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Heartworm

20 April 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Kat Stubing

Butterflies prancing in air
Pulling a sleigh of light

I can’t help but wonder
Where you went last night

While the fireflies reigned
Over blades of wily grass

Periwinkle skies rolling in
As the thunder clouds passed

Did the twigs pop like corn
Under your bare calloused feet

As the owls watched you run
To the secrets that you keep

Oh, tiny wings, show me the
Way to lenity and peace

To unobscured waters
And a pure love to lease

Kat Stubing studied at UMBC and took sketch writing classes at Upright Citizens Brigade. Her poems are published (or soon to be) in Beyond Words, Allegory Ridge, Closed Eye Open, and Wingless Dreamer. Kat lives, works, and plays in New York City.

Inventory of the Night

18 April 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Travis Stephens

Frog noise
cloud breath, dew’s silent
steady approach, The dog
snuffles, stretches long legs
out of her bed, yawns.

Potato plants
push back against the dirt
as corn reaches for
the smallest bats who
dash from pond
to tree line
but never near the road.
Who has seen
a bat hit by a car?
Radar love.

Traffic noise
beyond the range of
headlights so only the
sloppy snarl of tires on
asphalt
A quiet after.
A trickle of water,
sigh and sorrow.
Maybe an airliner, maybe not,
and all those faraway
stars.

Last item, the march of
morning from stage left.

Travis Stephens is a tugboat captain who resides with his family in California. A University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire alumni, recent credits include: Gyroscope Review, 2River, Sheila-Na-Gig, GRIFFEL , Offcourse , Crosswinds Poetry Journal, Gravitas and The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. Visit him at: zolothstephenswriters.com

Guidebook for Heart Protection

16 April 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Kersten Christianson

Eat your greens: Spruce tips,
kale, fiddleheads; Bead berries
picked straight from the bush:

Salmon, blue, huckle,
rasp, black. Critical stretching,
mandatory, deep

breathing, proof of pulse.
Yoga, meditation, plant
seeds, cultivate blue

poppies. Frenetic
chase, two tiny juncos flit
from cedar branch to

hemlock. Give yourself
space to smile when he calls you
sweetie. Pursue joy.

Kersten Christianson: Alaskan Poet, Moon Gazer, Raven Watcher, Northern Trekker, Teacher. She is the poetry editor of Alaska Women Speak, authored Curating the House of Nostalgia (Sheila-Na-Gig, 2020), What Caught Raven’s Eye (Petroglyph Press, 2018), and Something Yet to Be Named (Kelsay Books, 2017). Kersten lives with her daughter in Sitka, Alaska.

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lament

15 April 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Nicholas Barnes

when you stopped
looking at ladybugs

like they were miracles

like they shouldn’t be there

but they somehow were,

and you started looking
at them like …

i’ve seen
a million of you before,

that’s the day you died.

that’s the day you stopped
loving yourself.

Nicholas Barnes earned a Bachelor of Arts in English at Southern Oregon University. He currently works as an editor in Portland, and enjoys music, museums, movie theaters, and rain. His poems have been accepted by Mortal Mag, Barzakh, and Something Involving A Mailbox!, among others.

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Family Dinner #3

13 April 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Grace Huynh

you look around
seeing the people you love
and suddenly,
you feel like you know nothing at all.

you want to hear them speak
about everything they know
you want to wash the cigarette smell from your hair with their words
you want to rinse your hands with their research

hoping that their knowledge on
art, poetry, palestine
and the berlin club scene

will somehow find its way
through your ears
into your brain
and out your fingertips
to build a monument
with everything you know

from times fueled by arak and fifa
and late night drives through abdoun
break-ins to your apartment from your balcony
and neighbors throwing rocks at you from their roof
or when you had to wake her up for university
and how you felt when they had to leave

but maybe i don’t need to build them a monument
because my tribute to them is me.

Grace Huynh is a writer originally from Orange County, California. She gathers inspiration from California, the Middle East and her heritage roots in Vietnam. Her poetry was exhibited through a one-month residency at the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts. Contact her at [email protected] or on Instagram @homeherewriting.

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Where to Start

11 April 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Sara Sherr

Let’s play this backward, that could be the place to start.
Driving home from practice with your dad, fear sang
you’re the worst one on the team, you’re the worst one on the team.

Remember us at Hannukah, you’re a baby with curly hair,
you’re safe, you’re protected, everyone here loves you and always will.
The four of us, forever, you loved your little sister,
you’ll always miss her. You fell asleep with your hand on her arm
at your grandparents’ while the cars rushed by below. Go to sleep now.

Remember it with me, shield your eyes so love doesn’t blind you.
Fear lived inside these stories. But what did the trees say?
Love sung on, floated in the sunlight on the lake
your mom, your girlfriend, lying on the blow up boat and there were no mirrors
and there were no cell phones there was just
the present, the radiant, exalted now.

You never really rode horses, your bike never really got crunched,
you never yanked up a whole garden at its roots. Bravo, my love, I’m proud and
you made it all up. You never got to be a boy but you’re glad about that now, right?

You made it all up. You never got to be a boy, but you’re glad about that now. Right?
You never yanked up a whole garden at its roots. Bravo my love, I’m proud and
you never really rode horses. Your bike never really got crunched.

The present, the radiant, exalted now.
And there were no cell phones there was just
your mom, your girlfriend, lying on the blow up boat and there were no mirrors.
Love sung on, floated in the sunlight on top of the lake.
Fear lived inside these stories. (But what did the trees say?)
Shield your eyes so love doesn’t blind you. Remember it with me.

At your grandparents’, while the cars rushed below, go to sleep now,
you’ll always miss her. You fell asleep with your hand on her arm,
the four of us, forever. You loved your little sister.
You’re safe, you’re protected, everyone here loves you and always will.
Remember us at Hannukah, you’re a baby with curly hair.

You’re the worst one on the team, you’re the worst one on the team.
Driving home from practice, with your dad, fear sang.
That could be the place to start. Let’s play this backward.

Sara Sherr is a writer and high school English teacher who lives in Yarmouth, Maine with her fiancé and their dog. Let’s get in touch: [email protected].

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A mind like a broken arm

9 April 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Mieke Leenders

The room screams… YOUR BODY IS NOT WELCOME
White cloth and alcohol remove anything human.
“Why did you run out of class?”
The only human thing, a stain just below her collar
She leans forward.
“It got too loud.”
The orange stain, a calming desert.
“You were in the middle of an exam. No one was talking.”
She notices my gaze. She looks down at her coat and frowns.
White cloth and alcohol.
“I need your help with a small task. Will you help me?”
Hazy orange desert. I see you from behind a foggy window.
“I need this note delivered to the principal’s office.”
Principal’s office; stale coffee smell, worn carpet, unused file cabinets, pale rings on desk, …
“I’d like you to put it straight into the principal’s hand.”
… one window on the top, always open, doesn’t mask the smell …
“Her secretary will let you through, I already called her.”
… door with patched varnish, loose threads on the curtain, wooden closet with a secret.
She snaps her fingers. “Hey!”
The stain is gone. The coat is different.
“Here you go.”
She smiles. Her wrinkles are canyons filled with orange dust. An orange desert.
“Hurry now.”
I take the note. I know it says I can go home.

Mieke Leenders is a freelance writer and editor with a Masters in Art History and certificates in Teaching, Journalism, and Editing. Originally from Belgium, she set out on a solo backpacking trip which led her to put down temporary roots in Costa Rica. Mieke is passionate about travel, hiking, literature, photography, animal welfare, social justice, and art.

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Black Lines

8 April 2022 / Editor

Poetry by J.V. Foerster

Her wings are cut and then she is blamed for not knowing how to fly.”
Simone de beauvoir

I imagine my body
free from its bones
the wind my invisible sister

Free from waking up
and weighing myself
each morning to see what place

I have on the ground in
this world of obsession
to form and insolence.

I dreamed last night that birds
were flying at me and behind them
they left lines in the air.

Thin black lines to hang up my
desires or to dry out my regret.
I think they came to show

me that when the eye can no longer
find its place in the ordinary you
must sleep and dream another life.

J.V. Foerster has been published in Eclectica, Agnieszka’s Dowry, Red River Review, Midnight Mind, and many others. She was nominated in 2011 for a Pushcart for “Apple Girl” by Fox Chase Review. J.V. has work in the Rosemont College Press and Philadelphia Stories Anthology “50 Over 50: Celebrating Experienced and Emerging Women Writers.” She lives in Portland, Oregon.

Broken Wing

5 April 2022 / Editor

Nonfiction by Jennifer Weigel

I am still processing everything that has happened over the past year and then some, in part due to COVID and in part due to life. These haven’t been the most difficult times I have endured, nor have they been silver linings amidst challenges, but they kind of came at me out of left field and I stood there reeling for quite some time.

Early in 2019, I found myself without my voice: I had nothing to say, no art to share. When I first started making art again, I began by taking photographs of the empty sky. Not the nuance of color as you near the horizon, but as close up as I could zoom in on the most flat blue tone I could find, resulting in a pixelated wash of color with no real content.

This sense of drift eventually subsided and I was able to make art again. Flash forward to now, I have returned to photo documenting my surroundings and have even taken up horror writing. I am drawing and painting again. I am no longer at a loss for words. But I still feel incomplete and uncertain.

It’s funny the things you notice when you are in the midst of change. The butterfly is a symbol of metamorphosis and of becoming, but it is fragile and fleeting. Beauty and life are much the same. As I was walking down the sidewalk, I noticed this diminutive shard of a swallowtail wing and was struck by its delicate beauty. I have always noticed things that lie unobserved, some of which can be difficult to gaze upon because they bespeak past violence or hardship that cannot be undone. But at the time, it stood out as a symbol of the past year, the anguish and the hope.

I stood and stared at the wing for some time before a gentle wind caught it and it blew away like an unspent wish. This is my reflection upon the course of the past year and a half. I don’t entirely know where it has gone. I have experienced a lot of changes, some good, some bad. The wind has carried away the time and my thoughts with it and I still sometimes find myself reeling, gazing up at the sky awash in blue and contemplating the fragility of a found butterfly wing.

Jennifer Weigel is a multi-disciplinary mixed media conceptual artist. Weigel utilizes a wide range of media: assemblage, drawing, fibers, installation, jewelry, painting, performance, photography, sculpture, video, and writing. Much of her work touches on themes of beauty, identity (especially gender identity), memory & forgetting, and institutional critique. Weigel’s art has been exhibited nationally in all 50 states and won numerous awards.

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A Collection of Three

4 April 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Philip Davison

For Instance

Dents in cars
red ivy
enormous trees,
you don’t want to
miss these
when out
buying sausages
or looking for love.

The Living of a Life

There and back
is the sum of it,
though that can’t be confirmed.

Celebration

Planning a play date
with her best friend
over the phone
she says –
‘The first thing we’ll do
is put on our masks and hug.’

Philip Davison lives in Dublin. He has published nine novels. Quiet City is his most recent work. He writes radio drama, has written two television dramas and one stage play. He co-wrote Learning Gravity, a BBC Storyville documentary on poet and undertaker, Thomas Lynch. His poems have appeared in various journals.

The Bluebird Word