza Poetry Journal. At the moment, she is working on a book about the sea & storytelling & women’s narratives.

now, where was I

Begüm


in a search of arms, I found pebbles along the way:
unwanted truths that I threw back to the water

you are lonely

or maybe I misheard.
How deep in the forest are we again?
the clouds have gone green since, and the mud,
perpendicular.


Begüm is an aspiring psychologist, who has been writing poetry for a few years now but only recently started to publicise her work. Most of her pieces are inspired by people she loves. She is now working on getting her first poetry book published. 

step-sisters

Georgina Titmus


they made me wade. 

the fingering weed. the goosefleshing badass 

sludge. 

worser-than-spider-worser-than-worm-worser 

than the thing that plucks 

my duvet, 

as i lie 

in-terror waiting. worser—than school. 

sink-sucking 

sediment. 

glass-slippery-toes-pumpkin-ooze. they made 

me pay— 

        at midnight. 


Georgina Titmus is a 60-something Cornwall poet and carer. Her work has appeared in South, The Journal, The Frogmore Papers, Fenland Poetry Journal, Orbis, The Moth and others. She has twice been shortlisted in the Bridport Prize.

Three Ways with Hope

Annie McCann-Gomm


52 North, imagined

dusk dies around our ears,
sometimes a hare crosses my path
its fawny grey barely visible
in wheaten grass and gloom,
late afternoon, midwinter birches

wild nights and soft, and a breath
that can be all we have
and hope, and hope.
hope falling, hope sighing.

wild nights and soft,
two faces in disco lights, and eyelashes between
heavy seed pods and half-laugh sighs.

next hope, next hope

this is someone else’s laundry, someone else’s life
and we get to do this gladly
we live in the eaves of our desires
and we get to do this gladly
even through hurt, even through pinpricks
we get to do this gladly. 

certain grey joy

in your dead mouth
there is also hope
love lies in places
a new snow, even now, barely seen
falls, still


Annie McCann-Gomm is a grad student, waitress and writer in the Netherlands. She studies and writes about the anthropology of the environment, thinking about how we can live with the earth and each other. 

Loving Him Epiphany

Jesse Saldivar


He said,

     I feel so loved
     around you

So that must mean I love him. 
How true,
that must be

if even I cannot see
our course we run –

inches make the love-journey!
In this country culture we endure
the othering of love –

The tongue that tastes true-love
discerns the gaslight

I shout theater! I shout
love is out there.


Jesse Saldivar is an undergraduate writer studying at the University of California, Davis. They have one poem published in issue five of Oakland Review and one short story published in Open Ceilings. They love writing with concern for space, history, love, and queerness. 

Sewing

Dominik Slusarczyk


Do you discard? 
You know you could mend instead? 
Here: 
Let me show you how to sew. 
All you need is 
This little needle. 
The thread appears where 
You want it to die for you. 


Dominik Slusarczyk is an artist who makes everything from music to painting. He was educated at The University of Nottingham where he got a degree in biochemistry. He lives in Bristol, England. His poetry has been published in Dream Noir.