by Derick Chan

for Pat, at the corner of Prince & Mott

We met one day in SoHo, right across
from Old St. Pat’s Cathedral. Through the crowds
I headed north and late for happy hour,
sharing an urban sense of self-reserve
to hardly hear a stranger’s call, but as
the sun began to sink between the rows
of city blocks I saw you tapping with
your cane against a row of Citi Bikes.
You called, “Can someone tell me where I am?
Can someone help me out?” Averted eyes
in answer: Yes,

art by Stephanie Ann Farra

by Stephen S. Mills

a story told over & over & over until it becomes a shadow of itself / boogeymen thrive / the dead of night / Halloween maybe / most definitely fall / a crunch of leaves / a stick that cracks against a sneaker / that silence of midwestern nights / the ones of your childhood / dressed as a dinosaur/ your mother made / roaming the neighborhood for treats / never tricks / tricks would come later in the heat of Orlando / that Florida humidity / where you spent three nights a week at a gay club/ sometimes in costume / never a dinosaur / sometimes shirtless / chest tight with youth / bones and skin / and a time or two in less / a foam party that was all slick hands &

art by Stephanie Ann Farra

by Ann Pedone

It’s only when we choose
to move through the poem
as we move through the cunt. And I
raise my glass
Invested but sure, but sure, was
scriven, an unplanned
pregnancy, who is the
true mother of my damage

I mean no, I said, and my unusually
clean scalp, the pile of teeth
over by the back
door, I had a dream of erotic

Distinctions last night, prefacing
my translation from the
original Greek

Circa,