There we are, in the overstuffed armchairs
straddling the fireplace.
A book in your hand,
a cup of tea in mine. You sigh and
a sepia hush falls over the room.
It was a long day, full of adventure
and a bit of worry—that’s just how
frogs like me get sometimes.
Never mind that. You are a reminder
that things in this world will be okay,
that bad feelings are only temporary.
Earlier, I tried to bake you a cake,
but the batter overflowed and
burnt bits littered the bottom of the oven.
Without asking,
you joined me in scraping and
kissed me on the forehead and
thanked me for trying in the first place.
Then, we biked to the store and
bought a cake and ate it.
Well, here we are, in the aftermath,
bellies full of butter and sugar.
But cake can’t fill a heart, no,
that’s all thanks to you.
House of Mirrors by Anonymous, '26
Grandma whisked me away to the carnival
To see acrobats, lions, and contortionists,
To fill my skeletal body with buttery popcorn and deep-fried oreos.
Something to remember.
I don’t remember any of it
Except for the strongman,
With bulging muscles and veins so obtrusive
I knew his whole body was pumping strength and could break me
Into thousands of pieces.
I don’t remember any of it
Except for the way the crowd screamed
Like his body was holy,
Carved from the bones of perished saints and filled with holy water,
An angel alive and in the flesh.
I don’t remember any of it
Except for the way my grandma turned her head away from me
And stared moon-eyed with admiration at him,
Forgetting me under the eclipsing light of all that
This man was that I could not be.
I don’t remember any of it
Except for the feeling of my hands as I ran them over
My spaghetti arms and thin thighs, and
I flexed my abs, pinched them, clawed at them, punched at them
Hoping pressure would turn coal into a diamond.
I don’t remember any of it
Except for the way my eyes became kaleidoscopes
Whenever they looked at my own body,
As if I was in the house of mirrors and every part of me
Was distorted, too much and too little of what it should be.
I don’t remember any of it,
But my body remembers all of it.
She Said She Said by Daniel Lampert
I want to listen to you speak, like you are the Beatles, each word precisely
carelessly placed, like my headphones are in and I waltzed out of my exam, and the
sky has shifted to let me know time has passed, the air cool and fresh, and you talk
to me and I understand how simply your sentences are crafted, though I know I
never could have been their craftsman. I want to turn up the volume a few notches
at a time, testing the waters and accepting the ear damage, because how could I
allow myself to listen to your enveloping, all-encompassing words at any other
volume, you should be the hum in every room, instead of my mini refrigerator it
should be you, releasing endless albums that I can play at any moment. I’ll forget
the hum for a while, it will acquire dust in my memory, and then a scratch will
remind me that you are alive, and each song feels like it must have been written
already but it is all new. I will fall asleep to your voice, I will howl, a song will end
and I will marvel at all the space it occupied, the cave I lived in before your voice
echoed through me.
Four Letters to Learn by Hannah Brooks
I used to say I didn’t curse
Unless it was a must –
I saved my swears for fiery verse
And elsewise hardly cussed.
There was the time I hit my head
And let an F fly free,
And once I faced a foe and said,
You little S-O-B.
But rarely did I feel the need
For words so anger-thick;
To such alternatives I’d cede
As phooey, shoot, and frick.
My mouth was thus quite often clean
(And not from any soap);
I traded in, for the obscene,
Naïveté and hope.
Yet now I find I’m older, and
My lexicon has changed
The principle of self-command
Is slightly rearranged.
I still believe in taking care
With anything profane
But now, alas, I’m well aware
Of all you can’t explain
With euphemistic turns of phrase
That try to hide and smooth
The agonies that need to blaze
And pain you cannot soothe.
So though I miss that simpler past
When life was full of pluck,
I think I’ve learned the truth at last:
Sometimes, you just say fuck.
bird and fox by Joe Fausey
a bird sat atop a thin birch branch. gusts of wind shook the skeletal tree, stripped bare by the hostile winter. his feathers, blue and white and black, bristled as cold fingers ran down his spine and plucked his plumage. the smothered earth mirrored the laden sky, and the laden sky wooed the smothered earth, sending down miniature facsimiles of the wooly clouds it had pulled up to its chin.
a fox appeared.
the fox was red, and sleek, and beautiful. he slinked through the snow, stepping in the footprints of some unknown predecessor. the fox stopped at the foot of the birch tree, and the jay called out to him.
hey!
the fox’s head swiveled, tracing the horizon.
hey!
the fox looked up.
you’re beautiful! do you know that? you’re beautiful!
yes, I do, said the fox.
you’ve sung this song before,
on other days,
in other words,
as other birds.
I know I’m beautiful. I don’t need to be told.
the bird hopped along its branch, flitting between perches, and the gentle sway of the tree sprinkled powdered sugar down to its root.
the bird spoke.
where are you going?
home, replied the fox, curtly.
it’s cold.
and i need to warm up.
and
i want to be alone.
there’s no one waiting for you there? asked the bird.
the fox did not answer.
the bird, discomforted by the silence, looked towards the opaque horizon. when he turned his beady eyes back down, he saw the fox slink away, head lowered, nose carving a faint gulley into the snow. his footfalls continued to trace the echoic pawprints, renewing the divots leveled by the thickening precipitation. after a beat, the fox disappeared into the white canvas, and the bird’s empty gut rumbled. he was hungry. what would he have for dinner?
Man-made Squaw*** by Rosa Lopez
***Squaw has historically been used as a sexual slur against North American Indigenous women. These were women who did not comply into structures of colonialism and women the settlers could not conquer. Reclaiming the word Squaw focuses on the empowerment of retaining self-autonomy. To compare nature to a Squaw is to portray the settler relationship of overexploiting natural resources as an act of assault on the environment and Indigenous bodies.
Stretch marks of mountain ranges
Valleys and city hips collide seamlessly intertwined
The forest bedding, pillowed by smog clouds
Man and mother nature
Falling into each other engulfed in time
When temptation overcame the sacred relation
Grass dances were wiped away by John
His Deer tracks pushed into her tea-colored skin
An offering of new tillage
A put-put-put drum beat to the mechanical greeting
A cry for consent rose as the birds flew from wildflower fields
Lust lifts the skirts of coal mines
Broken–backed, blackened–breath
Penetrating the gifts of time
Hold onto all she can give all you can take
Bricked up, piped, frack deep, pumping
Gasps of release
Drill her down
Raise her up
Inject the formations and watch as she crumbles to the will of your hand
Man has made a Squaw of the surface
Overbearing to demands, strapped to the papoose of rapacity
Primal rage bites back, winded she screams
She aches, she Aches, she ACHES
Quaking, upwelling, ocean rising, flooding the cities you can’t maintain
Caught in the act of violation
Reconcile with empty promises
Green-wash the lies you cannot unpack—a flexible film to the truth
Crackling of falsified veiled protection
Each motion grows louder, deafening the heart
The spoils of quick pleasure
Empty endlessly
Into a river, she weeps
Slugged against landfills and the crashing of ice sheets
The cycle never completes
She runs dry with each affair
And when the winds no longer whistle in her sweetgrass hair
She will be barren
And the shame will be yours to share
Joy by Isabella Macioce
Despite the evidence against it
my father’s voice in my head or the weight on my shoulders
the crick in my neck
I still believe that people are good
it might be because of the two women in central park
who are sweating to death in their crisp pantsuits
who giggle nervously between themselves for 6 whole minutes
before sidling up to a stranger and asking to play with his dog
Or maybe it’s the group of teenage boys in the airport
who can’t stop laughing and it rings with sincerity you only see in stolen moments |
and in London where everyone wears grey
there is a woman with yellow pants
and the man on the phone starts the conversation with
“man fuck you” and ends with “please get home safe”
the woman sitting on the hostel floor in Amsterdam tells me about the soulmate she met on the bus
from Spain this morning and
will never see again but she says it will all be okay
as long as she can find someone to dance with tonight
and my sister studies plants for the joy of it
and my mother keeps breathing through the divorce
and I am in real love for the first time in my life and he texts me good morning and I have so much joy
and finally
places to put it
and I always root for loose change in my pockets for those who ask
and kind words under my tongue
for those in need
and my heart has been broken and love still blooms here I am still garden despite the floods
and the only other woman in the bar in Budapest walks through life
in a different language but with the same tone
and she tells me I am something special
and I tell her she is lying to
and she grins so wide and it’s like god looking right at me and she says maybe!
Bella I could be lying about everything
we all could be
and my name passed her lips which means
in this version of the universe she knows my name
and whether it matters or not I am part this is a part of our little stories now
and we will never see each other again
and we dance and drink to that
to the simple and spectacular
to the good and good enough
small and wonderful
us