You paint her eyes jet black
when God rays part the clouds.
You pry her open when she swallows
the words slip off her tongue.
You possess her smile stretched tight
until her lips bleed love.
You cut your wings, she free fall falls
and catch her once again
Karen Crawford lives and writes in the City of Angels. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Cheap Pop, Maudlin House, Sage Cigarettes, and elsewhere. You can find her on Twitter @KarenCrawford_
Ode to Derek Owusu
I’m telling a story of skin that binds. Of pursuing
myself. I’m wrapped in darkness that pulls shores.
The sun is inside my mouth, swallowing my laugh.
I’m coiled up. Black. Raised on a diet
of pirate radio and England for a mother. I dance
between letters, obsess over sentences, rewrite my
life. Under the table, raging dust has settled. It wakes
now and again. The roaring earth must adjust like colour
mixing. It must have a hue to it, like thought thinking. Like
hardness turning soft around the clock. I hang on its
numbers like years I cannot forget ticking over. I am
not at home inside myself. Each day, I am quietly quitting
life with each last breath out. I swallow pride and think
of the length of forgetting. Of autumn as a still life.
Of stunning water as it hits my black skin.
Every Evening Ends
The bedside lamp curls
like it’s begging. I’m
in a frame here. Time rests by the
water. From the bed, I live in
a dream made to sink. My
blood speaks.
It’s happening.
The adhan hollers. The evening
is closing. I wait for the night,
under the cover of my
veil, in the position of requests.
Darkness rolls in like smoke
then silence wails, long,
and my heart streaks in
soft steps, tasting
my sadness in a city widening
by the minute. I’m undercover
suffocating, settling grief,
waiting for the day to wake.
Diversity and Inclusion
We were always here. Talking blood. As
alive as ghosts. You couldn’t
see. We were as black as burns. Not going
anywhere. Did you think we were
invincible? That
time would not scold light. That God’s
decisions would never absorb the days as a metre
for sin. That we
were not all minerals of the globe by design. We are
forgotten children, full lips, necklines darkened
with rage. We have always been brutally
soft, melting spines, roaring kids,
fiercely kind, scarily scared.
Womb Mates
We live as each other’s alibis. As
boroughs blending. The silence between
us, simply genes that hug. We were
land reaching toward water,
weary, determined seeds. The
oldest taught us to take shape.
Rounded babies who refused the
darkness of a tunnel. Resigned
to cutting, over being pushed
away. We were warriors released,
interpretations of life’s graces,
of the lungs of giants. Mum
and Dad prayed for these six
angles of their interiors who
argued over the TV, each
a township descending. Till
now, we seek muscular speech
and nothing but, all six of us
travel as one, level below
life, we are drawn to huddling.
Good great God, we live as
waves in love that crash
and disappear again. Trees
growing scattered, blending
suddenly to become an
identical forest. Pillars in the sky.
Due West
You were enjoying the lot: the heat of bodies, the buzz of the souks.
Wherever it was going, the meridian of heaven
at midday.
You didn’t contemplate the departure, of losing us.
It all just came about like death.
The way my grandmother’s cloak stayed bonded to her back,
this thing was alert and ready.
But eviction is also destroying in its entirety.
Drifting blood down sandy streets and shooting
down thought, futures drifting
like exhaust westward. Shadows of screams
weightless, halfway to England.
Voices the trees terribly miss hearing.
Not by me, but the ones in heaven, the ones
who struggle with marred memories of massacre
music. Took their lives
away from you. Understandably, to the rain,
to places they hatefully love, to escape your
irresistible heat.
Do you regret it, or was it all wordless love,
the type parents give?
Voyager, 1996
Before school, solar power from cassette tapes and cereal. I
am warmed by hope for technology, my shadow
pink from gloss. The rusting morning streets are mottled. I
am a star smouldering into daylight, losing my glaze. Look,
the music posters, the books we haul. The
prayer before we depart. I
am happiest dancing between letters, head to the
heavens. Deep as black, I monitor my darkness.
Wrap it in my English homework, in my plaits. I
wear my own face, heavy and warm. I am
my own secrets which I rot behind. Two legs floating
to school, a developing photograph, still and shivering
all at once. Words wrapped in mink, tilted toward the light. I
voyage on; a child marvelling at imagining.
Idman Omar is a British freelance writer. She has previously been published with Southbank Poetry, Wild Court and Guernica Magazine. Idman is a MA Creative Writing graduate from London, England.
I wrote about you,
wove your features into poems,
painted your dimples onto the lines of a page.
Strung you up like twinkling stars across the header
of every poem I was proud of that year.
I wrote about you,
through the days
where the hours blurred together
where you left me in the dark,
eyes empty, staring at a wall, making friends with the cracks in the concrete.
I wrote you whole.
Boxed your flaws up in the back.
Scribbled out word after word.
Turned you into perfection,
a final draft ready for publication.
And you tore me to shreds,
ripped the pages of my poetry from my mind.
Rewrote my stanzas
spilled ink, dark blue, across the fresh printed pages.
Turned my words to curses
Hit the backspace on every line.
Tainted the stars until they were jet black like your eyes that night.
Broke me down until I was little more than a pawn,
someone to make you feel bigger
like an ill-placed capital letter.
And I still write about you.
In the after.
In the time between then and now.
And I hope one day someone reads what I made you into,
all those perfect pieces from years passed.
And says,
“She wrote you better than you deserved”.
Tiffinie Alvarez is a 6th Grade ELA teacher and a long-term reader. She currently resides in Massachusetts with her husband and their cat Twyla. Instagram: @bookshelfontheright
Caution should be taken in preparing this recipe. However, if done successfully, you will have a tea loaf with wonderful subtle flavours. It makes perfect toast, although you should be careful not to let it have access to a toasting fork.
1. In a bowl, mix strong flour with a little sugar. Ensure you use a flour that isn’t stronger than you are, should you need to wrestle it to the ground after rising. Use flour from a reputable mill which provides self defence advice for home bakers.
2. Add salt and yeast. Don’t let them mix until you start to knead the dough. See Appendix A for instructions on what to do if the yeast and salt mix too early, and if necessary, call the emergency services and ask for a helicopter.
3. Add milk and egg, and knead. It is important to mop up any flour sticking to the bowl, so that it doesn’t escape and lurk in crevices. If you suspect this, see Appendix B for advice on dealing with ambushes.
4. Cover the bowl with a damp tea towel and leave to rise. At this stage the dough won’t try to hurt anything it can’t see.
5. After a couple of hours the dough should have doubled in size. Carefully remove the towel. Quickly add softened unsalted butter and fold it in. This will help to prevent the dough getting a good grip if it makes a grab at you. Add cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and orange zest. Under no circumstances substitute lemon zest, although lime may be attempted by experienced bakers with the proper equipment and licenses. Add sultanas, and knead firmly.
6. Re-cover the bowl, and leave for its second prove for another couple of hours. Approach with caution, as the dough will be anticipating you, although at this stage it will only attack if startled. Do not attempt this with children or pets in the room.
7. Butter a loaf tin liberally, and then turn the dough out onto the counter to shape. It will probably struggle and want to stay in the bowl. Shape the dough and put it in the tin. This will need a final prove overnight for the best flavour, but this will also give it further time to start to plot. Ideally the loaf tin should be clamped securely to the counter top. If it manages to flip the tin and hide, a team of specialists will need to be called to catch it.
8. Preheat the oven to gas mark 7, egg-wash the top of the loaf, and bake for 35 minutes. It should be dark brown and shiny on top. By this time the load will be fully mature and will be a formidable opponent. Ensure your bread knife is sharp before approaching. Excellent with butter, but note that it will fight with meatloaf so they should be kept separate at all times.
The authors accept no liability for gluten-related injuries or damage, howsoever caused.
Eleanor (she/her) is based in beautiful North Yorkshire, UK. She writes mainly about monsters, especially creatures with tentacles, and is inspired by myths. Twitter – @TentacledWriter
build (don’t buy) a king size hot tub on the roof of your home
* re: landlord complaints – forgiveness is always better than permission
climb inside your new roof tub and begin to slowly fill it with jelly beans
* stock up on these prior to construction
with every bean, announce a reason you’re glad to be in this lovely tub
* once you run out, list all the things you can see from up there (e.g. bird!)
realize when finished that you’re now trapped under 500 gallons of candy
* minus your own weight, of course
eat enough to ensure your escape, and leave the Bean Tub a winner!
* and anyway, [REDACTED] never asked your permission to die, did they?
Playwright, sometime poet, short story writer. @RobAbuSharr on Twitter
Distance is a cruel tyrant,
mother—
the stone hardness of
my heart,
battered ligaments, shorn and
ripped apart,
the clement ardor of your grace
the only
comfort for my hollow, brittle
bones.
Jerrod Laber is an Appalachian poet and writer. He lives in Virginia with his wife and dog. Twitter: @four_godot.
She plucks out her eye while all are asleep and offers it, open palm,
in a dream not even quite sure its components will keep, survive
sanctimony, squeeze or the scream. But you collected yourself.
Cupped it with care, like a fledgling plucked from the fresh snow.
Measure formaldehyde. Preserve one half of a stare. Take it
wherever you go. Inject its iris with formalin in a homespun glass
orb sewn atop a porcelain face. Paint a scarce baby brow to crown
this cyclopian stare you have found a new way to embrace. Debased
its clouded mate too degraded for love — not even by you with a
paternal heart. Said you’d never leave her. It was true, in part.
Kristin Garth is a womanchildish Pushcart, Rhysling nominated sonneteer and a Best of the Net 2020 finalist, the author of THE MEADOW (a novel from Alien Buddha Press, October 2022) and 26 more books.
After Francine J. Harris
You say I love yous in knuckles, a language no one knows, unless they’ve been dragged across concrete. Face down. Salt in my good eye. I know where the sidewalk ends. Bitch. Nothing here but the leaving, if only the leaving got good. Gets better with time, and pressure. Boot across the neck kind of pressure, the type you never forget but want to forgive because deep down you know it’s you pulling roof from tongue. Leave that devil-man behind.
I’m Bird of Paradise orange and blue; proud—not wilted and weak. I’m good at the leaving, like a freight train down the track—no looking back. Can’t slow this bitch down. I see spilt knuckles and split eyes. Split like my thighs. I don’t need pity. Open your mouth and I’ll split it. Split it until teeth fall out—filled with the taste of chipped concrete. I know what you know—nothing is promised. If I want out, I get it.
Jessica Blandford’s most recent chapbook, Letters for Dead Lovers, is available now through Bottlecap Press. Follow her on Instagram: @jessy.blandford or Twitter: @Jess_Blandford
one. sungold kiwis two. the vocal harmony in the third pre-chorus of “heartbreaker” by pat benatar three. recreational adult slow-pitch softball four. sunken and scrapped ocean liners five. white-crowned sparrows six. my letterboxd watchlist seven. dead grass in the front yard eight. the forest of kadraal nine. fluoxetine ten. ice cream
Matt Rogers is a poet and photographer from Long Beach, California. You can also find him on Instagram @mattrogers___ and medium.com/@mattrogerslb.
my mother texts me to tell me she’s thinking of me, and i wish she wouldn’t. don’t text, don’t think, after fifteen years, it’s time to let shit go.
tick tock.
there’s a clock on my childhood bedroom wall, and she’s polishing the glass, marking sections in ten-minute increments for telling the time- now, it’s time for her to turn on her heel and leave.
tick tock.
time zones and grief, 5,000 miles and clock segments that put up barriers between us, “people you may know” become people i certainly… don’t.
tick tock.
like hands on a clock, we move on.
Tei Hurst (she/her) is a non-fiction loving lesbian hailing from the south of England and studying English and creative writing at West Chester University. She can be found online @teihurst.
Astrid
Boy, I can tell straight off that these two are gonna be a train wreck, right when they walk in the restaurant. He’s like tripping over things because he can’t stop looking at her but she’s like looking everywhere but at him. I flag the hostess and point to myself, and she makes sure they’re seated in my section.
Awesome. I go over there and I’m just fast enough to hear her tell him that she isn’t interested in a second date, and the guy starts, like, wailing. The lady rolls her eyes and looks at me all pissy.
“Can I just have a glass of Merlot, please? And—for God’s sake—the chocolate tart, how about that? With the whipped cream. Now, please, thank you.” She said dramatically, I thought. I do that, I narrate. I’m a screenwriter, you know. Right now I’m working on a script about a waitress who makes it big when a producer comes into her restaurant and sits down and realizes how smart and pretty she is and takes her to Hollywood and she makes a lot of money and sleeps with the producer but he breaks her heart so she kills herself. It’s really good.
I love working in the restaurant, the material that these two are giving me is fantastic. The guy won’t stop crying. Like, really loud. People are looking.
Kathleen
Jesus, he’s howling. He’s actually howling. I’ve never heard a person make that sound. I once had a dog that got his dick trapped in a fence he was humping and he made that sound.
There’s nowhere to hide from the howling, and the waitress isn’t even pretending not to listen. I think about telling her to pull up a chair, instead of trying to be sly about slowly cleaning the next table over. What she’s doing with that dishcloth is downright pornographic. There’s no man or object that needs to be fondled like that.
Paul’s ululations finally die down and he wipes his eyes with his fists like a snotty little kid before looking at me. His eyes are red, and I remember that the dog’s dick was also red after we got him unstuck, sticking out like an angry little zucchini, and I accidentally spit wine all over Paul’s face.
He doesn’t even wipe it off. He just lets the wine sit on his cheeks like he’s the little mermaid and he doesn’t know what napkins are for. I think about reaching across the table and cleaning it off, but no. That would be catastrophic.
I try to force my face into sadness or empathy or something, anything, that’s not a grin, but that damn dog keeps jumping into my head, all swollen and shrieking. I clear my throat and try again. I reach halfway across the table but stop before I touch his hand. Any encouragement now and he might show up outside my house playing crappy love songs on a boom box held over his head until I either agreed to go out with him again or shot him. I just want this to be over.
Paul
She stands, ever graceful, and I rise with her. The first time I saw her on Tinder I thought she was the only woman in the world for me. When we started exchanging sweet messages I was sure of it. What a dastardly fool I was.
She holds out her arms and promises that we can be friends. I hold her for the first and last time, my dove. My Kathleen. Her scent is intoxicating, leeching from her hair like the gayest perfume. “I’m going to miss your rosy lips,” I whisper, and she chokes, pulling away and hiding her eyes. Even in sorrow she is beautiful and magnanimous.
She nods and smiles and strides away—it seems she is always striding, with great purpose. She walks out of the door, and out of my life. Forever. Forever. My Kathleen no more.
The waitress comes to the table to clear away the dishes. I think of keeping a token of our love, but the wineglass stained by Kathleen’s red lips is already swept away and gone. The waitress pauses and, with the light behind her, she smiles down on me like a kind goddess.
“You all right?”
“Not yet. I will be.”
“There you go.”
“I’ll bury myself in my work to heal my pain.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m a producer.”
She smiles. It is the most beautiful smile.
Erin Copland is a writer, reader, and Army veteran who currently works in communications at the University of Maryland. Her greatest ambition in life is to live in a shack in the woods.
She bends down to grab
an escaped napkin
from our lunch. This must
be the same motion
she makes to weed
her garden, the same
to care for the bird bath.
I have never offered to help;
never moved to spend
a morning splitting soil
between my hands
and pulling. I don’t think
I will. Though I cannot
imagine another way
to get to know her,
I cannot imagine knowing anyone
like this garden knows her.
Michael VanCalbergh currently lives in Normal, IL. His work has appeared in, or is forthcoming from, Pastel Pastoral, Beaver Magazine, Best New Poets 2021, and many other spaces. Twitter: @MVCpoet
Unstamatic 