art by Susan Pollet

by Karen Holman

1. Twilight Phenomenon

            Exhaust veils—conspiring theories,
            jellyfish, sunlit from under
            earth’s shadow. It’s nightfall,
            we observe.

            We, shadow, the future,
            noctilucent. Any hovering
            beautiful when lit.

            Eros [ion] . Re-curse-ion. Et-
            urn-al return return return. Curse
            [ive.] We, us, our: the noctilucent. Day?

            It is coming. It is passed.

            Last glimpses:
            observer’s l’atitude,

            l’acrimony,
            L’anguish

2.

art by Thomas Cole 1832 courtesy of the MET Museum

by Karen Rigby

I’m tired of the Chanticleer’s pyramidal blooms,
the inedible pear tree lining city boulevards

only because their branches don’t break
as easily as others do. What use is ornamental

beauty with no syrup to sink your teeth into?
Even in Greece the ochre haze of another fire.

Every burn pile demands a new emergency.
Are there more arsonists now? The tree’s

bisque porcelain climbs but I’ve run out
of metaphors for splendor.

art by Loralee Clark

by Madeleine Poole

The necro-
politics
of my thigh
fat: an ache
extinguished.
I arrived
on the shore,
felt the knives
then needles
of my once-
netted feet.
Nothing could
astound
me. No name
before my
labor, that
animal
gulp of air.
I named my-
self, obtained
the right to
pin a man,
breast to bed.
No body
requires
dominance
over death:
yes,

art by Nawmi Manaam

by Phyllis Peter

Anything can get precious really quick.
Except helium—too much of it
in the universe, so no one mentions it. We’ll never
use it all. The question
Is
What should we feel?

Color already structures the world, the uniqueness of each moment there
for the taking—we are beings who want. Fear never enters into it.
Like rain, where everything quickens
by itself. Or used to.
Naturally, if I recall. Lately,
it’s more like a churning.

art by Isabelle Carasso

Scientists Mapped the Shape of a Supernova for the First Time; It’s Not What We Expected

for Cecilia Payne

To be whole is to be round, unless you are fat or pregnant,

then paradoxically you become a half citizen–later, oh perhaps

we can get into that. I promised you the stars in this poem

and you fell into my lap,

art by Aubrey Beardsley, 1894, 
courtesy of the Public Domain Review

by Seth Wade

Sometimes love hurts more
than any disease ever could.
                                    —Silent Hill 2 by Hiroyuki Owaku

Drag me like your great knife rasping down these deserted halls,
that childlike screech of metal scraping metal—oh baby, just cage me,
mummy me with wire & toss me in the trash for it’s been that sort of year

& I’m turning fast food bags into little party hats,